whirlwind....

after the cabbage excitement, it was down to boring old chairing a conference for over 300 people for a weekend...again. hmm, i am always the backup option for chairing a conference, but its fun, tiring (up till late, up early) and exciting. 300 new AIESECers....

We relaxed the day it finished (got 10 hrs sleep!!), went to a hotpot restaurant (where you cook your own food in a boiling pot of water with spices) and experienced a new type of food.

well its not really food, since its actually penis. well, to be 100% honest, its 2 kinds of penis (maybe goat and bull...?) chopped up on a plate. not something you see too often in china let alone in the UK. Anyway, after some sniggers, pictures etc we boiled it (for a loooong time, just to make sure!) and ate it. Well, I ate most of it since it tasted pretty good (better than the stomach, which has always been a bad order) -so make whatever jokes you want!

After this week was loong meetings into the night about reviewing the previous month, planning the next conference and lots of other things. I've been doing some crappy adminy jobs but also getting out to have lunch with the students who help me on my CSR work.. Tonight i even had a group-MSN Messenger training session to (up to) 11 students...it was crazy, and when it was in chinese, even crazier!

Tomorrow night i got invited by Bayer to the EU Chamber Ball (went to UK one last year, paid lots..this time the EU one is free) -should be fun, should be drunk/tired when waking up at 5am the next morning for my flight to Shanghai for a) University CSR event and then trainee/foreigner weekend trip b) meetings (to get companies to come our next conference in SH in Jan) and external conferences (I am even speaking at one) and c) interviewing chinese students to work abroad. Then back to Beijing for a week for another University CSR event and back to Shanghai for some more meetings and conferences (and anoter alumni event and yet another charity 3 mile run!).

yay, travelling, its been 3 weeks and my feet were itching. So here's to lots of nights on floors, and money spent in expensive Shanghai. but its a great city, with lots of life.

I dont think I am learning that much more about Chinese people's working style -I realised a long time ago that chinese people tend to lack imagination or innovation straight after school due their curriculum. Its hard to get most people to voice or share their opinions. Its quite a blase comment, but generally true (can't be bothered to go into more details). However I am learning more about Chinese people from living with 3 of them. Especially girls. hmm, I think most chinese girls fit a stereotype of being cute/adorable, caring and innocent (seemingly). But at the same time they are quite sensitive/fragile and emotional. Learning a whole new set of chinese women people management skills (slowly); but i love both Kim and Primrose, both utterly unique (yet still within the stereoptype outlined above) and utterly different to any other women i know.

p. s.hopefully by the time i return to beijing the cleaner would have been hired!
p.p.s.boy i do hope i can see some rain in Shanghai -it tends to rain more than in Beijing, and I have literally seen snow fall 3 times and rain about 10 times in over a year -its insane. no wonder the water shortage is so dire (not that you know, since its the countryside that suffers).