7 more days!

jack invited me to brunch this morning at the restaurant where he works along with some friends of his. he picked me up and we drove down to american joe's bar & grill on the framingham/natick line. his friends turned out to be three taiwanese girls who were already there waiting for us. darian's (left) an old friend of jack's, while darian's cousin anne (center and her friend doris (right) were in town visiting boston for the very first time. they also went to new york and washington and i was surprised how much they loved boston ("because it has character"). these ladies seemed to have done a lot of traveling themselves, having visited all parts of china (though mostly coastal cities). when i told them of my own trip starting next weekend, they gave me some kindly advice on how to avoid being swindled. there was some drama when darian had to send her steak back because it was too well-done. afterwards jack treated us all to the employee discount. before darian left she told me she's seen my weblog and expected me to post photos of my travels.

ang tao came back from the lab just to watch the world cup finale. the afternoon was a surreal portrait of internationality: two chinese guys in america watching a spanish-broadcast of a soccer game taking place in germany between italy and france. i think telemundo's broadcast is way better, more passion (compared to the stale english version on ABC), even though i can hardly understand a thing they're saying. ang tao was rooting for italy and so was i, only because somehow i thought they might be the underdogs because france managed to score first. i've never watched a soccer game from beginning to end, and to be honest, i almost fell asleep. the only player i knew was french captain zidane, whom i recognized from his last game where he traded jerseys with an opposing player after the match (i thought that was a good gesture of sportsmanship). i also liked the way he looked, a very gallic profile. wouldn't you know though, the one person i sort of knew gets thrown out of the game for head-butting an italian player in the chest. it was a weird wtf moment and france didn't deserve to win after that, with italy finally taking the world cup with 5 flawless goal kicks.

later ang tao helped me wash my front steps, in preparation for some eventual varnishing (which my upstairs neighbors might end up doing if i don't do it by next week). he was in charge of scrubbing the dirt with a brush while i manned the hose and sprayed down the steps. afterwards i left for belmont for a family barbecue. since my parents have a photocopy machine, i made copies of the pages of the travel books i won't be bringing with me. this way i can also throw these pages away (to reduce my load) once i've already visited the place.

back at home, i watched some television before working on project N. at this point i can't really think about what's going to happen to this project. all i can do is work on it as much as possible, but i'm pretty sure it won't be finished in time. maybe the client should be more worried than i am. i just know that in 7 more days none of this is going to matter because i'll be thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.