slightly lamer than ice cube
On my way home tonight, I got that "It was a Good Day" song by Ice Cube stuck in my head, specifically the part about how today was like "one of them fly dreams" etc. Today WAS like one of those days! I got so much stuff done, I couldn't even believe it.
I managed, in one day to teach four classes (I did a colleague a favor and swapped my last two periods with him, since he's off to the UK on Friday for his second wedding ceremony). During my morning break, I went to one bank, withdrew an obscene amount of money and paid our phone/Internet bill. Then I went to another bank and managed to wire a substantial portion of that obscene amount to my parents, to cover my next few tuition payments. Don't ask me why I can't just wire money straight from my account to the US. And PLEASE don't ask me why I have to manually change currency from RMB to USD before I can wire it. Seriously, I don't know.
After work, I booked it to the nearest international ATM (another mystery of China: why do only certain ATMs accept international cards? and why DON'T those machines take local cards, forcing you to go to several different ATMs) to take care of some TCB regarding my Indian bank account. Then I grabbed a cab and went across town (16 km) to the Emirates office to pick up and pay for my Africa tickets and walked over to the British Council to do still more banking and hand in my requisition slips. To round off the day, I walked a few kilometers to Ya Show to get a nice, cabin sized, roomy backpack for Africa (and totally rocked the haggling portion of the interaction). Oh, and I also managed to buy our tickets to Shanghai this weekend, and still found the time to spectacularly bite it on the steps of the Emirates office. Seriously, I was sprawled on all fours. I only wish someone I know had seen me to laugh at how stupid I looked.
Anyway, this is probably a very low key day for an American, but in Asia, everything takes about 9248 times longer, so getting all of this done in one day was like a minor miracle. So I was totally thinking about how my day was akin to a fly dream, etc., and how much like Ice Cube I am.
Except his good day involved basketball, dominoes and hos, while mine involved about a million different banks. So I guess I'm like a really, really lame Ice Cube.
I managed, in one day to teach four classes (I did a colleague a favor and swapped my last two periods with him, since he's off to the UK on Friday for his second wedding ceremony). During my morning break, I went to one bank, withdrew an obscene amount of money and paid our phone/Internet bill. Then I went to another bank and managed to wire a substantial portion of that obscene amount to my parents, to cover my next few tuition payments. Don't ask me why I can't just wire money straight from my account to the US. And PLEASE don't ask me why I have to manually change currency from RMB to USD before I can wire it. Seriously, I don't know.
After work, I booked it to the nearest international ATM (another mystery of China: why do only certain ATMs accept international cards? and why DON'T those machines take local cards, forcing you to go to several different ATMs) to take care of some TCB regarding my Indian bank account. Then I grabbed a cab and went across town (16 km) to the Emirates office to pick up and pay for my Africa tickets and walked over to the British Council to do still more banking and hand in my requisition slips. To round off the day, I walked a few kilometers to Ya Show to get a nice, cabin sized, roomy backpack for Africa (and totally rocked the haggling portion of the interaction). Oh, and I also managed to buy our tickets to Shanghai this weekend, and still found the time to spectacularly bite it on the steps of the Emirates office. Seriously, I was sprawled on all fours. I only wish someone I know had seen me to laugh at how stupid I looked.
Anyway, this is probably a very low key day for an American, but in Asia, everything takes about 9248 times longer, so getting all of this done in one day was like a minor miracle. So I was totally thinking about how my day was akin to a fly dream, etc., and how much like Ice Cube I am.
Except his good day involved basketball, dominoes and hos, while mine involved about a million different banks. So I guess I'm like a really, really lame Ice Cube.