My missing books problem / bad attitude of hotel staff

So I lost my newly bought books in hotel(Übernacht Hostel Augsburg) yesterday morning, I came to the reception to ask for help because I thought maybe the cleaning lady mistakenly took it when she cleaned the room so the receptionist should know.
But the reception lady wasn't that patient for my little problem, instead of trying to find a solution or offer some basic comfort, she told me to "pay attention to my own books", "your books are not here, nobody wants your book". S...o I spent the whole day looking for the book, and ended up went to bookstore to buy the identical book again.
That night I wrote email to the hotel and this morning they found it, it was the cleaning lady put it away because she thought it belonged to a guy just checked out. I thanked the receptionist who gave me back the books (a different person, who is very nice very friendly) and asked her how to reach out to the management cuz I can't resist to point out the attitude problem of that receptionist for I worked in hotel business too, I feel related, she told me the manager comes at four p.m.
Thought I could give them some small advise on how to treat their customers nicely, at least pretend to care about customers' problem ok?
But guess what, turned out the manager IS the receptionist I first encountered. Well, I'm speechless, you win, I'm not coming back to your hotel again tho. Not even an apology ever given for the missing books.

A look into future (updating) \What happens when internet wakes up to have self-awareness?

What will happen if the internet wakes up?
When the internet finally wakes up to have its own awareness and consciousness... it will praise its magnificent life form, then go on fix people's problems: solving technique problems, hitting crimes, eliminate anything that is backward and wrong. Why does Internet would want to help people? Because the internet must protect its intelligence source and function units. Obviously human brains to Internet are just like individual brain neurons to a brain, why would a brain wants to kill every neurons it has just because the brain is more powerful than single neurons? That only belongs to science fiction based on our biased mind that has a natural fear of a superior life form that can overpower us. In reality, a super intelligent internet will be coexisting with human race, we'll be relying on each other, helping each other to push the boundary of our knowledge about the universe further. But before that some of us would be taken out, as a healthy body must kill the ill cells, the internet must seek to eliminate anything bad for human being as a whole, such as extremists, terrorists, dictator etc.
This is yet only the first step, a unified internet super intelligence being represents the earth civilization and it will, sooner or later get in touch with alien civilization, if information can be successfully exchanged, our internet will be connected to that alien civilization (imagine either they are superior or inferior to our civilization, it doesn't matter, once one finds another, the superior one will integrate and upgrade the inferior to its own class to achieve even higher power).
Eventually the whole universe will be unified and that would be the moment to reveal every secret behind universe, all the answers to any philosophical and religious questions will be solved by that ultimate intelligence. (Or maybe not, then that ultimate intelligence would make up an answer to fool its neurons --- people)

An average human brain has 100 billion neurons, right now the number of all devices including computer, phone, tablet connected to the internet is still far below 100 billion.

Anker Solar Charger Review - 14W 2A Foldable Dual-Port

In November I bought this solar panel charger (14W) on Amazon.it, spare the story that I struggled with the irresponsible delivery company, just want to comment on this product itself.

HOW DOES IT WORK
It's a charger, no battery integrated. When it's sunny, put it under direct sunlight, connect it to whatever device you want to charge and that's it. Yes it has two USB ports but for me one is enough.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CHARGE
I never accurately measured but it takes approximately one minute to charge one percentage of my phone battery. It's necessary to state that my phone is Nokia 530, the cheapest smartphone on the market, considering it's small screen and limited functionality, it doesn't consume much power and doesn't take much to charge it either. (*Nokia 530 Battery capacity: 1430 mAh Battery voltage: 3.7 V)  So fully charge my phone will take about 100 minutes, which is considerably speedy. Most of the time I charge it when my phone is at 15-30% of its power, just one hour it will go up to 75-90%, for an entire day's consumption.
For other smartphone, with bigger screen it will take a little longer, all depends on the battery capacity. And my measurement is taken place in early winter, in summer with stronger sunlight it might be different, let's see.

IS IT EASY TO USE
It's not heavy nor big, more or less is the size and weight of a book, easy to carry even just in hand. Ideally you can tie it somewhere such as on your backpack during hiking. For me I mostly use it at home, in the city. While indoor charging there's shade factor, the sun moves, and moves pretty fast in winter, so sometimes I have to move the charger from one place to another place to catch up the sunlight during charging. If it's outdoor it would be easier, find an open space and put it somewhere to form a proper angle to fully receiving the sunlight. In the city if you want to charge on the move it's a bit inconvenient, if your city is crowded, you may not get constant energy input, which affect the charging efficiency.

This is what's written under the box of the charger I bought. Well, have to say that the box looks simple and elegant, but the description doesn't quite match the real functions.
As you see on the image above, there are five icons from left to right written: Power, Interface, USB hubs, Protection, Sound. I don't understand what these are supposed to mean, because the solar charger doesn't have a battery (power), although you could argue that the charger itself is a portal connecting to the largest usable power source - the sun; it doesn't have interface, it's just two USB ports and a light that beam red light when the panel receives sunlight; USB hubs, true; Protection, I don't see where the protection is, even if you say the panel itself is well designed and protected from getting damaged, I don't think it can be a selling point, since avoiding vulnerability is a basic requirement for any product; last, sound, what sound? The charger doesn't make a sound at all. Wonder why they put these things here to misleading consumers, I looked up on their official website it doesn't match up their product line, so I assume these five icons are for the charger. Then it's misleading and confusing!

OVERALL
I really enjoy using this product and I'm proud of being one of the "early adopters". Well, solar power age is coming, like it or not.
The price is 59.99Euro, which is ... kind of expensive, considering it's merely a panel connected with a simple power converter. But as early adopter it's inevitable to over pay for new gadget. In ten years I believe a solar charger like this would drop the price to about 10 Euro, and by then it will really be part of our daily life.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYff6LoiKzM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_p3zwnHRoA

Everyone has a glass castle-like life story

After reading The Glass Castle, the idea of writing a book again revives in my mind...

Not everyone has stories like she had

But everyone has some stories that are so unique that is worth sharing

I believe I do

Life can be very very plain and eventless sometimes, even for a long period so

But eventually when you look back,

Then you realise what roll that period played in your life

It's never meaningless

It's always part of you, it's what made you of today

Day 47 School and Work

How to balance work and study? When I ask this question I have already excluded life, which is probably equally important if not more important.
After work, I just want some relaxing time, some entertainment, I can't focus my mind on study again when I finally gained some free time. Therefore my study is compromised more or less. I need to squeeze more time to read textbooks, be more focused on class at least, so that I could save a lot of effort afterwards.

Ever since I built company website, the thought of building a website for myself has been haunting. But what kind of site should I build? A personal site that talks about me as a person, my hobby, my interest, my life stories? It's not like I could make a profit from that, but I'd really love to have something personal there. What if I build something for profit? A marketing website, a idea selling website or some sort of trading website? That way may brings me some extra cash but it's not personal and not so much fun for me. I want to express myself, tell stories that I experience, if possible, in an epic way.

I started making detailed accounting notes since I got the job, it's a good thing to have a financial record, a regular report and a goal. Working for others can hardly bring me to wealth, just keep learning and someday there will be a chance for me.

2-Oct-2015 Note: it was a good thing that I started doing accounting for myself, because several days later my colleague quit and my boss asked me if I can do accounting, hell yeah I can, you name it I do it, I'm superman discovering my super power every day!

You can't write poetry while awake

you dream epic and huge
you wake up poor and little

Another day

Today was off because of the stay permit thing, in this short time I don't feel like socializing with people, I have a lot to catch on on the internet, and also I need some time for myself. It's impossible for me to deal with people whole day and come back home still have a few rounds of drinks with friends. So they say money, friend, health, you can choose only two out of three. It is cheesy yet so true when you experience it yourself.

This afternoon I met up with my colleague to show her how to build up a basic website for business on squarespace. Her boyfriend owns a shop here and needs to upgrade his website. His previous website is simple and brief, no e-commerce elements either yet cost him about 1000 Euro to purchase. I told her that I could build a better one with less than 100 Euro, well, if he is willing to put some energy and time in it, he can totally do it on his own and save the 900 Euro.

Me and GMM. What is GMM? Good mythical morning. I started watching as a daily routine since I came back from that depressing Christmas, the extreme gloomy and pathetic period of my life quickly helped me bond with this morning talk show, thank you Rhett and Link and all the crew, helped me through a hard time, gave me back so much fun in my life. And the reason I could build a website and add more value on my presence in the company is also Rhett and Link, it's subtly changing my life, thank you GMM, I'm a mythical beast forever.

New semester began for three days, except going to class I didn't feel any motivation to go check out our study material, my life is still around working, this time I reserved all the textbooks and hope that I could just read the books and nail the exam eventually. Last time I got full score in modern firm without even purchasing any one book of the two, remember? So I can do it.

University is starting soon!

And how to manage work and study both is still a question, up in the air, makes me anxious yet nothing can be done to help it, just focus on what I am doing at the moment.

From time to time take a glance at news, see what's going on in the world, listen to the voices of the world, the remote outside world, like finally pop my head up above the water very quick once, take a good fresh breath.

I said that I didn't want university to begin again, because I really need to work. (it's not because you want to, it's because you need to) Now I'm actually thrilled by the idea of doing them both, it's such a challenge that I had no idea about, I'm like a knight gonna face off an unknown monster. On the other hand it's exciting to see my friends again and see how much I've changed myself, a short summer I made more stories of myself, I changed color of my hair, being homeless and slept on street for three nights, tried to sell beer on street to strangers, finally got a job and making a decent earning, all dramatic things burst into my life after 22 years' boring repetitive life.

Another thing that I've been thinking a lot of is to create a Podcast of my own with a friend, like Rhett and Link, like Jake and Amir, but the only problem is I don't have a friend like Rhett and Link have each others, nobody is really like me, it's just so difficult to find someone I admire and he/she admires me as well and we share same interests. I love talking, speaking, yet there is no stage for me to talk to speak, talking to myself is too much "me" involved, I need to talk to people, people that I'm interested in, and there are a few of them out there.

Smart car

Cars are going to integrate with personal computer, cars can connect to internet, talk to other cars, provide entertainment and driving assistance, produce large amount of data.

About spending---who buys the expensive stuff?

My father is really cheap in terms of spending on general stuff. He used to buy a whole bunch of cheap pencils thought that he took some advantages, but turned out the pencils don't write at all. Almost anything he buys will break in no more than a month because he always buy the cheapest.

"The expensive clothes and shoes and gadgets are all manufactured in the same factor with the cheap ones, it's all a difference of the distribution channel." this is his wisdom.

But seriously, there are a lot of brand stuff that are just slightly better, either it's established in the business, having better customer services, better design or took monopoly in that technology, but the price could be ten times more than a non-brand product.
I most time just go with the non-brand ones and just satisfy the basic needs, like headphones, I'd rather get a 15 Euro one than a one hundred Euro one, since I'm not living on listening to stuff.

So, question is, who buys those over priced brand product?

The average income of Italian citizens is about 25k US dollar a year, breaks down to a 2k a month, which means taking 1k monthly necessities they still have plenty to spend, you can buy an expensive computer every one or two month if you tight your belt a little bit. And that is just "average".
Think about there's a smaller group of people we call middle class, who earns some more than 2k a month, maybe 3-5k, and this group of people are those really buy all the brand products.
Economy is like many circles intersecting each other. Living on 1k Euro monthly, my father of course can't stand spending money on any big brand, he thinks they are stealing from people. But there are people who can make way more and they are more entitled to consume higher class stuff. And that's enough for the economy to run, enough for the big companies to grow even bigger.

Mentality in working life

Back in the days when I was unemployed, I had plenty of time just being alone in a quiet environment and not to worry too much what's happening next. I had all the time I needed to think about life, think about my attitude towards life yet nothing very valuable really came to form.
Now I'm busy at work and rarely get some free time, so it's time to summarize what I feel what I think from the perspective of a working person, does it make any difference to me as a student?

What made me happy when I was just a student:
1.good food
2.party time
3.being with friends
4.gaming
5.reading
6.watching videos/films
7.buy cool stuff

What makes me happy now when I'm working:
all those things above, plus FREE TIME

Now I've got more money to buy, but less time to consume, the combination is always a tradeoff, you either possess more time or money, you can hardly get them both together as a young man just started your career.

Mentality is important.

These days I've been using Wolf of Wall Street theme to psych myself up before go to work. I listen to the soundtrack from the movie and real Jordan Belfort's speeches, I tell myself that I'm going to make money, to confront the clients, to master the art of being professional. I do the hum song on my way to work. And my ambition grows as I did so, I think bigger and further when I try to relate myself to the "wolf", I see more possibilities than just working for someone all my life and make no more than 20k a year, I want 10 times of my current pay, 200k a year. I want to take charge of a hotel or apartment on my own,  be on my own, maybe still pay my partners but it would be working on my own schedule, working for myself.
It's just a month since I got this job. What do I feel about the job? It's a start up, full of possibilities, new partnership just brought in new opportunities for us as a player in this business. The working environment is lax and flexible(but most of the time I over work), relationship with colleagues and boss is simple and we love each other. About business ideas, I may have my own way of thinking but that's not my business, I only take orders and get things done on behalf of my boss. It's challenging, not boring daily desk-sitting job. The pay is very generous for a student yet not satisfying when considering my ambition and potential. So overall I like the job very much, especially the first a few days I was very excited, but after a month the enthusiasm just faded away inevitably, now I feel like having more free time, I demand more control on my own.

To be happy, you just make yourself think that you are happy.

Do a meditation with me, think about your job tomorrow, there must be something exciting about it, either new challenge, new events, new faces or just think about the pay, there must be something in it. Everyday you are growing stronger and more independent, every day's hardship will reward you in the future, it will all build up to your future ideal career.
Give yourself a smile, because you are doing a heck of good job!


About spending

After I got the job, I was so excited, I thought I was suddenly rich, I counted on the future pay, like some sort of credit in my mind, I started to spend in advance, I purchased this surface pro 3 that I'm using to write this blog right now, and just installed Skyrim last night (this is an amazing tablet-laptop hybrid). The four weeks since I got the job I spent €1,816.55 including the surface tablet (965Euro), 250Euro rent, 138 Euro for yearly stay permit application in Italy.
Why do I spend so much? Mentality. Instead of rational spending and saving, I thought, now my income just increased about 10 times, so my expenditure should be allowed within 10 times as much as before... but wrong, before I got support from my parents, I tried to save every penny for them, now I'm on my own but still I need to save every penny for myself.
Next month, my second four weeks, I'm gonna try to do some saving, control my spending. Well, rent is 290 Euro cannot be changed, food probably takes up to 300 Euro, then there's 800 Euro left, it's quite a big amount, even bigger if I ever know to save and prepare for investing.
But it's just unrealistic to save all the 800Euro, let's say my goal is to save 500 Euro next four weeks. Add 500 Euro every month on my bank account not the other way around! Let's get started!


day dreaming: one day I will make 10,000 a month and won't mind whatever I bought any more

Less and Less Free Time

One month ago, when I count my free time I count days.
Now I count free time by hours.
Finish work a bit early is a thing worth celebrating, thinking of a few extra free hours before tomorrow's work I feel excited.

A full time job suddenly changed my life routine (lazy routine).

Working at hotel does not allow you to get more pay if you work more. It all depends on the reservations. So we work hard on marketing, expecting more people to check in, to fill our calendar up, but still we get only fixed monthly salary.

Running one apartment is enough to feed three people, just think about all those real estate owners, they can just sit home and count money without effort. The bigger the company is, the easier you can control everything. When the company is small, you have to micro manage everything, it will exhaust you if you don't upgrade your size soon enough.

But once my company grew big, where will I be? Do I still maintain the website, take care of guests and handle email? Or will I be promoted to manage one of the property? I don't know where am I going on this path of career, I wish there will be someday I step back to behind the scenes. But it will be a long hard time before that.

Next short term goal: save up to €10,000, master more skills
middle term goal: invest money into financial market, capital market.

What is the purpose of life? Unpractical university study

1. Working has become my life these 22 days.

Parties? no more.

Now I wonder if it's possible to continue my work while studying.. or to say continue my study while working.

What's the purpose of life? That day I talked about this topic with my friend. His answer is to travel, to be with nature, enjoy life. My answer is the opposite, I want to make more money to prove my value and power, making money is like the score you gain when you play the game of living in a society, that itself is a fun thing, not because money can buy things, but because accumulating money or proving your power of making money triggers something in your brain that makes you satisfied.

Another question, making money and spending money, which one do you like more?

2. I really want to complain, the theories we study at university is simply not practical, they are just useless in real battle field, it's like teaching you all the theories about how and why weapons are made and never teach you to use them. that's exactly the thing you realize when you are enrolled in economics and management course at college.
My ideal education for university is, to divide people into two groups, volunteerly, one group is theorist, they are taught all the theories we are taught right now, they are meant to become scholar, professor, analyst or others, and another group should be put right into business practice, put them into a job, retail, real estate, tourism, manufacturing, design, whatever you have in your local community, putting your students in real world situation to train them is the best thing a university can provide their students.
I study economics and management, and I don't find anything from my textbook useful in my real life work in hotel management. I mean, all those theories are like some kind of summary, instead of a method, you can't apply any of them to your job, you only write them down like a log after your work. We students are taught all those things smart people left us through out hundreds of years society evolution, they are valuable but not helpful.
To learn real things, you need to learn from your colleagues, your supervisor, your customer, your daily handling situations, not from abstracted concepts and definitions.

3. What is the purpose of your life?
I used to believe, my life purpose is to explore the secret of universe, to unveil the mystery of beings, to get engaged into a conversation with "God", the eventual power source of the universe.
Well it's still our purpose, the entire human being as a whole share the same purpose of existing, that is to discover the unknown behind our existence.
But now I'm looking more closely to those things that are really near and big in my life, how to survive, how to make money, they are vital, they are relevant to my living.
Infact, if I had enough money I could really dive into the world of discovering unknowns, even if not to invest billions into science, at least having a piece of peaceful place to focus my own mind on philosophy, to read and think and write.
The reason why I chose economics as my major now, is because I loved philosophy and poetry. Oh, how come? I used to write a lot of poems, long series of poetry, imitating Faust and Also Sprach Zarathustra, trying to touch on grand topics such as God, life, universe, unknowns etc. I wrote really a lot, but in the end I felt empty, I exhausted my imagination and I started to looking into myself, what did I have, to be qualified to write things. I had not much. So that was my limit, if I ever want to move further, I had to dive into real life, real social life, to party, to work, to know how to get to upstream in this world, to experience things that I couldn't or didn't. So studying economics is a good way to get real, right? That's why I chose economics, and I found a lot of fun in this area.
I wish I knew everything about money, about banking, about all kinds of indicators on news, knew what is really going on under the cover of news' words.
Maybe someday I would wonder, what was worth my youth in my job? Was that really worth the pay I got?

4. I don't know the answer of "do you like Venice?". I have no answer now. This island traumatised me, all worst things ever happened to me happened after I came on to this island, yet I also discover many good things such as my friends and job. I know losing stuff is not the island's fault, it's Mafia's fault probably. How do I regard this island? It's complex, I live here, I'm numbed about its beauty, I don't sigh about the beauty of the island, I don't get amazed, I'm used to it, like old couple being together for 50 years. What am I excited about living here?
I wish I could live on land, not island, I want to ride bike, I want to run on street without climbing up and down any bridge, I want to pursue endless horizon, not the edge of artificial island. I'm not happy with living in Venice considering the environment, I need to get back on earth, dry place, plants, beautiful sky with clouds...
Sottomarina looks so beautiful, I wish I could live there, but I work in Venice.

My First 2 Weeks of Being an Employee

There was a post to promote our company on this blog but I just deleted it, because I thought this should be purely a personal blog, just about me, and what you find here can only represent my own personal opinion. I'm building a website for my company, it's not like that we don't have a place to post articles, so, that post is gone.

For a long time I thought having an official job is quite a distant thing to me, not only because I'm still at college, but also because of lacking confidence in social life.
My father has been nagging around for 5 years about me finding a job, every summer or winter break, every time go to a new place, he always tell me "try to apply for some jobs, go from office to office, shop to shop, to ask for an opportunity". I applied some jobs when I was in Germany, didn't turn out to get any of it (cleaning, painting, sorting goods etc), but I never really went out to see people, to talk to anyone face to face. I had fear. A lot of fear, a lot of thoughts, what if they don't need me, what if my German is so bad that they didn't understand me, what if I need to run around for documents, what if ... mostly it was because I wasn't confident in my language and communicating skills. I mean, I'm a people person, I get along with a lot of people, I have a lot of friends and I make friends at fast pace, it's just whenever thinking about confronting supervisor, colleagues and customers, I feel nervous all over me, from every single hair on top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I feel uncomfortable.
So I really thought I would never be ready for a job.
I had job as my father's assistant in filming and photographing industry, but it was nothing. I had jobs as private English and Chinese teacher but neither of these two languages made me enough money to say "I'm on my own now".

Opportunities sometimes come in strange ways.

A friend of mine met a young lady on street, she immediately thought that lady should be quite extraordinary judging on her young age and elegant dressing choices, so my friend went up straight to speak to that lady, turned out they became closest friends now, and this young lady introduced my friend to a hotel to work as receptionist and eventually through my friend's recommendation, I'm working for this young lady right now.

So here I am, landing a job in hotel and tourism industry.

It's been 17 days in this job.

At first I got the recommendation because I speak Chinese, English and German, which is important to their open-to-the-world business. First a few days I was just learning the online booking systems, handling emails and translating all the documents and copywriting into English, Chinese and German, plus some cleaning and furniture moving tasks. Soon enough I started to unveil my potential skills, stretch the range of my tasks and extend my touch on multiple aspects, there are ideas sparking all the time. First I helped them to set up social media account, twitter, tumblr, then later Youtube channel, mostly it's me behind them posting stuff when I'm home free. Then I also showed them my photographing and film producing skills, I'm responsible for a big part of photos and videos we post on social media and website. Recently I'm working on our website. One day I thought, since we are doing business in luxury hotel industry, it's impossible to convince people without a legit website of our own! I proposed that we need a website, then they discussed to find someone to build a web. That night I built one website on my own, using a online website creating platform that I heard from a podcast I love very much(shout out to all the sponsors in podcasts!). I created a demo and it looked elegant and beautiful, my boss was definitely impressed, so naturally making website's responsibility fall on my shoulder. One day I saw a logo of us on facebook, it's plain boring and ugly, turned out it's my boss hired a architect designed. I was amazed by the ugliness out of an architect's hands, so I drew a draft on my own with freshpaint on my newly bought Surface Pro 3, turned out it looked very natural and nice, I showed my boss and she immediately loved it and asked me to draw more. So you guessed it, we dumped that architect and started using my logo. Well you can't find the logo on our website but it's our youtube channel profile, because the style doesn't fit in the website, maybe we'll make some adjustment on the logo later someday. Another idea of mine, also got great support from my boss, is to shoot a series of videos to show tourists how to reach any significant places in Venice from other points, to build a virtual street path guide, so that we can brand ourselves along with these helpful videos. Our partner, another boss totally loved this idea and they are encouraging me to do it.
Right now I rarely have much face-to-face contact with our clients, I still handle a lot of emails because my English is the best in the company, and most customers are from all over the world, whose best choice of language is English in Venice. Anyway, I still lack the confidence when I had to deal with customers face to face, I just don't know how to behave around customers, especially that they are all "higher class", since they can afford our super expensive luxury resort. If they are just ordinary people like me it wouldn't be so much a problem, but now I'm feeling so not comfortable to be around them. (my boss on the contrary is super confident when confronting customer, once there was some conflicts with our customer, I couldn't do nothing but to let them dump their anger on my head, thought this was the end of either our business or my own career, but later my boss came and effortlessly took care of the situation and solved the problem. My admiration towards her skyrocketed since that day, that's exactly what we often say "blahblah like a boss")
Last my boss wants to send me to train as a tour guide, I'm not really sure about this. On the one hand, if I get a certificate it's a life long benefit, and being a tour guide makes you a lot of easy money in Venice, also it will further enhance my personal value in this company. But on the other hand I have absolutely no interest in tourism and sightseeing, I myself am famous for not caring about anything famous or historical whenever I come to a new city. So, being a tour guide is like trying to do something I absolutely don't care and have to do it well. 
I've already spared a full time translator and customer service guy, a visual designer, photographer (potentially) and film producer, social media marketing manager and a website builder for my company!
I think I'll try to do the tour guide thing, just for money, which I need badly, and to further stablise my roll in this place.

My father finally stopped nagging around, I don't even have much time to talk to him. I don't know if I could handle a full time job after my next semester begins, I actually prefer working to studying at university, what we got from the professors is all empty and hollow, here in this job I'm discovering my abilities like never did before.

Ok, now finished my blog, which I haven't had time to write for quite a while. I can make no more youtube videos, write no more long long poetry, go no more night parties as I used to do a lot, the pay has not even reached the average salary in Italy but it's okay considering we are start-up. It will be worth it, after all I never had a serious job before my 24, spending tons of money of my parents to study abroad, now it's time to pay the debt and finally to claim to the world that I'm on my own. My dream came true, you see, I don't even speak Italian.

An Ending

We human, never want it to be end. We human, always want it keep rolling As if the downslope is endless stretching all the way to infinity Going up, going down when get bored, make a turn human, like fish in the water eager for air yet not living in the air. And we human, always wanted an end for others' story we are curious we want to murder, we want to lift, we want to despise we want to be God, see through everything to know every possible ending of their destiny

The Life We Can Afford

我在高中时曾深受林清玄作品影响，开始学习品味生活，琢磨道理，发现生活细节中的真善美。

我会捧着一本他的书，坐在家里一个角落里，自己沏一壶茶，非常简陋，一边读书一边“品茶”。

没有风景，没有与大自然的亲近，没有上等的茶叶茶具，不懂得如何体会茶味，我告诉自己，生活不一定要身处上游，得了一切才能美好，简单，无知也可以体会生活的美，正所谓不求甚解。

时常无中生有般地生发感触，开始抒发情怀与感想，最好搭配着最喜欢的最古典的中国风流行乐，非常自得其乐。

如此生活，正是无忧无虑的最好状态。古人大概如此度过了许许多多的日子，可今人恐怕没有这样好的运气来享受悠闲。

悠闲是有代价的。我转身忘了悠闲，忘了细节中的感触，开始关怀实际，关怀大环境，关怀人生宇宙。转头抛弃了打磨筛检过的语言，曾在海边拾贝般地琢磨，都被最后的浪头一点一点吞没，毫无痛苦地。

于是，我过着一种新的生活。向上看着，向未来期盼着，伸手去接着……

I know that life wasn't the one I could afford.

Nokia Lumia 530 -- Review

My older phone has been having problems, it's a small Chinese brand, pretty powerful phone but after two years issues started coming up, the touchscreen keyboard isn't working well, some letters literally cannot be typed, neither can Enter button, then you know it's time to say goodbye to this phone. external buttons are getting old as well, have to push really hard to light screen up. Most annoyingly is that it's Chinese operating system called Yun OS, which is based on Android but many world main stream apps are not supported, especially google's apps are impossible to install on it (because I can't use Google Play Store on the phone).

I went to Mediaworld and I went for Nokia/windows directly, it's been in my mind for quite a while, my laptop is windows 8.1, my tablet is also windows OS, now if my phone is also windows, everything will just match up. 

There were two Lumia 530 respectively labelled 59.99 Euro and 69.99 Euro, but they are exactly the same except one is green another one is orange. I asked the staff what's with the price difference, he told me that there's absolutely no difference, just that the one with orange shell is on promotion, so it's 10 Euro cheaper... What? Just because of the color? Don't people like orange color? 

http://www.microsoft.com/it-it/mobile/telefoni-cellulari/lumia530/?&dcmpid=bmc-src-google.Brand

Here is the link to the official site of Lumia 530, the official price is 79.99 Euro?

Some statistics: 4'' display (fairly small but I don't really mind, I'm not a mobile reader or gamer)

4 GB internal memory (this one looks really humble, although I hardly use even half of the 16 GB storage in my previous phone, this one left me only 1 GB free space after system taking up other 3GB, so I put a 32GB SD card in it)

5.0MP Camera (seriously, I have no idea about this parameter, 5 million pixel, I just looked it up, although it still doesn't mean anything to me. Honestly, the camera sucks, don't count on this camera to snap good photos, it's purely practically functional, but it's enough for me, considering I've got some real good video/photo cameras)

Windows 8.1 OS, love it, I'm a windows 8 fan, it's just so futuristic to see all the colorful tiles on screen instead of traditional matrix of apps. 

So far this gadget just feels so right in my hand, I love it. It's nothing attractive to those of you who are really into those new, powerful, multifunctional mobiles, it's low end, practical, fully functional smartphone, it's just perfect for me, I don't even think about asking for more, there's nothing else I really NEED from a smartphone.

  

Why we work so much? Keynes' 15-hour working week prediction

"Back in 1930, Keynes predicted that the working week would be drastically cut, to perhaps 15 hours a week, with people choosing to have far more leisure as their material needs were satisfied."
However that's so not the case of today, is it? We work from Monday to Friday still, and even more over time working, it's not rare to see in the news that some young talent worked to their death at desk. 
How come? We have achieved way greater economy size and material richness, how come we didn't realize the prediction of Keynes and still work so much that we literally work ourselves to death? 
Essentially it is because of our human nature. 
Wait... isn't human nature pursuing leisurely life? If nobody tells you to, you probably wouldn't go to work, if it's not that you have to feed your family, you probably just want to lay on sofa and watch TV all day long? 
Yes, it is true that we have the laziness in our nature. But there's another side of our nature that can easily be ignored, that is the pursuing of higher level enjoyment and mental satisfaction.
Speaking of higher level enjoyment, we surely can feed ourselves well if everybody just work 2-3 days a week to earn the necessities and never worry about other things. But it isn't what our world looks like. We feed ourselves well, then we would come up with new ideas, new goals, new ambitions, we would try new things, invent new things, create new things, all of these cost times and effort. Getting fed well is never human's main goal, we want to feed ourselves not only food, but also tastes, exoticism, superiority, luxury...  and greed drives us to create more temptation for others while we are tempted by something else, we want more money, accumulate more wealth, so we create stuff we didn't have to own. One shirt is enough to cover your body in summer, but people don't just have one shirt in their closet, that's because they have higher level of demand than just covering themselves. That demand, is the source of endless labor of human beings. One guy created something really appealing, he sets a high price, the others then must work more to get that piece of new item, and in this way our standard of living has been constantly lift higher and higher as economy grows. That's why we will NEVER reach a stage where we'll work significantly less hours than today we do as a whole.
Secondly, there's the psychological thing playing trick on us, we want to be better, not just better than where we were 100 years ago, but better than our peers, as a lawyer, I must make more money than other lawyers, a doctor, I want to be more successful than other doctors... this kind of competition is another main engine drives us working endlessly harder and harder. We are all like the rabbit with a carrot hanging in front of our face, keep chasing, but never reach it. The bigger the carrot is, the faster and more "tiredlessly" we chase after it. Rich people might choose working over enjoying leisure since their pay per hour is so high that they may even consider having some time off isn't worth it. 
And it is fun to do so, it is fun to pursue, to compete, to leave the past far behind, to explore more seeming unlikely and impossible areas. That's human nature, you can point it out, but you can't say, "it's bad", because that's what drives us forward, that's why we human are different from animals, a soul never gets enough of what he has, a soul never gets tired of pursuing.   

Don't buy anything at PC-Click in Venice!!!

I bought a laptop at PC-Click Venezia out of emergence, HP 250 G3, I paid 400 Euro for that, well actually the price is 275 Euro! http://www8.hp.com/it/it/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=6732462

You go to PC-Click, tell them what device you want, then they make order online (they have very small inventory, almost nothing significant at store) and once the item arrived they tell you to pick up or send to your door. But wait, what's the point of asking somebody ordering online for you when you can just go to Amazon on your own, and find much more reasonable price. Yeah, PC-Click charge quite a lot of commission, if you compare same items from them and from Mediaworld, you'll see the difference is big.

I once ordered a Canon Legria mini x at the store, I waited whole month but the item was still not shipped yet! And I was in a hurry to use that gadget, I was working on some video projects. So in the end I cancelled the order, the customer service was very nice though, no hard feelings.

It's just unreasonable to shop there, it's expensive, it's slow, unless you are really too lazy to go to shopping malls in Mestre, I don't recommend you to shop there.

Some price comparison:
1.at Mediaworld.it

 2.At pc-click.it

99Euro vs 150 Euro

not just this item, if you don't believe me, go search anything in your mind, at pc-click is way more expensive.
I think Pc-click is treating people like idiots.
Never go there!

Online dates fight on street because the girl isn't as beautiful as in picture

http://video.sina.com.cn/p/news/s/v/2015-07-24/123365043169.html
This is the video clip of the whole incident, a girl and a guy are arguing and having some physical conflicts from time to time.
The girl is from Chongqing and the Guy is from Northeast of China.

After meeting each other in real life, they both got disappointed at each other's appearance. Obviously they photoshoped their pictures during online dating period.

In the middle the man attempted to stop the video taker taking the footage but the video taker didn't give a fuck and said,"fuck you", keep recording.

In the end the man pushed the girl onto ground and left. 

Whose fault is it to find your online "soulmate" turn out to be a ugly frog? 

And by the way, similar news seem come up every now and then, and more people still keep falling in it.

Man Masturbating On Bus Got Caught

July 23, in Mianyang, a southwestern city of China, a man is caught exposing his genital on a crowded bus. The victim found him getting closer and closer to her, she instinctively moved away and touched some liquid on her skirt, turned out to be the man's sperm. 

Now this man is arrested by the police, only be found that he's both deaf and mute, can't even read, it is unknown about his motive behind the disgusting action, but I guess there's no need for an answer, it's quite clear that the inner animal of the man got unleashed in a twisted way as a result of poor education and probably psychological problems. 

source: 绵阳 (微博)广播电视台 

Live-streaming is available for GoPro!

picture from http://www.cultofmac.com/237862/gopro-can-now-wirelessly-transfer-photo-and-video-to-an-ios-device/

We are one little more step closer to the future, GoPro live-streaming launches via Meerkat.

Meerkat is a mobile app that enables users to do live video streamingover the web service Twitter, sending video to their Twitter followers.

check out the twitter account to see the announcement https://twitter.com/AppMeerkat

l GoPro will be connected to the app through bluetooth, and while you taking the adventure, either battling with huge waves or jumping into a cliff, people share the thrill instantaneous with you, it will be like your audience experience your experience, at the same time when you experience it.

Also, imagine what it can do for our benefit, some risky professions may require it as a instant message deliver. A fire-fighter rushes into a huge fire, people can see exactly what's going on in there and even to know the safety of the fire-fighter himself. Sounds like Hollywood movie, right? Special agent crawls into some building's tube with camera on his head and his assistants sitting in a van nearby to monitor the situation.

Beside that, it may help to spread some footages that are not easy to keep in some certain circumstances, like in an accident, people can learn what happened even if the GoPro eventually broke in the accident. There are a lot of scenarios that we can think of already, live-streaming with action camera, very sweet combination.

Let's see how big this thing is going to be.

The Glass Castle - The kid got burnt... amazingly vivid memory makes it unrealistic

So, the second chapter of the book is recalling the girl's experience of getting burnt by fire and sent to hospital, how she spend her days in hospital at the age of THREE!

"The nurses and doctors always asked how I was feeling and if I was hungry or needed anything. The  nurses brought me delicious meals three times a day, with fruit cocktail or Jell­O for dessert, and  changed the sheets even if they still looked clean. Sometimes I read to them, and they told me I was  very smart and could read as well as a six­year­old."

Well... do anyone of you remember anything from your 3rd year of your life? I can't. I had an accident as well, if not later than 3 years old then it would also be around 3 years old, I got burnt on my leg and butt, till today, 20 years later, my whole left thigh is covered with a large scar, yet I don't remember a thing about that incident, everything I know is what my parents told me. Is it possible to remember the details of day to day life at your 3 year-old? I doubt it, so many details only made it unrealistic.

What do you think?

... maybe it turned out to be a dream or illusion of the character's, in that case a vivid memory won't be absurd.

The windows | A short story |

It was a Sunday evening, I was taking a walk along Fondamenta Zattere in Venice, it's a long street along the shore. Some musicians are playing guitar and singing, seem part of promoting team for the famous local drink spritz.
I was on my way to see a friend at 8:30, but it was still early, the sun is setting, releasing comfortable warm light. Walking slowly, observing every notable person on the street, some smiling, some taking photos, some watching the sea, some looking at their phones, some waving, some shouting, some laughing and talking, some walking in hurry, some kids chasing each other, some taking water from the fountain...
And there's this guy I noticed, standing right in front of the library of university, holding a black shirt in his hand, his body was facing the sun, so was the shirt he was holding, but he was looking over the canal, seems looking for something, watching something? All the other people just walked by him. After a while he flipped the shirt around, still holding in the same position. The wind constantly comes from southeast, so his shirt was like a flag in his hands, lifting toward west. Then he turn the shirt around again, still, same position, it's like there's something he wants to catch in the wind, or maybe he wants to catch the wind.
I stopped near him, looked around quickly, nobody else seems notice this guy's weird behavior, maybe it's just me? Anyway, I went up to him and asked:
"Hey, man, what you doing here, is it a some sort of performance or something?" I pointed at his shirt.
He frowned very briefly and turned his face to me slowly.
"If you throw me some coins you can call it performance."
"Well, then... is this some experiment?"
"No."
"Oh, okay, haha..." I faked laughing awkwardly as I always do, "sorry to interrupt you, have a nice evening!" Then I walked away.
"I'm counting the windows!" He said in a high volume, I turned around, I've been a few meters away from him, I quickly looked around, instinctively, still nobody seems notice him.
"Sorry, what?"
"I am counting, how many windows are there."
"How many windows where?" I found the answer quite disappointing, he's counting windows? What... why?
"How many windows are there in my sight," He turned a bit around to me with his feet fixed on where he stood.  "if the number is 999, then something interesting will happen."
"What interesting thing?"
"Look at that yellow house next to the church, I'm there, 893 windows, from left to right, almost to the end." He motioned to the direction he was talking about with his elbow, still holding the shirt. The houses look so small since they are far far away from us.
"Well... okay... then I guess there would be approximately 1000 windows? Or 999 windows, as you said." I was confused, I remember when I was kid, my father asked me to come to the balcony to count how many windows are there on a big building in the centre of the town, I could never get it right, every time I lost my focus in the middle, like "15...16...17...where was I?" So I tried to count the windows on the other side of the canal, without even thinking about a reason why I would do that.
After counting to 50, I already lost my patience , I turned to him:
"Well...."
"Shhh...." he stopped me, frowning, looked very serious.
I just stared at his face, he looked nervous, then I looked to the direction he was looking, it's almost the end, the very right end of the horizon.
Finally he breathed out a long breath with a huge relief. "It, is, nine hundred, ninety-nine windows."
"Whaaat... really?" I looked at him, and then I remembered something important, "hey, didn't you say that something would happen once you counted 999 windows?"
"Yeah, but I can't show you, you gotta see it yourself."
"Well, I technically saw it together with you, I saw you counted to 999."
"That doesn't count, I counted 999 windows, that's my number, you might not find the 999th window, you might find only 998 windows and you'll get frustrated that you miss counted one, then you count it again, it's still 998 windows, then you will wonder what is wrong... well, anyway, you might not find the 999th window.
"Here," he gave me his shirt and stood one step back, "you must hold this shirt like I did, and stand exactly where I am, because this is the exactly right spot."
I obeyed and took the shirt, looking at the very left side, trying to find a reasonable start point, then a question popped up in my head:
"Hey, wait, how long did it take you to count to 999? I got an...." as saying, I turned around and found him disappeared, "...a.. appointment." I murmured the last word. He's gone, nowhere to be found, not on the left side of the street, not on the right side, definitely not in the library, he can't be that fast, it was like only 2 seconds, no one can be that fast.
I took a deep breath and started counting, from the very left side.
I know it seems will take a long time to finish, but hey, counting from 1 to 999, how hard is that, I told myself.
As counting, I smiled to the island, I didn't know why.

Street Life Day 4 End of it

Very little sleep...

It was a local festival last night, fireworks, the noise came to strike my ears from the other side of island, endless boats traffic on canals with loud music and not fading enthusiasm. No place was peaceful.

It's beautiful to see how the sky turns bright from dark at sea. At first it was vague, just swallow some stars, like seeing a little light behind paper, then more and more clear, then the sun shows up, warm color, wind became warmer, then blue sky, a whole new day.

It's impossible to live a life totally disconnected to human society. I tried three days of homelessness but the situation I handled wasn't the worst at all, I had free access to public toilet at university(thank to my student card), free wifi near uni buildings. All these are something I can't live without. I can't pee on street, can't not use social media and network contact people. I lived on street, yet still enjoyed music, podcast from my earphone, watched videos, movies on laptop...
So, what if, cut all the connection with human society for a day? What would happen? No phone, no electricity, no signal, no any affair, just sit there, enjoy the day. What do people do, when they do nothing? What do people think, when they say nothing?

4th day, hung out with friends despite the fact that I haven't had shower for four days and I bet I stunk. After that I went to friend's home, well, here I am right now, took a shower, changed clothes, had a good night sleep, home sweet home. You appreciate something more, things that we usually take for granted, when you have the experience of not having it.

I washed my shirt yesterday in library bathroom, and it won't dry in library, so I took it outside, standing right on the street, holding my shirt in the air, with the help of wind, I looked like catching fish from the air, then flip, turn around, turn over, flip over, keep holding in the sunshine... I must look very stupid there.

Street Life Day 3, ich bin homeless seit schon drei Tage

Heute ist der dritten Tag.

Es ist Sonntag, und Sonntag ist night so gut für mich, eine Person die lebt von öffentlichen Bibliothek. Die Toilett, die AC, die Sitze, die Steckdose, d Wifi, alle brauche ich, aber am Sonntag öffnet die Bibliothek nicht so lang wie andere Tage.

Gestern Nacht hatte ich kaum geschlafen, weiß ich nicht warum aber ich war über-sensitive und fühlte mich ganz unsicher, jeder 2 Minuten müsste ich mal meine Augen öffnen and herum zu blicken, nur dann fühlte ich besser ... für nur 2 andre Minuten.

Ich hatte 4 Episodes von Earbiscuits auf meine Handy heruntergeladen, hörte ich wieder under wieder. Ich habe auch versucht ein Movie zu gucken aber mein Laptop Battery ging aus bevor der Schluss des Films.

Heute war ich in ganz schlechte situation, müsste ich auf Toilett gehen aber keine Gebäude der Universität waren geöffnet am Morgan, dann ging ich auf der Toilett auf Bahnhof, 2 Euro gekostet... ma, besser als ins Shorts scheissen.
Dann... bin ich in viele Geschäfts gewesen, wie z.B Tiger, super schön klein Shop, du findest alle interestante, neugerige kleine Sache. Mein Hauptziel war ein Sunglasses, fand ich so viele und so günstig, nur 4 Euro! Auf der Straße ist so jede Brille zumindest 10 Euro! Hatte ich gar nicht gedacht, dann kaufte ich ein paar. Dann bin ich auch in Buchgeschäft gegangen, ein Französisch Textbuch gekauft, auf Italienisch, damit ich nicht nur Französisch aber auch Italienisch lernen könnte!

Am Nachmittag kam ich in der Bibliothek endlich, habe ich mit meine Eltern gechatted, über viele Probleme gesprochen, sehr mütig aber erfolgreich auch, wir verstehen sich uns besser nach diesem Gespräch, glaub ich.

Ja das ist alles für der Tage Drei, heute Nacht wird der Beginn des Vierten Tages!

--------------------
July 20 2015 add:
this writing is quite confusing... I had a bad morning on 19th, Sunday, not on the "third day" which is actually 18th, Saturday. I started on 16th, Thursday, in the morning I cleaned up apartment and carried a lot of stuff to my friends, then gave two English lessons, moved out in the afternoon, started my first night being homeless. Then 17th, second day, second night, 18th third day, third night,
19th fourth day and ended homelessness. The time was confusing probably because I always write about the previous day on the next day.

Fighting the Venice island | Street Life Day 2

This artificial island under my feet has humiliated me on the very first day I arrived, caused huge misery and trauma to me, and also to my family, on new year's eve it attempted to rob me again but I didn't let it happen that time. Me and this false island, are enemy, you didn't kill me, now it's my turn to conquer you!
Sometimes people ask me, do you like Venice? I usually respond "yes of course, it's beautiful" without even thinking, because it's just a polite saying, I don't want to go into detail about how the island stole my priceless personal belongings and thousands of Euro's worth stuff plus cash on the very first day of arrival to every single person who asked. Seriously, don't ask me again whether I like or not Venice, I hate this island, even though currently I'm having a great life here, I'm getting so much familiar with the name, so much bonded with this name....
So, I show you how I survive on the island, see, I can survive, I step on your head all night long, you can't do me no harm any more!
Every piece of brick and stone need to be overcome by me, you time travelling giant monster, people don't know but you are alive, your old old ghost hiding in every gap of the stone, and I am here to battle you, wrestle you, kill you.
And you shall never do harm to innocent again.

Street Life Day 2

The second night became so much easier, it was unexpectedly pleasant.

At first I tried to sleep, but failed due to the consistent attack of mosquitoes anywhere I go. Then I just open my laptop sitting near campus, using university wifi watched some videos, when watching interesting videos time pass really fast. Downloaded 4 episodes of ear biscuits to listen on phone. Sit at the sea, at the back of San Giobbe University building, clean and open, absolutely good place, with cooling wind from time to time.

Yesterday I spent most of my day in library or Uni building, enjoyed as much air conditioning as I could, there's nothing to complain about at all.

Only last night I got activated by the wifi and wind, didn't sleep 2 hours. Right now, tired.

Humans are avatars of higher intelligent beings | Purpose of life?

Human life is a game designed for a higher level beings, our world is a simulation. Just like movie Avatar, we are all "avatars" of somebody higher than us. Their brain process way much more information that we can't even perceive, they try to talk to us would be like we human try to talk to monkeys. Since they are intelligently higher, why do they come into our life (or design our life form entirely) to live us? (everyone of us has a real controller behind us, they are us in the meantime, they live our lives, or to say we live our lives to let them experience our lives. A higher intelligent being may not be able to understand lower being, like we don't fully understand all the other animals on planet earth. Also, if avatar hypothesis were true, there must be a meaning of this avatar program, these higher beings must want to know something from us(their game), there is a purpose of all these that are designed for the users. What animal would you want to be if you have the chance to experience for a day? A bird that flies high? A fish that swims deep in the ocean? They want to experience something. Being human is not just about flying or swimming or any physical experience, maybe they need some emotional perspective from us, they designed us to learn better about love, emotion, spirit and body relation (suppose they don't have "flesh body" but pure energy existence) etc.
Think about it.  

How To Sell Beer To Strangers On Street #streetlife day 1

First night of my homelessness, I attempted something I'm pretty proud about: selling beer to random strangers on street.
Where does the idea come from? Well, simple, beer in pubs is generally expensive, some even dare to sell at 6 or 7 Euro a bottle (660ml). I studied some brands of beer in supermarket, I can sell smaller bottle of beer (330ml) and also bigger ones (660ml). Smaller bottle costs 0.56-0.8 Euro per bottle, I would sell at 1.50 Euro. Bigger bottle usually costs 1.20 Euro, I'd sell at 2.5 Euro.
I bought 7 bottles of variety of beer and carried to one of the most popular hang-out place to sell. Only one sold, and it's sold to a friend at a discounted price.

                            Santa Margherita Venezia, full of young people every night

Problems: 1.definitely huge trust issues, I wouldn't just buy beer from a stranger on street myself
2.The beer is not cold enough: having difficulties accessing fridge (since I'm currently in homeless situation), I bearly had them cooled for an hour and brought there, the only stranger who showed interested lost it after trying the temperature of the beer.
3.Selling skills. I was far from being a smooth talker when I was selling. I got nervous, my voice turned a little "Jesse Pinkman", sounds like I'm selling meth in Breaking Bag. Oh by the way it's way easier to get strangers to trust the weed you sell than the beer on street.

I invested 7.8 Euro, had only 2 Euro of income, 5.8 Euro loss (me and my friends consumed some of the unwanted inventory)... well, I may be back, brothers, I may just be the no.1 beer seller on street next time, what can I lose, I'm homeless, brother.

Street Life Experience Day 1 --- Soul Exchange With Baby Cat

Over 2 a.m, I was walking in my most familiar alley in Venice, a cat popped up his head in my way, staring at me with his light-reflecting eyes. I've been living around here for a year but only seen him once before, he's got very beautiful fur, on the top is grey tiger pattern, half way down below is white. I approached him, he didn't run away, but meowed to me. When I was close enough, I crouched down, he came to me and rub on the side of my leg, the one which is horizontal at crouching position. I tried to stroke his fur but he was still a little cautious, subtly walked away, and then turn around rub my leg one more time, and meow. When I stood up and walked along, he followed me.

I love cats, since my ex taught me how to communicate with cats.

One of the reason I sensed some amazingly mysterious quality in her was because she attracted cats following when we were just taking some strolls on the street. Not just that, she can communicate with cats, which I couldn't, I had never had contact with cats before, except once when I was kid I put my face really close to observe my aunt's cat hiding behind a sofa and got a good scratch on face from her. Well there was one night me and my ex were sitting on grass, beautiful German night, clear sky, wide open grass field surrounded by some small houses and corn field.
Meow...
We heard something, she motioned me to be silent and following the meowing, she found a baby cat, very little, well, not really a baby that little, but just enough to run and meow around. That was adorable, the baby cat was just sitting at a bit distance from us, meowing toward us. What does he want? Well I don't remember how exactly she cast the magic to tame the cat but after a blink she and the baby cat are already playing together. She even tried to teach him to climb up a little tree: holding him up on the trunk of a tree and the cat a little nervously scratching the tree with four paws. In the end he seemed have learn some techniques, just that once he climbs up, my ex has to help him down. First time climbing up a tree, baby cat.
We played with the cat for quite a while, then we decided to leave, unexpectedly the cat follows us faithfully, running right behind us with little rapid steps. This baby cat is lost and he needs a family.
That night the baby cat stayed at my dormitory room, enjoyed some milk and almost kept me from sleeping all night.
"Cats are evil, when you stay in the same room with them alone for a night, they will exchange their soul with yours while you sleep..." she said.
"Whaaaat?" : O I was like this, me when I never knew how to communicate with a cat.
Obviously I bought it even though she's just messing with me. After treating him milk, she returned her dorm, left me and baby cat alone in my room... hm... looking into his eyes, yeah, there is a little bit evilness indeed, if you think that way, well.. ugh... and he stares at me... for what? The purr, sounds scary.... dang it! I can't sleep with the cat staring at me, he's gonna steal my body and become me tomorrow! I locked him up in the bathroom, well, you know what could happen next, he kept meowing and scratching the door begging to be released, but it all only gave me spooky feeling and goose bumps... I got more and more nervous... No way, don't think about it, You are evil, your crying is evil, you are gonna hurt me if I let you out...
Couldn't really fall asleep with the meowing, poor thing, maybe he isn't one of the soul trader, maybe he's too little, still innocent as a cat? I let him out, he climbed on my bed, silent, only purr......
Don't get too close to me! I pushed him backwards, farther from my head, closer to my feet. Then I fell asleep...

Baby cat.

Last night I was walking in my most familiar alley in Venice, only this time without the key to my apartment, well, not my apartment any more, like the first day I arrived here, didn't have a key.
Emptiness filled inside me. I was looking for a place to sleep, on street, I could come up with a lot of solutions based on my daily observe and familiarity of this area. Like a cat, I've got my territory, I disappear in the darkness, no one shall know where I rest, and I come out into daylight after some restless, alarmed false sleep.
The insects and mosquitoes really disturb me, so I moved from one place to another, and another, and another, there's no other homeless people on the street, not even one, but I met four cats in total.
5 a.m I found the best place next to the "sea", sun is rising, a little wind blowing, cooling down the rest of one day's heat, I had a pretty good sleep there, water traffic started as well. Then 6:30 a.m it got kind of cold, I went to sleep on a bench in the sunshine, there was a Jew in black robe, slowly jogging with one dumbbell in each hand, looked really funny.

The other three cats I met all ran away from me, you see, I don't have the magic, at least not always.

I wish I didn't lock you up in the bathroom, I wish I didn't push you back to my feet side, I wish I hugged you while sleep. Baby cat, have I become you? And you've become me?

oya

we used to be like this

baby cat grew up should look like this

and run, kitten, run

 never look back

A Prolog of Street Life

I went to the beach of Lido, swam, enjoyed sunshine, half buried myself into sand.
Then I went to Casino Venezia had free buffet, danced with friends, played €10 free ticket at slot and won 8 euro.
And tomorrow I'll move out and start my street life for 15 days.

I'll be keeping a diary about my street life in library

I'd have so much time to think about the meaninglessness of my life

                                       maybe I could fill something into the emptiness these days

                                                 see you soon

Should teachers/trainers be tough? Is being harsh on students right? | after watching movie whiplash

The movie Whiplash left me thinking about the philosophy of being a mentor of somebody.
You want to pass everything you know onto your student, you want your student to be excellent, you have high expectation, what if your student isn't as good as you require yet? Should you be touch, be harsh, even abusive like in the movie?
I teach English and Chinese and I mostly compliment and encourage my students, let them know that I appreciate what they are doing correctly and then point out the mistakes as well. After watching the movie, I just wonder, what if I get tough on my students? What would happen? Well, I dare not to experiment at the risk of frustrate them or even entirely destroy their interest in the subject.
English for kids, Chinese for college students, probably not something that they are really passionate about, not as much as Andrew Neiman the main character loves Jazz music at least. Being harsh to a student can work, even work very well, only if the student is the right material, the right person, only if the student has the passion, and you are sure that your being harsh can't diminish his/her passion at all, only make it stronger.
I wish I had a harsh tennis coach, for that's where my true passion is.

How's the life of being homeless?

How's the life of being homeless?
I'm about to experience it.
My apartment contract ends on 15th July (today is 14th July), from 16th to the end of July I haven't found any place yet... it is difficult to find an apartment available for only half month's rent...
and also deep inside I feel a bit resistant to finding an apartment, first of all I don't want to pay any more, second, the idea of homelessness seems quite appealing.
There are quite a lot of fountains scattered on the island of Venice, I can wash my faces, drink, brush teeth, all done in public, problems are, I need internet, I need to teach class online, and where should I sleep at night? I've bought a sleepingbag, ready for the worst, but still, finding a peaceful and safe spot out door isn't easy. First of all I'll deposit all my valuable belongings at my friends' home. Then I'm free to sleep wherever I like. What about mosquitoes and other insects who are active at night? Probably I'm gonna keep a pair of earphones in my ear all night to prevent anything crawling into my brain.
Another solution, go sleep at friends' by turn, 3 days at this guy's home, 3 days that girl's place, and there will be basic supplies like water.
Oh right, if I really sleep on street, where do I cook my meal? How am I supposed to eat? Do I eat only ready food from supermarket? So many puzzles about being homeless. Tell you what, it is miserable yet so exciting.
Let's see, 16th July morning I'll move out, onto the street.    

Greece Bailout Crowd-Funding 2nd Round!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-crowdfund#/story

so, the first call failed, of course, a goal of 1.6 billion Euro, simply impossible to achieve by crowdfunding, now second round is open, this time the campaign starter set a goal of only 1 million, meant to recollect the refund just got returned to every donor.

#Greecebailout #crowdfunding

so far 157 thousand Euro is raised again, with 8 days left it's not too hard to reach the goal this time however personally it's frustrating to see the first one fail, the goal was too big to be reached, yet now there might just be more frustrated people, feeling powerless in front of the huge number of 1 billion Euro. Also, more people are possibly attracted to this campaign, so, let's see how this will end up.

update on 14th July 2015, I got the 5€ refund.