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it'll be over before i know it, but it hard shaking off the feeling that it's monday but it's already my second day of work. this is week 7 of my china work study program. today i seemed to have come down with a cold. again. the sneezing and runny nose started yesterday, maybe as early as saturday. hopefully i can get over it quickly, but several factors hinder the healing process. for one thing, china is dirty. it's not just littering, people spit everywhere. even in the office, i hear guys clearing their throats and spitting into their waste baskets like a spittoon. then there's the fact that they're working us to death. this relentless wage slavery takes a toll on the immune system.

i pointed out to fengya the faint moon up in the sky on our bus ride into work. she told me that when you can see the moon during the daytime, it means it's going to be a hot day. sure enough, it was a hot day.

this morning i saw a dead pixel on my tablet pc. it's very tiny but i can see it. this comes after my net book lcd screen recently displayed a dead pixel as well, 2 sundays ago when i came back from chongqing. it's not too big a deal, both devices still work.

i was monitoring the progress of the emmy awards this morning, probably the only person in the office doing so. when did he emmys get so unpredictable? when i told somebody about the awards, they nodded politely, oblivious to what i was talking about.

the first half of the day is the easiest to get through. after lunch though, after our one hour rest period, that final 5 hours is the worst. by 4:00 i usually hit a wall. the final 2 hours is pure torture as i desperately try to stay awake. i really ought to invest in some instant coffee, i keep on forgetting. there is no way i'm going to survive this without the help of caffeine.

after work lihui and i went to go browse some cell phones. besides the name brands - apple, samsung, htc, nokia - there were a whole slew of chinese brands. i'd heard of xiaomi - which makes a fairly convincing version of an iphone - and huawei, but there were other companies i'd never heard of before. smartphones average around RMB$1000, which is about US$160, and those are just for the chinese brands. a name brand phone cost anywhere from RMB$2000 to RMB$4000. it makes me think i don't really need a smartphone after all. my tablet pc can do everything a smart phone can do except surf the web remotely using a 3G network.

thoughts of duck feet was what got me through the day, but once i came back into town, i wasn't in the mood anymore. it takes a real time commitment to eat duck feet, not a food you eat lightly. plus i get the spicy variety, and afterwards i feel like i have a hole in my stomach.

i think i might take one of those cold tablets before i go to the bed, the one that will knock me out completely after an hour. it doesn't really do anything other than to mask the symptoms but it gives me a legitimate excuse to go to bed early.