Visa: everywhere you want to be

This morning began a little hectic with Athena and I going to the visa office. Turns out that I didn't have a form to declare I worked for MPI. The standard process for getting a form for MPI takes a week. I was hoping to go to Zhuhai with one of my students on Thursday since it's a public holiday, and if I didn't turn my paperwork in today it meant 1)that wasn't going to happen, and 2) I would be without my passport the week of flying to the U.S....which would make me a little uneasy. Athena had even more issues. It turns out that since she is Chinese-American (born in America), her race requires her to have a copy of her birth certificate and a letter stating her parents' situation/relationship with China. Igg. It's amazing how race plays such a huge part in so much (costs and benefits alike) in the world.

The middle of the day, I had one of those God moments where I had to confront myself (and answer to Him) about why I was stressing....and there really wasn't much reason. Obviously things weren't going ideally, but it's important to put things in perspective. I shared this with Athena, who was more distressed than me. The letter ended up being done by 1 (a nice guy in admin put special effort to get it done for us), and I should be able to pick up my visa in the morning. Things just worked when I stopped worrying about them. Imagine that.

This afternoon, we had a video recording session at work. There was a professional team of video experts here apparently working on making our school of 2,000 students look top notch. They were very particular to the point it was comical about where the teachers sat and whether there were tables, etc. I was recording with the Bell Center video camera so that we could use it for use specifically for our department. It's those great slow motion clips of trainers walking down the hall that really inspire you...or make it awkward.

Tonight after work, we briefly mingled with an attractive group of well-to-do suits from an image company in the area. It was an art opening for a photography display of Macau. The display was quite impressive, and appropriately named "Macau: Work in Progress." Macau is very much so a work in progress as it continues to grow, grow, grow.

Cantonese class almost put me to sleep tonight, so afterward Athena and I had roomie bonding time getting ice cream sundaes from McDonalds and cookies from the grocery so that we could break positive eating habits, come home and watch 500 Days of Summer--a delightfully truthful break-up love story. How's that for a twist? It was great sharing stories, laughs, music thoughts, masala chai tea from India and the fancy cookies that we purchased. Good times to wrap up a bumpy start to the day. I'm very blessed to live with the people I do.

On that note, pictures:

 All of these are on the walk to Cantonese class. I walk through a street market on the way there as a short cut. It's night time, so many of the shops are closing up. I admire the hard work of the people who run a shop on the street. They have to put all inventory out in the morning only to move it back into storage at the end of the day. The picture above is a shop that continues out into the street. This is a dried goods shop. It seems Chinese like to buy these things to put in soups, though I have no idea what most of the things are. This picture below is a close of of one of the items. I think these are mushrooms, but don't quote me.

 Can't leave home without Kobe, right? He is on a surprising number of signs here, and just because you see Kobe and Nike doesn't necessarily mean it's a Nike store or only a Nike store. Free signage, perhaps?

Have a great day...just do it. :)