Life in China | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

Randy Pausch gave another lecture. It’s about time management and contains many interesting things.

My favorite part starts at 1:19:17. Check it out.

Preliminary discussion of the thesis I’ll write in China. They told me to stop the moment I think it’s getting too dangerous…

A Chinese friend suggests taking salt sticks to China because – according to her – I won’t be able to eat anything else during the first weeks and they’re not available in Shanghai.

A Tongji representative wrote me an email telling me that she had found out I wanted to study at their university this spring semester. She wanted to know if I still intend to do it. In this case I should mail them the attached forms. There were no forms, and I already applied in December. The documents which I hope contain the admission haven’t arrived yet. How long can it take a letter to get from Munich to Freising?

Finally…

Having payed 180 Euro, I think I’m prepared for everything to come. Including bad food.

Wow, it’s now possible to go to a pub without washing my clothes after only having been there for ten minutes. Why did that take so long?

Magdalena already got it.

In order to apply for a visa I went to the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Munich. Interesting. Waiting, talking, trying to get a copier working and finally my first encounter with a Chinese official.

I learned that I can either get a Single Entry Visa for six months or a Multiple Entry one which would only be valid for sixty days at a time. I chose the first one. When I travel to another Asian country now, I have to apply for a new Chinese visa there or I won’t be able to come back. Strange.

More fun with the the students council:

Bei dem heutigen Gastvortrag (08.30 Uhr - 10.00 Uhr in MW0001) von Herrn Goetzeler von OSRAM wurde ein schwarzes Kästchen als Anschauungsobjekt einer neuen LED-Technik im Publikum herumgereicht. Dieses ist nun verschwunden. Der Referent und Prof. Wildemann sind dementsprechend empört.

At today’s guest lecture (08.30 am - 10.00 am in MW0001) of Mr. Goetzeler from OSRAM, a small black box was handed round the audience as an example of a new LED technique. This is now missing. The speaker and Prof. Wildemann are accordingly outraged.

Four weeks until I have to be in Shanghai. No appartment yet. But a flight:

I’ll arrive in Hongqiao rather than the modern Pudong Airport. It’s nearer and I better get my things to wherever I stay before exploring the city.

According to the lady of the Air China service hotline I may take thirty kilogram to Beijing but only twenty to Shanghai. Different regulations for international and domestic flights. Ok. I thought about sending some stuff by mail. Beijing, Shanghai. That shouldn’t take too long. A Chinese friend advised against it. Hm.

They turned off the water again. Due to rusty pipes it’s always brown afterwards. Today, it was partly black. I can’t believe the Chinese water can be any worse.

I don’t know if it’s really that hard but in Germany we drive on the right side of the street. So if you’re the slowest car on the Autobahn your place is the inner lane and only the inner lane!

I mentioned before that I don’t appreciate the behavior of many facebook applications. A good example are all these walls. Fun, Advanced, Super, Giga, Mega, Monster Wall. No one can tell me they were made for the user. The only reason they’re still out there is because they spam around like hell.

While skyping with a friend we both checked out his facebook profile and I asked him about an item in his Mini-Feed. A mutual friend sent him something that looked like a blond girl:

We clicked on it and it was… nothing. Niente. Nada. Nichts:

But the fun continued. After clicking on the link I was forced to install Super Wall and found myself on a page with a dozen postcard images. I clicked next without selecting anything and got to another page where the application asked me to chose the friends I wanted to spam. I clicked on “Skip”, was sent back to the wall and found a message. A message I had sent. At least that’s what it says:

Seems like all my friends got it… Arrrg. I hate spammers and now that crap made me seem like one. :x

And I got an empty post, too. From my friend, who also said he didn’t send it. Perhaps they’ll go broke one day. In the meantime, just it.

Update: I hope this will help: