Dear Diary,

Yesterday morning continued the conglomeration of goodness. I got to open the museum in the morning and "turn on the gallery". I also had to update a blueprint of the gallery, which involved rolling around on the floor and taking measurements. Some tourists were watching me sprawled out on the floor and one of them asked me, "Are you the artist?", to which I replied, "What do you think?" and walked away. It was worth it.

In the afternoon, my co-worker Emily and I hunted down a fashion designer. We wanted him to give a lecture at our museum, but his secretary kept telling us he was busy and he wasn't responding to e-mails. So we figured out where his office was and told them we had an appointment (untrue). On the car ride over, Emily explained that we were going to convince him to come give a talk. So we (she) talked (and I sat pretty) and he eventually agreed to come! Stalking success.

On our way back we walked past the "dating market". Parents bring pictures and "resumes" of their kids and try to find them dates. Any young person can go and get swarmed by over-eager Chinese parents. Terrifying. Emily wanted to take me on Saturday (it runs on the weekend). "I'm not sure I'm on that market," I said.

Then! MoCA has a nice restaurant on its top floor, and holds fancy events. This is important. My co-workers insisted I meet the head chef, Michael. He is a chill dude. When I told him I like to cook, he said I should cook Western food for him some time. I told him I don't have the right ingredients to make anything good enough, and he offered to get them for me! He said he has access to practically everything, and if I get him a list of ingredients ahead of time, we can cook together and him and my co-workers will judge the food. Now the race is on to construct an impressive-but-not-obnoxious menu.

After work I went home, cooked breakfast, and went straight to bed. I am amazed at how exhausting a workday is. I've getting to bed around 10 and waking up at 6. The working life, I suppose?

Today I came in and got started translating an urgent press release. I wish I had more practice translating (there isn't a translation class at Yale), because it's an peculiar thing. It's often not about what the original text actually says or how they said it and more about what the author felt. This dissolves into a game of "what can you get away with" in creatively translating this feeling, and I'm still finding that fine line.

My boss is great. Around noon today, he threw a bunch of bags of candy on the table in the middle of the office and told us to stop working and come eat candy. A little later, I was writing up a document with him at his desk, and as I was making suggestions he kept taking out delicious crackers and feeding me as we worked. I imagined I was the boy in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe being fed Turkish Delight. Mmm.

I’ve been weaseling my way into the marketing section of the office (about three meters away) and had my first event planning meeting, with the owner of Kathleen’s5 (where Lisa works), and one of his clients that wants to hold an event at MoCA. I loved it; it was exactly like a production meeting in theater, except with more talk of food and alcohol and money. Lisa and I are furthering our hopes to plan an event together.

This meeting! Led to us talking with the bartenders. The client was worried we didn’t have Western bartenders/drinks, so they asked me to check out the inventory. I hung out with the bartender and checked out the bar and talked about drinks, and they decided I should make a list of drinks that “white people like” (which made me think of the site “Things White People Like”, but that’s beside the point). I spent over four hours on it, resulting in what I like to refer to as the Western Canon of Alcohol, drawing from lists from several alcohol associations. Best job ever.

I also offered to look into redesigning their light design in their club area. They were receptive.

11am and 4pm are lunch and dinner in the office. The kitchen downstairs cooks us up a simple meal, and all the girls run around yelling, “let’s go eat!” and so we do. Anyone who says American Chinese food is nothing like real Chinese food was proved wrong by today’s meal. We had a delicious rendition of Orange Chicken, and some Egg Drop soup to top it off. I felt right at home, second only to perhaps Ivy Noodle’s Teriyaki Chicken bowl. And then actual home. We usually spend at least a half hour eating and talking, which is a totally unnecessary amount of time. Just the way I like to eat: drawn-out and unnecessarily.

Tonight Team Yale is going out. Tomorrow I have to be up extra early to go greet the Italian Ambassador who is coming to our exhibition tomorrow. All this means a tired David in the near future.