星期四, 九月 15, 2005
Posting tonight from "Sculpting in Time", the hip, student/arty cafe facing Wudaokou station. I was in Lush earlier, and would have posted from there, but their wifi was on the blink and I couldn't get an IP address. What I did get was one of their "五: reprazent" t-shirts that I've wanted for a while, but which have constantly been out of stock. Yay!
Life has been incredibly busy recently, hence the long silence. The workload at the internship has increased to slightly beyond my capacity to handle it: too many things that are new to me. It's certainly been instructive: I've been confronted with the (obvious) fact that doing something in real life is rather different from doing it in class, or as an assignment. The MBA 'mystique' has worked against me rather, in the sense of "but you're meant to know this!" Well, I do... in theory. Practice can be different. The honeymoon period with the job is definitely over. One thing that's bubbling away is that although my agreement with the company is that I would work full-time during the summer break, and part-time during the term, the amount of work they want me to do over the coming weeks is simply impossible to reconcile with the needs of the course. I would hate to have to decide between the job and the MBA, but it may come to that - and of course, the job will come second. I hope we can find a better solution, though. It isn't just the coursework; I've already missed a lot of social events because I was working late, and that can't carry on - I would like to get to know my fellow students while I'm here. Else, why bother to come?
This has been the first week of classes, so inevitably they've been full of the usual introductory waffle. To the extent that I've got to know my classmates, the exchange students have really impressed me; they're generally of a very high calibre. I haven't interacted so much with any Chinese students yet, so I'll reserve judgement.
I have managed to find some time for R&R, though. Last weekend,I went with a few friends to Dashanzi for a performance of Korean and Brazilian drumming. Getting there was a real adventure - the taxi was badly held up by rush-hour traffic, and then we discovered the driver was on his first day and had no idea where to go! Even when we got to the factory complex, we had to wander around unlit alleyways before eventually finding the venue. We got there an hour late, but the shown had only just started anyway, so it was OK - and the show was great!
