five days!!!

so this weekend...

friday night we watched toy story three and i cried. soo good! saturday i came into work for a while and we watched the next karate kid. i'm going to watch that with my family sometime when i get home because it is sooooo close to what it is like living in beijing. not kidding. except for the whole being beat up, meeting jackie chan, and winning the kung fu tournament thing.

saturday night we went out to eat with quite the group: us four girls, 1 chinese girl, 2 american guys, 1 german guy, 1 australian guy, and 1 russian guy. they talked politics ahh!!

sunday i came into work again and we watched high school musical 3. i literally burst out laughing at the beginning of every song. we also went to a restaurant called grandma's place for dinner. i had chicken cordon blue and it was really good! but nothing beats real home cooking :)

last weekend means work! this morning i woke up to a text from a friend saying i was missed by people and it made my day :) we had a rehearsal of our final presentation at 9am. so i had to be at work early and then our presentation which is supposed to be 20 minutes long lasted 28 minutes. ahh!!! we give our final presentation on wednesday and turn in our final report on thursday.

sorry i didn't blog this weekend...

six weeks down, two to go. actually it is more like 12 days :)

saturday we went to xidan which is a famous commercial area in beijing. we walked through this ridiculously large mall with all kinds of stores i've never heard of plus a few i recognized. we mall walked for a few hours but didn't buy anything because it was so expensive.

jasmin's sister has a chinese friend from grad school that is back in china visiting her cousins for the summer. all that to say, we met them for dinner. it was a different hotpot restaurant, still very delicious!

sunday we slept in and watched toy story 3 in the afternoon. of course, i cried. it is such a good movie! then i finished reading the percy jackson series which i recommend.

we have a pet panda(bunny).

today was one of the chinese students' birthday so we went out to dinner. when i say we i mean me and eight guys. apparently none of the other girls decided to go. so me and the guys went to this german restaurant where it is buffet style. you go get any kind of raw meat you want and then cook it yourself on the grill in the middle of your table. so for two hours i ate meat and fruit (they had excellent fruit).

when i got back to my room and came in, i asked my roomie why she hadn't come and she just looked at me funny. eventually i noticed the bunny sitting on the floor eating a cucumber. A BABBY BUNNY! so adorable! don't ask me what she is going to do with it in two weeks, but its name is panda and she paid 30 RMB. now we have a pet in our room. did i mention it is ADORABLE?!

five weeks down, three to go.

saturday we went to the temple of heaven, pearl market, and pizza hut. the temple of heaven was pretty cool... but just like a lot of places we visit: a big pretty park with old chinese buildings. this park is kind of an arts center because they have dancing, ribbon twirling, chinese hackysack, karaoke, and opera going on all the time inside.

i dropped a shameful about of money at the market, but i don't regret it yet :)  the lady i bought pearls from actually complemented my bargaining skills.

pizza hut is a really nice sit-down restaurant here. and it was soooo good! we got stuffed crust hawaiian.

i also got a package from my awesome family in the mail!! sunday i stayed in my pjs and read. a lot. like two whole books.

this week we have to be writing our final report, running simulations, and still coming up with ideas. woohoo! when there is so much to do and the deadline gets closer, time flies.

i need a hug.

today i realized  the last time i hugged someone was 37 days ago. the most human contact i have here is a handshake. i'm normally not a touchy-feely person (ask kathryn or allison) but that might change due to this drought. watch out... i might become a hugger :) then again, maybe not.

the power in our room went out while we were sleeping last night. i got a chinese girl at microsoft to call the apartments and they said "the electricity of your room ran out." are we on a quota or something? anyway, it should be back on by the time we get of off work.

we had our fourth weekly meeting with our mentor today and he actually used the words "clever" and "interesting" to describe our ideas!! do you even know how exciting that is?!? awesome. so maybe we will do something worthwhile.

another good thing that i found out today: anberlin is playing in atlanta on november 4th. who's with me?

tonight we (the girls) are having another movie night. we had one on sunday night and watched remember me. i knew the ending already thanks to lindsay, but the others didn't and i didn't tell them what was going to happen. wow. rob pat's acting is awful, but the story is pretty good and it is a good reminder of what we need to remember. can't say more about it without ruining the ending for you :) i don't know what we are going to watch tonight, but it will be a comedy. britni's mom sent us popcorn in the mail (among other things) for our movie nights!

tomorrow (saturday) we are planning on going to the temple of heaven, the pearl market (again), and pizza hut. hope that all works out.

sidenote: if you have time, my friend andy is in a band called Polar War and that band is in a contest. Go here and check out @polarwarmusic: http://tinyurl.com/25r9dyh - then go here and vote for them: http://www.scenesc.com/next-big-thing/  thanks :)

four weeks down, four to go.

so we have reached the halfway point. friday we had our weekly meeting with our mentor and he reminded us that research is coming up with new ideas to contribute to the literature, not just reading other people's solutions and applying them to your problem, that's engineering. so we are going to try to come up with something completely original in the next three weeks. i had skipped lunch and was super hungry when we got off of work so we (the girls) went back to little sheep restaurant (hotpot) for dinner. went to bed early cause we (the girls, sean, and ryan) had big plans for saturday.


on saturday we woke up at 4 and met downstairs at 5. while we were waiting on people, i called my cousin rebekah who was getting married the next day. it was still friday her time, so she was getting married saturday. she did get married saturday. yay! time differences make things confusing. i also called allison and she had just gotten back from her first non-sports camp! and she loved it as much as i knew she would :) i can't wait to hear more about it! 1,000+ kids from one youth group, 100+ salvations, 245+ baptisms all in daytona beach. i have to go next year, or at least that is what she told me.

so we took taxis to the train station because the subway wasn't running yet. the train station was pretty impressive. i think this was the first real train i've ever taken. our train is called "green-skinned" because it is green and also the oldest type of train still running in china (aka no air conditioning). so we sweat for 2.5 hours and then we were there! "there" instantly reminded me of the dominican republic. we took a taxi to the gorge and it was so nice to ride through the countryside. pretty flowers, orchards, corn fields, things you never see in the city. the air was so much cleaner, but still cloudy. there was a huge dam in the valley and of course we had to climb stairs to get over it. let me remind you, it isn't a weekend in beijing without climbing something. britni and jasmine bungee jumped and then we all zip-lined across the gorge. AWESOME.



so we spent the entire morning there and then found some food and took a taxi back to the lake area. our plan was to find a place to stay the night and then check out the park around the lake and maybe go swimming. we found a room for all of us to stay in for 150 RMB. there were some reasons it was so cheap. but i can sleep anywhere for just one night, right?

so we changed in to our swimsuits and walked to the park around the lake. and guess what, NO SWIMMING IN THE LAKE ALLOWED. what?!?! apparently chinese people don't know how to swim and keep drowning in the lake, so they outlawed it. umm so what were we going to do? we rented a paddle boat, paddled out there, and then britni, jasmine, and sean jumped in. yeah we got in a little trouble, but at least they got wet. i stuck my feet in. the main result of that trip was to make me miss living on lake murray.

we decided to not spend the night and go back to beijing late that night since there wasn't much left to do on sunday. so we walked the mile back to our "room" and changed. we took a taxi back to the train station area and found a restaurant that looked crowded with locals. when we walked in, they took us straight back to a little room with just one table in it. yay special treatment. the food was SO GOOD. and super cheap! six of us ate for 103 RMB. crazy.

after eating we still had two hours to burn before our train got there, so we walked around a little. still having flashbacks to the dominican. then i decided to get a haircut. yeah you read that right. so three of the four girls got our hair cut. this is the shortest i have had my hair in a while. it always takes me a while to get used to any haircut. the salon was pretty nice and it only cost 15 RMB to get a wash and cut. two bucks. the funny thing was they kept my hair that she cut off and put it on the table. i guess they don't see very many blondes.

we finally got on the train (this one newer and air conditioned) and got back to the apartment around midnight. now that is what i call a full day! today (sunday) we are taking it easy and finding that american food heaven again. the salad bar at sizzler is calling our names. hope we can find it again :)

surprise!!

this week has gone by pretty quickly so far... just goes to show time flies when you have a deadline. we gave our mid-term presentation yesterday (wednesday). it went pretty well! i didn't stutter or freeze too badly. and it made monday and tuesday fly by because we were preparing and rehearsing.


monday was fu's birthday but we didn't really know about it or celebrate it, so we threw him a surprise party yesterday right after work. since he is in my group, i had to tell him we had a meeting at six and make sure he showed up. he wanted to leave at 5:20! so i reminded him about our meeting and suggested we play ping pong for 30 minutes. it worked :) he didn't leave and was thoroughly surprised. britni and jasmine did an awesome job getting the cakes and organizing the whole thing.

today (thursday) it is back to the research... if you really want to know what my day is like, here are the titles of the papers i read today. feel free to look them up and read them.
1 A solver for the network testbed mapping problem
2 Rethinking virtual network embedding Substrate support for path splitting and migration
3 Virtual network embedding with coordinated node and link mapping
sounds fun, right?

this weekend we are planning on taking a trip to Yanqi Lake and Qinglong Gorge. hopefully it will all work out! we might be bungee jumping :/

hurrdurrrr... wrong room number.

Kristin Kay room 727
104, Building No.2, Zijin Digital Park, Zhichun Road,
Haidian District, Beijing, ChinaZip code: 101900
 
let's try that instead.

my address.

Kristin Kay room 272
104, Building No.2, Zijin Digital Park, Zhichun Road,
Haidian District, Beijing, ChinaZip code: 101900

just in case anyone wants to send me a letter or some trail mix :)

three weeks down, five to go.

i actually said something in our meeting on friday!! woohoooooo!! :) i also got bumped back to second on the ping pong ladder... but i'm getting a little better. maybe.

friday night we (the girls) decided to have a movie night. we invited everyone, but as usual, it was only us. they had this idea to use a conference room at microsoft to project the movie onto a screen. great idea! but those of you that know me well know how much of a rule follower i am. i was slightly freaking out that we were going to get in trouble!! but we didn't. we watched mulan :) and it had a whole new meaning to me. such a strange and wonderful opportunity. how many people can say they hang out in conference rooms after hours in microsoft and project disney movies onto the screen for movie night? awesome.

this morning i skyped with my family :D:D:D so happy to see them and hear their voices! and bonus: both aunt ruth and cousin ruth were there! then i skyped kathryn too. let me know if anyone else wants a skype date :)

today (saturday) we (the girls+ryan) again went out on the town all day long. first was silk street. it is run by the same people as pearl market, but there are more clothes and shoes and less pearls. they are still aggressive sellers and you can still bargin. for lunch i had authentic chinese dumplings and they were so hard to pick up with chopsticks! it reminded me of the scene in kung fu panda where he is learning kung fu by chasing slippery dumplings around.

i think i managed to spend less than $100 today. i spend all my money on the weekends and none during the week. $100 isn't bad for what i bought: a marc jacobs purse, a set of white and blue ceramic chopsticks for my mom, a chanel watch, a gucci watch, five dvds (the bounty hunter, remember me, nine, the book of eli, and young victoria), two wooden fans, dinner at kfc, two taxi rides, and some groceries at walmart. i think that is it. let me know if any of you want anything specific.

after silk street we went to a park behind the forbidden city called jingshan park. it has a hill in the middle made out of the dirt they dug to put the moat around the forbidden city. it seems like we always pick places with lots of stairs to climb. anyway, the park wasn't free, but it was still really pretty. and it had a surprise inside... dinosaurs!! lol it had animatronic dinos everywhere. so we had fun taking pictures with those. it also had the tree where one of the emperors hung himself. there was a fantastic view of the city at the top of the hill. i took pictures, but they don't do it justice because of the smog. 

after we hiked back down the mountain, we went to houhai which is like a really nice bar district. the first thing i saw was a starbucks :) and i took more pictures! the street wrapped around a beautiful lake and we walked around for a while. 

i'm still alive.

so i haven't blogged in a few days. yes allison, i'm still alive :) the only thing of note that has happened over the past few workdays is that i have clawed my way to the top of the ping pong ladder. not sure how long i'll stay there, but i'll enjoy it while i can.


work is chugging along nicely this week. we have another meeting with our industry mentor on friday that we need to be ready for and then our mid-term presentation a week from today (wednesday). gotta use my awesome powerpoint skills to make this thing nice.

just to review, my summer verse: Psalm 73:25-26
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

venti caramel coffee frap please :)

asian karaoke is no where near as nerve-wracking as american karaoke. instead of singing in front of a large room full of people you don't know, you are in a small room with people you do know. it was like sitting in a large booth watching tv and singing songs together. no one ordered alcohol and it was quite fun! i went to sleep around 2:30.

this morning the cleaning lady knocked on our door around 10:30. i somehow communicated that we were still sleeping and got back in bed. allison called me around noon and we talked for an hour which was awesome :) even though i don't usually talk on the phone much. today we went to the olympic green and saw the birds nest and the water cube. it costs money to get in the birds nest and the water cube was closed so all we did was walk around outside and take pictures. it was sunny today for the first time in over a week, but with the sun came even more heat. we got more stares and people taking pictures of/with us today too.



then we went on a hunt for this american restaurant called sizzler. we walked around for a long time through what looked like legit neighborhoods with apartment buildings and kids running around. we asked around and no one knew where the restaurant was. eventually we found it! it was american food heaven!!!! there was a department store and in it was the following: sizzler, pizza hut, mcdonalds, dairy queen, and STARBUCKS!!! i took pictures. and ordered a venti caramel coffee frap. ahhh heaven. they actually had a huge salad bar at sizzler and it was amazing. their meat is imported, and it tasted really good. they were also playing american music! so we listened to hillary duff and jason mraz as we ate. it was a good food day :)

two weeks down, six to go.

so last night (friday night) after work me and the girls ate in the one restaurant in the basement we hadn't been to yet. it was actually really good! it was like spicy chinese food or something like that. then we took the subway to wongfujing which is like the times square of beijing. first we went to this huge bookstore that had at least six floors. we found the imported books and ended up by the math books (nerd alert). this older guy asked us if we were math students, where we went to school, and then he asked us what 1^pi is. ummm idk? 1? he said he was some kind of engineer and really likes to study complex analysis.

after we escaped the bookstore, we wend to mcdonalds cause i was sooo thirsty. when we walked out of mcdonalds, IT WAS RAINING. it hasn't been sunny here for an entire week. constant cloud cover for a whole week! i'm going to be so white when i get home. so we walked in the rain.



we went down this road that is a night market that sells all kinds of things including strange things to eat. jasmine and britni actually ate fried scorpions. not kidding. i have it on video. the scorpions are actually alive on the stick and moving around until you say you want some and they stick them in the frier for you. AHH!! they also had fruit covered in caramelized sugar stuff. kinda like a candied apple, but the sugar isn't that thick. i got one with green grapes and it was actually pretty good.

this morning i slept until around 11 and then we took the subway to the summer palace. it wasn't raining today, but it was still supper cloudy and foggy. the summer palace is where the royalty spent time in the summer because it has this tiny island in the middle of the lake and it is supposed to be a few degrees cooler on the island. it was all hot to me. it was so nice to see some water!! i miss the beach and the lake. when you go in the front gate, you have to climb over a mountain to get to the lake. then take a ferry to the island. the mountain was covered in what seemed like buddhist temples, walls, and watchtowers. when we were waiting to take the ferry these two chinese girls asked if they could take their picture with us. aww first time that has happened! it was exciting :) after walking around inside for a while, we took this random path back over the mountain and i thought we were going to get lost! but we didn't.

responding to comments.

i haven't responded to any comments and that is lame. so here they are all in one post!

Maggie Glass: i'm glad you found the link :)

hannah marie: walmart is soooo different! of course everything is in chinese. i recognize about 10% of the food and the imported stuff is expensive. usually you can find what you need if you walk around for a while. it has three floors and these motorized ramps that take you and your cart from one floor to another, like those motorized walkways in airports that are flat. thanks for all your prayers!! means so much.

Marie: 1. i 'm not looking forward to that again. 2. i need to learn how to ask for bags in chinese. 3. i didn't get a shirt! maybe i will before i leave. 4. yeah i ate all that girl. sooo good! 5. i've only eaten there once and no sickness. but i think i do get sick after eating anything fried here. so much oil. i love you!

allison: yes i got pearls for you if you'll wear them :)

taylor: here's your shoutout! lol jk. umm yes there is a picture of us on your dock. i like that picture :) and i love those people! miss you too. see you in tigertown :)

erin: thanks for everything. i know you have my back :) can't wait to see you again!

john kay: LOL forehead it is.

this is my life.

the Big Bang Theory 03x04 - Sheldon and Raj work hard! (HQ)

wake up call.

the weekdays are starting to run together. still working on problems that might not have answers. we have a meeting with our mentor tomorrow; hopefully it will be helpful and he'll send us in the right direction. today's music was the Hairspray soundtrack and some Lecrae.

this morning i got a surprise wake up call from kathryn right after my alarm went off around 8. it was good she called because i really didn't want to get out of bed. i think i might be a little behind on sleep... time to catch up!

people want to go out and do kareoke this weekend. apparently it is as popular as going to the movies in the US. i'm not sure how fun it will be especially because i don't plan on being drunk while doing it.

oh, for a thousand tongues to sing.

i think one of the main reasons God kept me awake last night was to remind me that i can't do any of this on my own strength. i can't even fall asleep on my own strength! i was listening to the dcb version of Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing while i was contemplating flow scheduling algorithms for the hose model in a fat-tree topology (not kidding) and i've decided it is my favorite hymn. 

Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
By: Charles Wesley

Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my god and King,
The triumphs of his grace!


My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of your name.

The name of Jesus charms our fears
And bids our sorrows cease,
Sings music in the sinner’s ears,
Brings life and health and peace.


He breaks the power of canceled sin;
He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood avails for me.


Look to the Lord, who did atone
For sin, O fallen race.
Look and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.


See all our sins on Jesus laid;
The Lamb has made us whole.
His soul was once an offering made
For every human soul.


To God all glory, praise, and love
Be now and ever given
By saints below and saints above
The Church in earth and heaven.

these verses cover some basics i don't want to forget:

verse 1. a goal of seeing many come to know Jesus

verse 2. asks for help in doing it because the strength and ability comes from Him

verse 3. talks about how and why the fears and sorrows in life won't deter us

verse 4. speaks of the power of the gospel

verse 5. reminds us of His sacrifice

verse 6. gives us perspective

wow!

the thing about microsoft (love it or hate it kathryn :) is that there are so many brilliant researchers here creating what will be in the future. this attracts a lot of other smart people both in the business and academic fields that want to present their ideas and dialogue. as a result, there are many "talks" throughout the week in different conference rooms that people can attend (including interns) during the work day. i attended a talk today on haptics which is touch feedback from the technology you use. (like sounds or vibrations when you use touchscreens on cell phones for example). it was given by the Chief Technology Officer of Immersion Corporation  named Dr. Christophe Ramstein. In 2009, Christophe Ramstein was named as one of the Top 100 (ranked 51) most influential people in Tech by T3 magazine. (In the Top 100 list, Google founders are the No.1,  Apple’s Steve Jobs is No 7,  Microsoft’s CEO is No10,  Bill Gates is No.27, Amazon’s CEO is No 63, Yahoo’s CEO is No.66, Founder of Wikipedia is No.83) it was a really cool talk and i'm looking forward to going to as many of these as possible. plus, it is a break from work!

today i used my new ping pong paddle for the first time and it is so sticky! i played fu and he beat me. he plays chinese style with awesome spin. so my dilemma is: should i get a hard paddle and play like i usually do or should i stick with the sticky paddle and learn how to control my spin? let me know if you have an opinion. sean set up a ladder on some website and i "challenged" him so we are playing tomorrow at lunch.

the food here is so hit or miss. today was a miss kind of day. here's to tomorrow!

sleepless night.

being in a foreign country without knowing anyone has a few consequences:

1. no one knows your reputation
2. no one knows your past
3. no one knows your family
4. no one knows your friends

it is like starting on a blank slate with nothing to hide behind. who you are becomes evident to the people around you, but most of all, to yourself. i'm learning how i have so not arrived. i'm seeing how far i've slid backwards, or maybe just how far off the mark i started from.

what would you do if you could throw off all expectations put on you by your parents, teachers, society, and yourself? what makes your heart smile and gives you boundless energy? if you had to do one thing repeatedly for the rest of your life, what would it be? how would your life change if your passion had as much priority as your routine? what are your loves, your longings, your liturgies?

these are all questions that keep me awake tonight.

mondays.

today was such a monday. i had breakfast in the basement and apparently the chinese are really big on fried dough for breakfast. i had a french toast type thing (no syrup here), an egg, and what looked like an elephant ear. like the ones at the fair, not an actual ear of an elephant. we floundered around on our project all day trying to figure out what we are going to do this week. our academic mentor encouraged us to plan our week out because at the end of this week, 1/4th of our trip will be over. ahh perspective! i took some pictures of my desk...

after work i played ping pong with sean and daniel (and beat both :). then i went to walmart to get a better paddle lol. i've never had a sticky paddle before! hopefully i get used to it quickly.

From persevere:China

From persevere:China

From persevere:China

From persevere:China

a skunk at the zoo.

 here are some pictures from yesterday in the forbidden city and the pearl market



last night was a little rough because i was waking up every other hour to blow my nose. so i slept in until around noon when we decided to visit the beijing zoo. it was beautiful! the zoo is famous for their giant pandas, but the panda exhibit was rather underwhelming. the sleeping pandas looked dead and they were all yellowed. the zoo was a combination of a huge park (think central park), a zoo, an aquarium, and an amusement park. my favorite part was seeing a baby snub nosed monkey hop around. so cute!! they also had animals i did not expect to be in a zoo such as a skunk and a raccoon. the tigers were HUGE (go tigers :). the habitats for the animals were really bad compared to zoos in the US. people were smoking and littering everywhere. when we were looking at a lion (that was sleeping) this guy threw a full water bottle at the lion!! we couldn't believe it! does PETA know about this zoo?



we ate dinner at mcdonalds then took a taxi back to the apartment. i'm exhausted so i think i'm staying in tonight.