Posted By joni on May 16, 2012
– Flea Market @ the Grumpy Pig
I got to sell some of my old clothes, accessories, a bag, a book, a DVD, etc. etc. Bunny calls them my “junk.” I don’t know why…
– After-flea market dinner @ the Grumpy Pig with V, R and J, and some new friends
– Sent manuscript back to my publisher!
– Labor Day holiday!
– Last week at work!
Posted By joni on May 9, 2012
At lunch today:
Server: 你是哪一个国家的? (Which country are you from?)
Me: 菲律宾。 (The Philippines.)
Server 2: 非洲人。 (An African.)
Me: 什么？ (What?)
Server 2: 你是非洲人。 (You’re an African.)
Me (smiles): 不是。亚洲。 (No. Asia.)
Server 2 (looks confused)
Interestingly, there are quite a number of Chinese people who thought that the Philippines is in Africa mainly because the first character (菲) for the Philippines (菲律宾) is almost the same as the first character (非) for Africa (非洲). And I guess my dark complexion supports this idea.
Or they just were not paying attention in Geography class.
See, we wouldn’t have territorial disputes with you if we were all the way in another continent. Just think of that.
Posted By joni on May 8, 2012
Victoria read about a certain place that serves oysters and one Sunday night, she, Rob, Jade and I set out to find it. It turned out to be one whole street of restaurants selling seafood. We had a yummy time! Wish the Bunny was with us though.
Posted By joni on May 7, 2012
– Chinese painting class!
See pictures of my awesome grape paintings here.
– Another yummy burger dinner with V! Haha!
– Chinese salon
My lazy attempt at Chinese lessons these days.
– My penultimate week at work
(Yep, I used “penultimate.”)
Posted By joni on May 5, 2012
As all things must come to an end, so has my time with PSA. Today is my first day as a bum and I shall mark it by posting my farewell email to my colleagues.
All,
It has come time for me to move on. I have nothing but sincere gratefulness for the years I spent with PSA. I have learned a lot and I have met some truly wonderful people, both in Manila and in Shanghai. I am most thankful for both the incomparable learning opportunity as well as the understanding and support of colleagues-turned-friends in matters both professional and personal. I can honestly say that those 4.something years have mostly been fun and I have mostly been happy.
My next few months will be spent with the mixed blessing and curse that unemployment brings: time to do whatever I want, minus the income I need to truly do whatever I want. I did pick an appropriate time to be unemployed: my novel is coming out in June and I intend to go all out in promoting it. After all, I don’t often get books published. In fact this is the first one. Perhaps I can work on the second novel while I contemplate on my next move.
I will be in Shanghai until the first week of June so just text me if you want to hang out. Just nothing too expensive (I will only be relying on my savings pretty soon) or too strenuous (my bad knee is still, uh… bad).
Also don’t even think you’ve heard the last of me yet. I’ll be nagging everyone to buy at least one copy of my novel as soon as it’s out. And I can be very persistent. Just letting you all know what to expect. Plus, you know, have pity on a starving writer…
To keep in touch across the ocean [I shall be leaving these fields blank here]:
Email:
YM:
Skype:
Blog: http://soyoufound.me
Shanghai cell number:
I am on both Facebook and Twitter. And also on LinkedIn, and Google+, and Quora, and Foursquare, and Instagram so really, you have absolutely no excuse not to keep in touch. [I realize that I should probably also be on Kaixin, Renren, weibo, QQ, etc. but really, they’re way too much effort. I did try signing up for Renren about a year ago and was not very successful. They’ve been spamming me since but that’s another (uninteresting) story.]
Seriously, do keep in touch and um, buy my book. Ktnxbye!
–joni
Posted By joni on April 30, 2012
– Yummy burger dinner with V
– Library day on Friday, caught up with my reading for the China set project
– Visit to the doctor for more meds: my knee seems to be getting better although there are still some bad days
– Funny Chinese salon: the lesson was about things in the kitchen. Uhh, I am so not good at these…
Posted By joni on April 29, 2012
One day, my Bunny and I were strolling…
I just had to have a picture with it.
Posted By joni on April 23, 2012
Yesterday, I attended a traditional Chinese painting class. We painted grapes.
the teacher's paintings
practiced with black ink
my black and white bunch of grapes
practicing with colors this time
tada! my colored bunch of grapes (I couldn't do the leaves though...)
Posted By joni on April 22, 2012
Two things for this week:
–Qingming Day
I finally got to take my Qingming holiday–several days late but still oh so good. I thus had a long relaxing weekend to rest my knee and.
–Job fair
I went to my first ever job fair. I’m not sure if anything will come of it but it was very interesting.
