Catching up with friends

Today is a great sunny Saturday in Beijing. But I am just too tired to go out. I have been pretty exhausted at work. Too many things to keep track off and everything has to move forward at the speed of light for us to have a product in the market in a reasonable timeframe. Our team had a review with Steve Ballmer yesterday and got positive feedback to move forward. That certainly adds more wood to the fire.

I talked to my friend Peter. He moved from Redmond to Shenzhen. His knowledge of Chinese language was great to begin with and he is studying more than I do and his day to day interactions at work are pretty much all in Chinese. I am very envious. I feel like I am in big glass bowl. I can see that I am in China but only at distance and can't touch it or feel it. My work is all in English and because we have so much work to do I have to be very efficient at communicating. It is just not a place that I can practice the little Chinese that I have learnt. And I am only taking 3hrs a week of lessons which is not enough. And the lessons are at the end of the day when I am already exhausted and not efficient at learning and remembering.

I also read my friend Jeanette's blog. She just left MS to move to Madrid. She has written in detail about her packing and moving adventures. She took her dog with her which makes her move even more complicated. I don't think she has accepted a new job yet but I think she is going to try to do something different than before. I am very happy for her. She is one of my favorite people at MS. Another one is Heather. They are both carbon copy of each other. They are so incredibly driven that is scary. I have learnt a lot about myself by just observing them.

I tried to hook up with my friend Neema last night. But his cell phone was off. I want to spend more time with him before he returns to US after being in China for 2 year.

I am not used to planning my weekends. I just want to get up think of something and do it. But that leads to big disappointments. Several times I have tried to find people to go out and do things with but they were not available or they had their phones turned off. Then I end up not doing anything and being alone. That sucks.

I am going to go ride my bicycle around. It is too nice to be inside.