Three more days

Only 3 more days of work and then...FREEEDOOMMMMMM

The only problem is that my boss wants to fire me...

There's a lot more background and this isn't an exact quote, but the background is not entirely necessary and this is a short and pretty accurate of what he said today during our 45 min phone call "check in". "i don't feel like you have a sense of urgency...maybe i just don't know you well enough but i get the feeling that you're not one of those people who jumps up and down with joy"...WHAATTT. At what point would I ever get really excited at work? I'm staring at a computer screen all day, and barely get to talk to anybody. What's there to look excited about? WHOOO GREAT PHONE SCREEN! OMG LOOK AT THIS RESUME! CHEA.

At least I know in the future to always put on my "focused with the most important work of my life" face. Never let your guard down. Only the paranoid survive.

...and then, "it doesnt matter now b/c it's a no cost learning experience, but missing deadlines of this magnitude could be a serious setback to your future career".

Pretty sure that this type of job is not for me because all I thought was, "whoops...the only reason i'm reacting at all to this comment is b/c it wasn't my fault, you should have been clearer on what you expected instead of just saying that you'll be 'checking in' on Friday".

This is gonna be the longest three days ever. And thank YOU, tricia, for confirming this, all the better.

When it rains, it pours. (China vs. US, Part II: the Weather)

At least in Beijing that is.

I think my least favorite weather condition is rain. By far. Not even close. (unless, does humidity count? I kind of clump them together. I just hate wetness). Anyway, the only reason why it’s kind of tolerable when I’m at school is because I have rain boots and a huge 68” diameter umbrella. This combo keeps me pretty dry, except for when there’s huge wind.

In Beijing, I have neither. I have no rainboots and just like the people, clothes, portions, etc, everything in Beijing is smaller. The umbrella barely covers my backpack, but no worries, my backpack comes with a rainfly! I really wouldn’t have a problem with the rain here except for the fact that the sewer system sucks (I seriously never thought I’d say something like, I really appreciate the amazing sewer/draining system in the US and really miss it) and the roads/sidewalks are still insanely dirty. Like literally, there is dirt everywhere.


Water + dirt = nasty nasty mud. Rain + Beijing = nasty mud ponds.
(potential business opportunity? Put a tub in Beijing and wait for it to rain…voila! Free dirt, free water, all profit mud bath! (minus the cost of the tub))

The rain bothers me the most on the way home from work, on my walk to the subway. Even if it’s not raining on my walk to the subway, if it’s rained a lot during the day (or the day before), these are your own options for getting up/down the stairs
to the subway:
To get to the subway from work...

and the other side of the stairs, to catch the bus to work...

When it comes to the weather, home wins easily. AND this isn’t even considering the horrible pollution here…I’ve been here for almost 2 months, and I think I’ve seen at most 6 days of blue sky (although this is a major improvement from the 1 per 3 weeks avg from every other trip here and the past two days have been GORGEOUS. like on the level of Chapel Hill in Sept before global warming/San Fran in Sept). The sky is cloudy (or is it hazy? I really can’t tell.) all the time and impossible to tell by looking at the sky if it’s going to rain or not. I guess this is why the meteorologists here are absolutely horrible. They’re worse than the meteorologists back home at predicting when it’s going to snow…predictions from the Beijing meteorologists: 1. “there’s going to be a huggee thunderstorm tonight and it’s going to pour tomorrow too”…or 2. “there will be rain all weekend”. I’ve been better at predicting if it’s gonna rain for not.

1. At 8 pm that night, there was a news flash (a bar thing that went across the TV screen), “there will be no storm tonight”…in fact It didn’t even rain.
2. I think there were a few droplets of water that lasted maybe 10 min on Sunday night. -_-.

What I don’t understand is why my aunt and uncle still make sure to watch the weather report every night.

The super short life of a laptop battery

My old laptop (now deceased) had a battery life of about 2 minutes when it was fully charged, (and my charger was like a cripple. Actually, cripplemight even be too nice, in coma might be a better way to describe my charger…it would only charger if the cord was resting at a certain angle; move it and it died.) 2 minutes may sound horrible, but let me tell you, 2 minutes is a plenty of time to pick up your laptop and charger and find another outlet. Plus you have one less worry than those with battery lives of 2-3 hours…you never had to worry (like I do now), "OH CRAP 5% battery life left! AHHH gotta find a plug in before my computer shuts down on me!"

Anyways, ever since my laptop died and I got a new one, my favorite part has been the convenience of super long battery life…like how I can watch a movie without having to sit next to an outlet w/my super short cord. In other words, I'm obsessed with keeping my battery life as high as possible for as long as possible.

I've done tons of research on whether you should keep your laptop plugged in after the battery's fully charged, when should you charge it, the number of charge cycles, etc. And, so I've been charging my battery til it's full (not 99%, but til it says fully charged—I think it makes a huge diff) and removing my charger to let it drain all the way to 5-10% before I charge it again—and never charging it from like 48% (which I used to do b/c it'd be at like 50% and I'd need/want to go somewhere and use it for a long time). So far, so good…except that I read online that most batteries should last for about 300 charge cycles before they start slowly dying on you…considering the amount of time that Princeton and this internship have required me to spend on my laptop, I'm pretty sure I'm quite close to 300, if not already way beyond it, and it's only been 6 months or so. -_-

BUT here's the good news! Yesterday, my aunt left her laptop on the bed after she finished watching Sherlock holmes (awesome movie btw) and I picked it up and noticed that there was a huge gap in the back of her laptop…apparently, whenever she can plug in her laptop, she just plugs it in and removes the battery so it's not continually charging. Ahh, I cant believe I never knew about this! I love love love this idea so much hahah b/c

1. I'm not reducing the number of recharge cycles on my battery
   
2. I'm not killing my battery by having it plugged in after it's fully charged!
   
3. I feel like my laptop just had liposuction. Thinner (although not exactly proportional haha) and at least 2 lbs lighter!
   
4. Also like an obese person becoming skinny, less heat. I can put my laptop on my legs without the battery burning off my skin!

I just realized that this is probly a bad idea for mac users b/c the charger plug comes out so easily. Muwahahah enjoy your heavy $1200 laptops. =p

It's kind of weird seeing an X and a "battery not detected" message where your battery symbol is on the start bar…I feel like there's something I'm not considering b/c I've never seen anyone in the US do this before…but then again I feel like this is such a Chinese thing to do haha.