WhiteGhost

I admit I was giggling about them for a very long time Right? All it needs is some place called trunk (or booty) to move in next door. ---------------- Ghostess and I spent all afternoon walking along the Russian quarter in downtown Harbin. I bought a bunch of Russian chocolate (which is way better than Chinese chocolate) and in the evening we are at a Russian restaurant. It was rally good and I ate way, way too much. I am going to be so fat after this trip. On the plus side, I walked more then 20,000 steps over the course of he day. This morning we flew over to Chongqing and the difference between the Podunk small town were in with barely 5 million people and coming to a major metropolis (largest city in China by population) has been staggering. It's like we came to a completely different country.

Haha, awesome! Sounds about right. They're very popular among metal fans, in particular. They haven't made it very big over here yet. Might be the whole let's make Asia Mongolian again thing Ah, I see. I haven't made it to that game yet Not really so much, made me more curious that anything --------------- Spent yesterday hanging out with the soon to be newlyweds. We went out for lunch to a local style BBQ and way too much to eat. Worth it though! Next to the restaurant were a couple of shops that made me do a double take. I tried to upload a picture for your enjoyment, let's see if it shows up. This morning was the wedding ceremony and Ghostess and I are asked to be the ring bearers (kids doing that isn't a thing here). It was a very nice ceremony. Now Ghostess and I are on a train heading to Harbin where we will hang out until our flight to Chongqing tomorrow

You know your country is messed up when the guy living in China says "boy am I glad I live here instead of over there"

Is the Hu a popular group? I had never heard of them before --------------- Monday and Tuesday went reasonably well. I made it to he park both days but I had to cut both workout sessions short because I needed to come home to take care of stuff. I played quite a bit of Starfield as well Starting from today I am officially in holiday mode. Got on a plane first thing this morning to fly up to a small city near the border with Russia to attend a friend's wedding and then will head down to Chongqing in a couple of days where we will link up with Ghostlet and the in-laws to spend the rest of the National Day holiday and Mid-Autumn Festival. The flight this morning was surreal. It was business as usual until about the last 30 minutes. We got the usual "we will be landing shortly, begin landing prep" announcement but it was followed up with instruction for everyone to close the window shades. They even had a guy come around to make sure they were all completely closed with any possibility to see outside the aircraft. Multiple times during the descent they announced that anyone caught opening the window shades would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. When we landed we were loaded into busses with blacked out windows and driven around for a while before we got dropped off at the baggage claim. It turns out that the airport here is a joint civilian/military airport and they take opsec very seriously.

It won't be long before the "Daddy, it's already 6am on Saturday, why are you still in bed?" turns into "Dad, it's only11am on a Saturday, why are you waking me up already?" A decade sounds about right, but it sure won't feel like that long

Just trying to remind you how good it is when you don't have to work night

I am also really enjoying my Starfield playthrough, but have started thinking about what I want to do for my next playthrough. Most likely either a pirate or a bounty hunter. That is all still a very long ways off, though, because even though I have been playing for several dozen hours, I am only just getting started with the actual quest and have yet to even touch anything faction related.

This is a pattern with you. I recall your previous episodes of the folks who were able to connect with you at your internship . The folks in the halfway house could tell you weren't there fore the job (or the accolades) but because you saw something in those people the others didn't seem to: a person. Not a project or a problem that needed to be dealt with, but a person with needs and desires, particularly a need to be seen You have a gift, and this is just another example of it

Right? I would never have expected this kind of comment in real life but there it was Classic! Oh for sure. I sometimes wish I had a pair of Google glasses or something that could just record everything when I go out. Fair point, but to be fair to him I don't think he was suggesting the continent itself would have disappeared, just the existing cultures. Even that I don't agree with because cultures often just don't disappear because they have been conquered, just some sort of assimilation and cross pollenation. It is interesting to think about, though, how much European culture would be different had the Mongols asserted more influence That was pretty interesting. Kind of a traditional Mongolian/western heavy metal fusion kind of a deal. Interesting to see them infuse the heavy metal stuff with the nationalistic content of the song. Kind of a weird dissonance in the messaging. I actually often see people playing these instruments in the park quite often, but it is a really different vibe to these guys. ----------------------------- OK, the semester is now half over, time to take a look at my grades so far and asses Physics This one is going reasonably well. When I started I had no idea how to even do the skills I was looking at but now I have that figured out. Now my problem is getting up the courage to try them because my brain keeps telling me they are super dangerous. It is going to take some serious work to overcome the mental block on these. Grade so far B+ Chemistry This one started out well, but then Starfield dropped and I have not had much interest in cooking anything that takes longer than 30 minutes, and often I end up just ordering something. Current grade: C+ Biology This one is going pretty well. For the most part I am keeping to my eating schedule and weight loss is happening at a reasonable pace. Current grade: A- Foreign Language This one is going pretty well. I have a streak going for the entire challenge so far on Duolingo, but I did have to use a streak freeze one day because I didn't get to it until after midnight on one occasion. Japanese teaching has been happening but it has been really ad hoc with little to no preparation for each sessions so I need to step that up a notch. Current Grade: B Music I am really happy with my progress on this one. I haven't been practicing every day, but I am at it often enough to see some real progress. I have completely memorized the hymn I chose and have even played it for a few people this week at church. The other song is also going well and I have most of it down now. There are just a few passages that I need to get and I will have that one memorized as well. Current Grade: A- Drama Making good progress on this one as well. I have made 3 submissions for the assignment and have received good feedback each time. I am stil not getting the lines to the level I need to pass but I am happy with the progress Current grade: A- Creative Writing This one is not going well at all. In fact I have not even started doing a single thing for it and am struggling to find the motivation to do it at all. I may need to drop this class. Current Grade: F 3D Design Solid progress here. I have only done 2 of the 3 scheduled lessons so far because I had to wait and buy a new keyboard because the laptop keyboard wasn't cutting it, The software really uses the number pad a lot so I skipped a lesson as I waited for that to come. Decent progress but not great. Current Grade: B- Geo-Politics This one started out poorly as I was spending way too much time on it while I waited for Starfield to drop. Now that I am active on Starfield, my daily time following the news has dropped to about 30 minutes or less, Current grade: B Astronomy I am thinking I really should have called this class chemistry. I am role playing as an explorer and so most of what I am doing is running around surveying various star systems to identify the local resources. In this game, most of the resources are inorganic elements and so far I have found most of the naturally occurring elements in the periodic table. I am starting to get a little burned out on just surveying so I have also made some progress on the main quest. I do have a complaint about the game that really has been driving me nuts. Spoilered below Overall I am loving the game but spending WAAAAAAY too much time on it. I have already fully surveyed over 100 planets/moons by this point, Current grade: B Social Studies I was doing really pretty well on this one until I started getting sucked into Starfield. I need to go back and get caught up on quite a few challenges. Current Grade: B+ Overall GPA: 2.9 （3.4 if I drop creative writing)

Starting Weight 76.2 9/11: 74.9 9/18: 75.6 9/25: 74.7 That number looks good in perspective, but it still quite a bump from where I was before the weekend. I am already in holiday mode (the holidays here officially start Wednesday!) so this is probably the best I am going to see for a while. Now I just need to try and somewhat control things for the next few months so as to not completely undo all the progress I have made over the last few.

That's weird. I have never ever had any exercise that gave me the option to speak and nothing for writing recently. No idea why.

I have now scanned so many planets and moons that I have more survey data than I can readily sell and have loads of money. I still haven't figured out what to spend it on yet. I thought maybe a nice ship but I can steal all the ships I want from space pirates (I currently have 8 I think?) and carrying all legendary equipment that I found along the way. The 20 dinner thing is going very poorly. I have a nice long list of foods I can make when I was doing my 5x5 challenge back in 2020 but I just struggle to get motivated to cook stuff that takes more then 30 minutes to make. That sucks, I hope you get to play it because it is a lot of fun. + I haven't looked at the settings options yet, but I will give both of these a try to see if I like them HAHAHAHAHAHA I am in this picture EVERY DAY! all 3 of those things you listed are a daily staple, and I am sure whatever else was in there is probably also a daily occurence ----------------------------------------------- Class work has been pretty good this week. I made it to the park 4 out of 5 days, with only one day missed because we had some workers come over to waterproof our windows. I have a constant Duolingo streak going since the start of the challenge and I have already memorized one of the 2 songs and the other only has the last page to go (of 4 total pages). Food has been hit and miss, but overall more hits than misses. I had a weird interaction on Wednesday that I want to share. One of the regular guys at the park always has a bunch of interesting stuff to talk about and I have learned a lot of history and culture stuff from him. Well this week he comes up to me and, I kid you not, says to me "Things would be a lot better if we hadn't abandoned the old gods" I have heard this line many times, but never outside of fantasy games. Specifically he was talking about the Sun and nature worship of the Mongols (he is Mongolian ethnicity). He kept going on about back when the Mongols worshipped the sun, they were the most powerful people on the planet, and the only reason Europe exists today is because of Khan's unfortunate untimely death. I wasn't sold, but he sure made a solid effort to try and convince me

Ever since the update my phone has not given me the option of tying anything, every question is just picking from the vocabulary options on the screen. I thought they had gotten rid of it but I guess they just hid it. I looked around for it but couldn't find it. I have didn't know there was a speaking option, as even the earlier versions didn't appear to have the option. Do you know where they are on the phone app?

This sounds like my life in a microcosm. I spent my entire career just full on and never played any video games at all once I got my first real job. Then when I finally got retired I had the time to go back and play all the games I had missed out on. Following

Congratulations!!!