Phil’s blog

From a bag of beef jerky I recently consumed (albeit with difficulty): “Add:Bldg.2,Section B,Shoes Industry Park,Economic Development Zone of Pingyang.”

It’s 6am and food poisoning and a mosquito in my room are conspiring to keep me from sleep. Someone once told me to never eat raw vegetables in China, so I guess I should be especially wary of the huge 6 yuan (almost $1) salads from the small restaurant in the basement of the building where I work. But it’s such a good value! Anyway things have been quite busy lately, working ’til 10 or later most nights. We’re approaching a major milestone and I’m feeling good about it. I don’t go out as much lately (other than to eat), not due to work but because I just feel like staying in most of the time. When I have a chunk of time I’ll usually watch a movie, play GTA IV or Rock Band, or reply to non-work emails (which I’ve been horribly delinquent on). I haven’t been to the east side of Beijing for a couple of weeks now. Oh, and I’ve been getting facials at Beauty Farm every couple of weeks. I first tried it last month when my gf invited me to go with her and get a massage while she got her facial, but I opted for a facial too and it made my skin noticeably better so now I’m hooked. They also shape my eyebrows with a razor, very metro. No recent pics but I will probably take a bunch next weekend when I go to Shanghai, and post a couple if I’m not too lazy.

Last week I spent 5 days relaxing on the beach and eating seafood. And of course taking photos.

A funny thing happened a couple of nights ago. Someone knocked on my door around 10:30 at night and it was this middle aged Chinese woman who was trying to tell me that she needed to come into my apartment for a reason I couldn’t understand. She seemed harmless so I let her in. Yes, in retrospect I realize I was too trusting, should have called someone to interpret before allowing her to enter. Anyway, she walked over to the window in the living room and peeked outside behind the curtain, then asked me to help her move the table so she could stand in front of the window. I did, puzzled, and she stood there in front of the open window with the curtain over her. I tried to pull back the curtain but she said no need, so I stood there and after about 10 seconds I heard this muffled panicky noise. For an instant I was afraid this woman was crying and about to jump out my window. Then she emerged holding a chicken by neck and chest, which was clucking and struggling to break free. I looked outside the window and there was a metal air conditioner or something, so the chicken must have jumped out the window from a floor above and landed on it. I’m on the 15th floor so that’s a lucky bird. Anyway, it was hilarious and I was relieved. I laughed and she smiled, said thanks, and took her chicken home.

The 3 of you who occasionally look at this blog may have noticed that I’ve changed to a rather minimalist layout. I was inspired by tumblr and set out to find a way to give my blog a similar look, and this is what I came up with. I figured the old layout with all its functionality made me feel obligated to write more substantial posts, while the minimalist tumblr style encourages brevity, so the result would be that I’d do shorter but more frequent posts. We’ll see what happens.

The company is doing well and we took our first trip together which you can see photos of in my last post. Our funding situation is good and the development is speeding up. Our public launch isn’t too far away now.

I’ve been lifting at the gym regularly for the past month or so, about 3 times a week. I’m definitely stronger than I’ve ever been, but have neglected cardio. My natural state is to be rather skinny so when workouts are limited I always opt for lifting because I want to gain weight, not lose it. Ideally I’d alternate between cardio and lifting but it would cut too much into my limited social life.

Actually socially things are pretty good; I go out about 3 nights a week and spend at least one day doing something fun or relaxing on the weekend. Lately I’ve spent a fair amount of time at Houhai, a lake surrounded by bars and restaurants. It’s rather touristy but there are a few good places to eat/drink/chat, and it’s really nice to walk by the water at night.

My Mandarin these days is not so good. The money we paid a few months ago for classes finally ran out and I didn’t buy more because all we did was go through the book or talk freely, both of which I can do with friends for free and on my own time. Actually my character recognition is holding steady or even improving because I chat with people on IM in Chinese every day. Yesterday I even tried chatting with a few of my coworkers in a QQ chat room they set up, but they were typing way too quickly for me to translate so I only picked out the lines that had “phil” in them. My speaking and listening are definitely worse because people usually don’t understand me the first time and vice versa. The real value of this Chinese class is that it forced me to practice speaking regularly, just a discipline thing. I hate getting up early for class so I’ll try to come up with another way to practice…

More.

I first landed in Beijing on June 19, 2007. It has been a good year. The most important thing for me was to do something I love, and though the course hasn’t always been smooth, I can honestly say that I love what I’m doing. I’m quite happy with the people I work with and the product we’re building, and I’m learning lessons that only a startup can teach. I’ve also learned a lot about myself and feel a little wiser than I was a year ago, with a bit better perspective. I think I’m getting closer to where I want to be. Thanks for a great year, Beijing.

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