Chinese Jordan: Teaching, EuroCup 2008, and more...

Internationalism. By just walking around this metropolis, you can feel the international presence; however, it wasn't until I went to a rooftop party the other night that truly saw the reality of how diverse the city is. I had this moment at the party when I "zoomed out" of my discussion and realized that I was listening to people speaking Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Italian. Being in that moment made me realize how much my life has changed and that I was actually living my dream. "I'm in f***ing Shanghai," frequently passes through my mind and I have to pinch myself to wake up.

Teaching. I've always heard the statistics that non-verbal language makes up a majority of our communications, but I didn't realize it until now. After teaching some classes now, I realize how dynamic human communication is and how important hand gestures and facial expressions are, for example, in language transmission and meaning formation. It's truly fascinating to work with the Chinese students because you become acutely aware of your movements, voice tone, intonation, and articulation.

EuroCup 2008. Football is not exactly my favorite sport, but it was worth it to stay up until 2:45 am to watch the kick-off of the EuroCup. My friends and I went into an expat bar around 10 pm to find the place sparsely populated. That all changed, however, around 2:15 am when the place became packed with face-painted zealots from Germany and Spain. "Oleeeeeee....ooooole....ole, ole," filled the air after Spain scored their first and the games only goal, and the fans went crazy. I had got my fill, so I headed out around 3:30 to catch some zzz's.

Cici and I ventured to Starbucks to brainstorm about business ideas.