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FEB

24

2014

i went to bed sort of late last night, close to 1:00. i slept well, but still had to snooze twice before waking up at 6:50. there was a weird smell this morning, like an acrid gas leak. i asked zhangkai about it and he said we were just downwind from some neighboring factory. that can't be good. on the bus i saw xianglian getting on but she either didn't see me or preferred not to sit next to me. i've probably only sat next to her a handful of times on the bus, and it always seems like i wasn't the first choice, that all the other seats were taken.

xianglian wore a new trenchcoat today, a pale slate color, along with jeans, which i never seen her wear before. at the office i gave her the present i got her in shanghai: a little stamp with a cute drawing of a white radish. i got it in a toy story for RMB$6 in yuyuan yesterday. she stamped my hand before i returned to my desk.

i only told 2-3 people that i was going to shanghai, one of them was wangyan. while picking up some printouts, she asked me how was my trip. i discovered she actually worked in shanghai at a different company for 6 months before coming to this project. she lived around people's park, and when i told her where my hotel was at, she knew the area. she told she wants to learn more english from me, which is code for, "let's hang out." this is a bit unexpected because she's always been very distant with me socially, but maybe because her friend yuwei may not come back to return, she's pursuing some new friends, myself included. also for the second time (since friday), she sat next to me during lunch.

speaking of lunch, i sat down at zengfei's table. she seemed a little hostile towards me. once again i'm not sure what's going on but i can probably guess. she's probably upset that i didn't tell her i was going to shanghai, and when she found out, she thought i was going back to the US, which is the conclusion she always jumps to when i'm not in the office. i find it kind of endearing that there are people in the office who care if i'm there or not. most of the time i feel like i could disappear and nobody would notice.

pansusu's driver came to me in the afternoon and asked me when we should leave tomorrow to go pick up my parents at the airport. later mrs.gu came by my desk and told me i couldn't go to the airport tomorrow. "why, is there something wrong?" turns out the driver is dropping someone off in chongqing tomorrow morning, and instead of returning to changshou and then going back into the city again, it'd be better if he just waited there until my parents showed up in the afternoon. i was fine with it, and actually it'd be a little awkward to skip work again after i took saturday off and will be gone all next week.

i found out today that little ZK from contracting is actually single. mahui informed me when she told me little ZK sold her house today. not because she couldn't afford it, but because she wanted to upgrade to a bigger house. so other than mahui, all the ladies in the contract department are single. little ZK is actually closer to my age too, in her early 30's. i always thought she was married because i've seen a bunch of her travel photos, but apparently she's just like me, solo traveling.

after work i went to the china mobile store and recharged my sim card. there was just RMB$4 left on it, i added RMB$100. i don't make that many calls, i don't know why i need to recharge the card so often. but RMB$100 should hopefully last me a few months.

afterwards i went to the chongbai supermarket to pick up a few grocery items (soap, oranges, bottled water, roasted salt water chicken). i came home and made porridge and ate dinner watching the latest episode of true detective.

my father called me around 10:00. he must've been using the hotel phone, told me they were in shanghai and everything is on schedule. i told him i wouldn't be at the airport tomorrow but the driver was still coming to pick them up. i also told him i left my nokia cellphone in the apartment along with some spending money.

i'll see my parents tomorrow night after work. the reunification that i'm actually more looking forward to is getting back my macbook pro. i haven't used it in over 7 months. i will be so happy to be once again rocking a fast laptop!