我们聊天儿。

lu chao and i talked.

w/p

[10:27pm]. [05/14/09]. [shanghai].

第十八天

t-minus: 两个星期，十四天， 三百三十六个小时， 二十千一百六十分钟。。。ahhh

okay, so i'm at work, and this is perhaps a little counter-productive...but i just had the realization that...right now it's approx. 3:59pm on a thursday afternoon here in shanghai.  today's may 14th.  it all pieced together quickly enough for me to have just realized that in exacTLY 2 weeks from right now...more than likely i'll be beginning my ascent into the sky and headed back home.  [my flight's at 3:55pm]...ahhhhh

that's sooo: scary, sad, surreal, soon, satisfying,[...wow, those were all with 's', ha...]...but seriously.  these next couple of weeks--i can't even imagine what's about to go down.  all i know is that what has to go down in the next 14 days is this: test&oral test tomorrow, essay this weekend, 2 more readings for classes, 4 more chapters in chinese next week, so 4 more quizzes, 2 reading quizzes, another test and oral test, then...review, oral final exam, 3 final papers due, final exam...grab all of my stuff [which somehow has to be organized/packed/mailed between now and then] right after the test...and then hurry through whichever goodbye's present themselves as i speed off to the airport to make sure i get checked in before they close the gates...and i may/probably have forgotten some things...wow.

so who knows how much i'll be adding to this before i'm back already...but i imagine if i do, they'll be quick, chaotic, emotional, weird.  it's going to get really sad really quickly, but it's also going to be so crazy that i'm not sure if i'll have the time to enjoy/lament it.

regardless...it's definitely about to fly by...it's about to get crazy.

okay, back to work [which, bTw, today is my 3rd from last day here...also sad! :S ahhh]

until next time, [maybe from the u.s. of a? haaa...hopefully not]

w/p

[4:09pm]. [05/14/09]. [shanghai].

第十八天

跑步.

well...nothing too much today; except that...i did:

wake up.

shower.

study.

class.

one-on-one.

lunch.

class.

homework.

ran.

shower.

burgers.

homework.

internet.

bed.

ha...yes, i did say i 'R-A-N' haha...for me, exercising much has been hard...buT...today i did the one thing i hate more than anything in the world...not exercising in general, but runninG!  i absolutely abhor running.  it's something i pretty much never do without a purpose [i.e. in a game or athletic situation...] but today i did hit the track, and knocked out...okay, well, at least i made it through...a little more than 1.5 miles i think?  haha...it's been awhile, so for me that felt good.  i perhaps could have done more, but breaks would have been necessary...especially since it was about...95 degrees, sunny, and pretty humid--all of which were intensified by the nice, freakishly hot asphalt.  aghhhh lol...

ummm, okay...gonna get to sleep now, after just that little tidbit.

until next time!

w/p

[11:42pm]. [05-11-09]. [shanghai].

第十五天

the beginning of an end.

just wanted to insert a snippet from an e-mail i just sent.  it's nothing eloquent, and i'm not even going to go through it to edit/enhance/perfect it...just wanted to document it again so that i'll be able to look back at this entry, and not necessarily be able to read too specifically what i was feeling, but at least i'll be able to look at it, and spur those memories.  i'm really going to miss this place...

"so know that i love you, i miss you, and while i'm ready to be home in less than well...in 18 days! wow...i'm going to be super busy trying not only to survive the work here, but to also enjoy this last bit of time i have with shanghai, and china, and with lu chao & the other guys.  because not only might i never even make it back to this country or city...i know for a fact that i'll never be back with the same guys at the same place in the same setting...not experiencing the same things in the same, new ways.  i can already tell that because i've forgotten how it felt to view things in that light already, after just being here a few months.  i can't even remember what it felt like for anything here to be weird to me.  it's the strangest thing, and i know that once i get on the plane or at least in the rush to the airport and all that stuff that day, that's when i'll flip the switch and be fully ready to be back in america and back home.  [but] until then, i think it's about to get really hard and really sad...really quickly.  so i don't know what i'll be saying between now and then, but know that it's going to be a whirlwind of emotions for a bit."

that's all i really have...except that:

[1] i really miss my dog...it's certainly got something to do with me watching "marley&me" for the first time the other day, and it just sooo closely resembled the relationship i like to think i have with my king, and how he's also getting pretty old...it's just very sad, and made even worse by being thousands of miles away...

[2] so this weekend was kinda a bust...as far as the whole 'getting work done' thing...it wasn't the most productive, i realize, but it did provide for some nice time spent outside our little "cet bubble"...yesterday i went to the french concession for a bit to work and just enjoy the scenary [well, actually we--oh yeah, it was annie's idea in the first place bTw--kinda got lost aka couldn't find this other place, so the french concession it was! ha]  it was soo nice though, especially considering i had just recently begun to think about how, with my time coming to an end rapidly now, how i probably wouldn't ever find time to make it back down to the bund or dowtown or old city or the concession...so it was sooo perfectly ironic that i really didn't mind that i didn't work too much, or that i bought expensive-ish hot chocolate and a croissant [bTw...soooo good!  idc that it's like 80-90 degrees...it was inside with a/c!]  so yeah, that, along with picking up my clothes i had made was about it for the weekend...well, besides all of the fun i had washing clothes! :)

[3] as the end draws near for me here, another portion of my life is also coming down to its last days...f-r-i-e-n-d-s is almost over! :(...haha, no but seriously...i'm on disc 15 of 16 now...and am really trying to ration myself so that i can have just that little bit of entertainment left all the way until the end!  it's sooo crazy to think that by now, i've probably seen nearly 200 of the episodes [not that i haven't seen them all already countless times before]...but it's been awesome and cool to watch it from beginning to end.  after all, isn't just about every life situation and drama played out at some point or another with the gang?  i know it's been eerily similar to some of the things i'va had going on with me since i've been watching it that it's kinda cool/spooky.  ahhhhh the life-experiences one can experience via the life & times of this timeless group.  haha...

[4] last for tonight, i just realized recently that in keeping up with school, working through some tough things from afar, and just being really busy //slash lazy// about it, i really failed to ever mention my sister being here back during spring break.  yeah, i realized this past week that it was exactly a month ago then that she'd been here, and that we'd gone around shanghai seeing the same ole' stuff for me [cool for her, i hope!] and then catching a plane to beijing and having a wonderfully hectic 3-4 days in the ancient capital.  among other reasons, i can say without a shadow of a doubt that her being here allowed me to really see the hand of God working in my life...just the timing and the fit...it all happened sooo amazingly that it's just hard to explain...and couldn't be any other way!  anyways, this is just an intro...i just wanted to at least jut-in a little spot about that experience, so that hopefully in upcoming posts i'll be able to recap it a little more [i'll have to refer the pictures as usual for my reminders! ha]  but so yeah...hopefully sooner rather than later i'll give that portion of my trip the credit it's due, and document a little bit of the roe family asian adventures! ha :p

okay okay...well my sleep schedule's all out of whack...and i don't really know why.  regardless, i'm already tired, and am going to call it an early night once again [3 in a row!]...ha...so good night for now; look forward to continuing soon...

w/p

[[[...bTw...photo's from the other day...hair's might long...hmmmm....]]]

[11:10pm]. [05/10/09]. [shanghai].

第十四天

1:16pm...sunday

things that are awesome...and especially after 3 months in china:

pb & j...these two items have ultimately kept me sane.  [[new found favorite option--pb & j on/in pita bread...soooo legit]]

coke.  in an earlier post, i mentioned how phenomenal this liquid is sometimes, and today, after being up since early this morning, getting things done, picking up the last of the clothes i had made, and making it all the way back here...i'm hot, i'm a little winded...and am now enjoying probably my 2nd coke classic since that last post...so roughly 4-5 or so this semester [that i care to share/remember ha]

bargaining...sooo sweet.  i'm worried that when i get back to the states [besides the fact that everything actually IS more expensive] i'm going to wonder why i can't argue down the price of just about anything!?  granted, i'm usually one of their more passive customers i imagine, because i usually just take the prices of anything that's not a bigger investment like clothes.  my thing kinda is [most of the time] if it has a price, like a tag or a sign, i pay what it says...besides, it's not like it's that expensive anyways, and to be honest, it can get tiresome arguing back and forth so much...but, yeah, sometimes it's a pretty fun pasttime!

air conditioning...which......we currently do noT have! :O...very frustrating, not to mention sweltering...

ummm...yeah, that's all i wanted to say for now.

until 下一次，

w/p

[1:16pm]. [05/10/09]. [shanghai].

第十四天

slacker.

so...i'm not good at this. ahhh, almost [well pretty much still have] missed another day.  and i'm still exhausted! :(  maybe i'm not cut out for this...hmmm...goodnight.

w/p

[12:54am].  [04/05/09].  [shanghai].

第九天

back again.

soo i made it back.  it was a...semi-interesting weekend! ha.

[however] my internal clock's still off, i'm tired, i need to prepare for class, and i can't find the battery to my phone/alarm clock apparently...soooo i'm gonna get to bed in hopes of waking up early enough on my own to prepare well for class.  

hopefully tomorrow i'll have some time during the day to even gather some solid thoughts and get 'em ready for the next post.

until then, 晚安！[wan an...'goodnight']

w/p

[10:20pm].  [04/03/09].  [shanghai].

第七天