VOTE

'nuff said.

The last polls close around 2 PM Shanghai time, so hopefully a winner can be declared before I leave work tomorrow!

Six Down, Six to Go

Six months gone in a flash. Luckily I have the pictures and blog entries to prove I did something worthwhile :-)

This visit to Austin has been fantastic. I got re-acquainted with friends and family and co-workers. I met new ones (of each type). I remembered what it's like to live and work in Austin. I got a tan. I went to Barton Springs. I went to Hamilton Pool. I went downtown. I played trivia. I shot pool. I saw a movie at the Drafthouse. I watched a baseball game. I ate Mexican, Tex-Mex, and BBQ. I ate a sandwich, for gosh sakes. A ham sandwich on buttered toast with bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Ohhh. I bought a ton of books at BookPeople. I read the Chronicle. I drank non-Starbucks coffee.

I. Saw. The. Sky. That's probably the biggest thing I noticed. My vision isn't hemmed in by towering skyscrapers everywhere. I can see miles into the distance in any direction. Acres of green trees replace the constructs of metal and glass. And, who'd have guessed, the sky is actually blue, not sheet-metal gray. And it's got clouds, nice fluffy clouds, that make shapes and change colors and provide such a nice contrast and focal point when you look ... up.

I took the pictures to prove it.

On the 4th I was walking around downtown, taking some pictures of the Capitol, when I chanced to overhear "Yi, Er, San ..." that is "One, Two, Three" in Chinese! I turned around and sure enough, some Chinese people were taking pictures on the lawn. One "Nimen shi Zhongguoren ma?" later and we were talking a bit in Chinese. That was very fun :-)

All in all, a fantastic, amazing, wonderful, and sure-to-be-missed trip.

Ameeeeeeeeeeeerica

So, one 13-hour flight, 5-hour layover, 2.5-hour flight, and post-flight-travel-arrangements later, I'm sitting in my hotel in Austin. Being home is ... surprisingly normal. I was wrong about it feeling strange. The novelty of seeing familiar faces was good but lasted for only a short while. Now I feel, well, I live here. I suppose that's a good thing. That I can feel so comfortable so easily in two very disparate locations :-)

Sunday was nice. I ate lunch with Kevin. We went to Curra's, this fantastic Mexican establishment on Oltorf St. Then we went to my old apartment to see my old roommate/landlord. I took a tour of the place to see what he'd done with my old room and studio. They're looking nice. The three of us spent a couple hours just bullshitting. I flashed back on the fact that I lived there for two years. Relived some moments. And kept telling myself that I've only been gone for 6 months. Sometimes it feels like a short amount of time; other times it feels like it's been much longer.

Afterwards I picked up a copy of The Onion (whose RSS feed, for whatever reason, doesn't work in China) and the Austin Chronicle and set out for Mozart's to read in the late-afternoon sunshine. It was wonderful. I felt compelled to buy a Mozart's t-shirt to wear around Shanghai and hopefully identify fellow Austinites ;-) Then Shawna and some of her friends and I ate dinner at the Hula Hut. Then we went back to her place to play Wii bowling, and I totally would have won the second game (turkey!!) if a thunderstorm hadn't interrupted us by cutting out the power. I claim victory nonetheless :-)

I didn't sleep at all on Sunday night. Literally, not at all. I alternated between lying in bed awake and reading. At 7 AM I decided to get up and partake of my hotel's "breakfast" (consisting of hard bagels, bananas, and coffee). Then I headed into work.

Work has changed in many ways. Many people have left, and we've hired many new people as a result. So, there are many strange faces, both on my team and around the rest of the building. That is inevitable though in any organization. Still, when someone I know leaves NI, it always shocks me a bit, because it's like, disrupting a small part of my known universe ;-) My team is sitting in a different location than before I left (and likely will be in another spot when I return for good). Some of the cafeteria workers appear to have left also.

But by and large, many of the familiar faces I left are still here. I spent a good long while walking around to my former teammates and saying hello. Then I gave a lunchtime presentation to many of them about Shanghai and the Chinese language. It felt good. I was really nervous about doing it, but I think it turned out okay.

I also didn't really think about this, but I came home at a good time. We have off work on Thursday and Friday, so I only have to use my brain for three days this week ;-)

This morning I was up at 3:45 but I didn't mind because I went to bed around 8 PM, so I feel that qualifies at 8 hours of sleep :-)

Speaking of sleep, this is a sleepy little town. I always thought of Austin as a rather large city, because it was the largest I'd ever lived in. But compared to Shanghai, this place is a piddling little backwater truck stop. Driving along I-35 I saw the Frost Bank Tower, the (now second-)tallest building in Austin, and was like aww, one single 33-story building. "It thinks it's a city! How cuuuuute!" Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. One reason I enjoyed Austin before is its nice blend of big-city nightlife and culture with a relaxed small-town vibe. That appears to be intact. It's just that I have a different perspective now -- I'm used to some insane hustle-and-bustle.