For anyone who is reading these blogs, I've noticed that I ramble a lot. I'm sort of detailing my days, so it is probably boring. I'm going to try to label the short paragraphs so that you can choose to read ones that interest you.

Electronics Center:
Yesterday Sebrina and I went to the Huge electronics center, which I would call more of a region, to get their camera lense, and power cord fixed. Sebrina was fully succesful in figuring things out with the store clerks there. We ended up needing to go over to another building where there are offices to talk about the computer cord's warranty.
The whole time Madison was living it up with all the attention. I think she's going to be an actress one day, because even as an infant she puts on a little show for people. When she's not getting enough attention she starts yelling and waving her arms around until somebody looks.

French Grocery Store:
We also went to the Carrefour which was nearby. It's a French based grocery store that had everything you could want or need. We bought some veggies, a long-desired basil plant for Sebrina, frozen baozi and jiaozi (two different kinds of dumplings. Baozi are more bready) and I bought yoghurt! and nescafe! Really the nescafe was just for old times sake. When I imagined China, one of the few things I paired with it clearly was individual packets of Nescafe. I'm drinking one now. In Linyi, when I was 12, we lived in a rural part of China, and drank that pretty often. It was the most American thing they had around, even though most Americans would never drink it...

Art plans:
We got back, had dinner, watched 30 days-Hunter with a Vegan family-and went out to Starbucks around 10. (A bunch of people were out chatting on benches, in the mall, and playing a basketball arcade game in the park.) On the way back Sebrina was trying to help me with plans for while I'm here. She was telling me if I want to make any type of contacts, she could probably find someone. So I said I'd like to talk with artists, Chinese or foreign. Justin and Sebrina were both trying to come up with project ideas for my art over the summer. I want to deal with the idea of vastness, as well as the oneness of existence. I'm not too worried about it now, because the real work doesn't need to be done until Fall quarter. Right now I need to take photos, see the art here, and sketch. I'd like the photos to show what a large scale things are in here-the numbers of people, the amount of windows in an apartment complex, the length of a corridor of store-fronts, the stretch of a building into the sky, maybe even the vastness of a factory interior. I'd also like to take many pictures of people's faces, but that will require me to become more comfortable speaking to strangers, and maybe asking a local what's the right way to go about doing that.

Also, one of the most interesting things about where we are is the sound. It would be great to find a way to record ambient noise in a park one day, or of the middle school out our window...and then play it back during an art exhibit next year. (i'm bolding so that I will remember to do these things.)