It's my second day at work and it's going very much like the first. I'm having the second safety training session; however, the person giving the training doesn't speak very good English (and I certainly don't speak Chinese well enough to take safety training), so I have to guess at what he's trying to convey. Probably not the best situation for safety training, but I'm going to be spending most of my time in the office and I think I got the general gist of the training (Don't touch anything). After safety training they take me out to another warehouse for more training, but this time it is training to use a five ton crane. That is way more fun than anything else I've been doing, and I start to get the hang of it pretty quickly. It's pretty much a pendulum game, albeit with a 500 kg pendulum. As we walk back to the office, Michael tells me that his boss thinks I "walk lazy." I'm confused, so I press for information. Apparently, the way I walk with my weight behind be, not walking with urgency, makes me appear lazy. I resolve to walk like purpose, to use my "city walk," around the office.
After lunch I finally get my own computer after two days of prodding (and spending the first half of the day studying engineering drawings out of context got grating). The only problem, it's in Chinese and there is no way to change the operating system language to English without buying an English version of Windows. Oh, and the software I'm going to be using (Unigraphics NX6) is also in Chinese. Excellent. After an hour or so of my fruitless searching, Michael comes and changes the language of NX6 to English in 3 minutes. Oh well, I have my own access to the outside world (Internet is spotty at best in my apartment) and something to keep myself entertained at work. I went for a run after work and I got a lot of strange looks, like I'm the first person to run in the history of Xiasha. Oh well, it is nice to get some exercise in.
June 23
I spent the better part of today in Unigraphics fooling around with CAD and seeing what it could do. Unfortunately, the tutorial hasn't been installed, so I spend a long time stumbling around the internet looking for guides to the program, which I do find basic version of (Thanks University of Evansville and University of Victoria). Michael is having lunch with a customer today, so I head to the company canteen with his boss. When we sit down we're joined by the president of the company, who is a very nice guy and seems very excited to have me there as an intern. He has a son entering his senior year of high school who is thinking about Stanford for college and I whole heartedly endorsed the university. I went for another run after work, this time after dark. It was a little sketchy, but considering that I have about 30 pounds on everyone I've seen so far, I wasn't concerned. And there are surprisingly well lit streets in Xiasha for being out in the boonies.
The really interesting thing, however, happened well after work, when the US played Algeria in the last game of the group stage. I turned on the TV to find that the Chinese sports channel (CCTV5) was playing the England/Slovenia game. So I raced to my laptop to switch to ESPN3.com, which (thank god) works in China. On my suspect internet connection (borrowed from a guy two doors down by way of a long cat-5 cable running through the ceiling), I watched the first half without incident (well, except for the disallowed goal and numerous blown chances by the US attackers). Then, things got dicey for the second half, as the connection slowed significantly. The video became unwatchably choppy and I resorted to constantly refreshing the GameTracker. I started to get very worried as the English took a lead over Slovenia and the US missed opportunity after opportunity. When we got to the end of regulation and were stilled tied up, my heart leaped out of my chest, but we got a lucky 4 minutes of stoppage time. I heard the surprised gasps from elsewhere in my apartment complex before I actually saw the score. The US finally put one in the net in the 92nd minute. And who else would it be, but Sir Landycakes (yes he's been knighted [despite that being a British thing], and he's keeping the old nickname) willing the US to victory. Within the minute I received an email from my mother (in Spain) that just said "USA USA USA." I couldn't have said it better myself, but the response that popped into my fingers was "goonies never say die." And that's exactly what the US did, they never said die. They got the big goal when it really counted and came out on top of group C. Bring on Ghana.
 | My rather "rustic" set-up for watching the US-Algeria game. It was the only place in the apartment that the ethernet cord and the power cord could reach the computer at the same time. |
June 24
Wow today sucked. First, the power went out at work for half an hour, then I spent the better part of the morning reading about production flows and process flows at Allied. Then, it started pouring outside and I left my jacket in the apartment. I spent the afternoon trying to learn the manufacturing tools of Unigraphics, but I just did not have much success trying to learn it by myself. Michael was busy with a customer today, so he didn't have time to give me much direction or hands on training, which kinda sucked. On the walk back to the apartment from work, Michael and I talk about random little things and I notice that we have a lot of things in common as guys in their twenties. Despite growing up on opposite sides of the world, we can commiserate over girls (and how they are impossible to understand) and free time (how we seem to have less and less every year). Despite all the differences, there are some universal truths that apply to both the US and China.
When we get back to the apartment, I leave Michael at his door like I usually do and I go to open my apartment, only to step into a quarter-inch of water sitting on my floor. Apparently a pipe had burst and flooded just my room somehow. Dealing with landlords is difficult, even when they speak your language. I'm glad I had Michael there to talk to them on my behalf. After about 90 minutes of cleaning, we have most of the water cleared out of my apartment, but I'm still not happy. I'm going to try to get moved to another apartment tomorrow (hopefully one without a high risk for mold).
 | The great flood. You may notice that glass corner looks an awful lot like the one where my computer was sitting yesterday. I almost left my computer there this morning, but decided that I should bring it into work in case they had a way to set-up internet for me. This kismet proved to me once again that it's better to be lucky than good. Also, I learned to keep everything important off the floor |
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