i purposely made myself get out of bed early so i could fry an egg this morning to make an egg sandwich. i took off my shirt as i cooked because i didn't want to get oil splatter all over myself. it was a success, and i added some yak meat and sprinkled some salt and pepper to make it more interesting. the egg had some crispiness to it, a lot tastier than my normal hard-boiled eggs.

work was less than interesting, as i dug deep into my busy play acting skills. the work day was punctuated by a one hour cohosting speech meeting at 11:00. neither yuwei or manfred could attend, so it was just sarah and myself, which was what i wanted from day one. we tried to think of a second game to replace the difficult balloon game. i suggested competing charades, which she thought was a good idea as i explained the rules. the only catch is since our audience is composed of many different cultures and languages - we have to pick charade subjects that are known by everyone, but not so easy that they can act it out in a few seconds.

i ate lunch late again after 12:00, i didn't mind, saved me from having to find a friendly table to sit it. i waited in line with sally, the other owner secretary. we chatted a little bit, i asked her where she was from. "guang'an," she told me, which sounded familiar, but i didn't know why. she told me her hometown isn't really famous for anything except being the birth place of one very famous person: deng xiaoping. then it hit me: guang'an is also where loren is from! sally has very classical sichuan female features, pretty face on a round head with high cheek bones. i didn't eat with sally, but when sarah saw me eating alone, she sat down with me. she suggested i go to nanbinglu in chongqing for the new year, that there might be some fireworks. as for herself, she's actually going to hong kong with a guangdong college classmate and his girlfriend. jaded with spending new year with her family, she opted for a vacation instead, much to the chagrine of her parents, who reluctantly consented since she already bought her plane ticket.

after work i managed to catch the medium bus as i got back to changshou by 6:20. i went to the newly-opened king kong vermicelli, which was where xianglian went yesterday for dinner with her coworker. she warned me, "it's very spicy," which, when said by a chongqing person, means it's probably extra spicy. the place was busy, i got a chilly table by the entrance. i ordered the beef vermicelli for RMB$13. it didn't look so spicy because it wasn't red, but it was both very spicy and numb, typical chongqing/sichuan flavor. i kept on coughing because of the strong flavor, and blew my nose numerous time. it was okay, but just borderline too spicy that it didn't seem like comfort food, more like stunt food.

afterwards i went to the chongbai supermarket, but not before i stopped by the large cell phone store nearby. the number of different chinese brands of cell phones is staggering, around 40 if i were to guess. this isn't counting the name brands like apple or samsung, these are just chinese brands, all of which i've never heard. i told the woman there that i wanted a smartphone but i didn't want to spend more than RMB$1000. naturally, she recommended one that was RMB$999, a gionee GN139. from what she showed me it looked impressive: 4GB of internal memory, android 4.2, dual sim-card, miniSD expandable, and a good feel to it. i told her i wanted to look around a bit more (maybe ask some people for advice), but she was applying the vise, saying i should just go ahead and buy it because that's what she'd do.

at the supermarket i was looking for food that i can pair up with my rice porridge. i ended up getting some barbecued duck that they cut to smaller pieces for me. i also bought a glass cover for my pan (26mm), i noticed some spray when i was frying my egg this morning. finally, i got a sponge mop for cleaning the floors of my apartment. up until this point i'd been just going around with a roll of paper towels and a disinfectant spray, which is not only tedious but a waste of paper towels. it's gotten to the point where my floors are dirty enough (mostly dust and hairs) that i need something more effective to clean it.

when i got home i exciting put the sponge mop to work. it came with a replacement sponge, which was good, because i needed it to help me figure out how to take off the sponge that was already on the mop in order to remove the plastic wrapping. the sponge is made from this kind of this rubbery material, and the way i was cleaning was sort of like i was squejeeing the floors. the mop also has a lever which can squeeze dry the sponge for me by folding the sponge in half transformer style. i cleaned off the sponge in the bathroom (wasn't going to do it in either of my sinks - one for food, one for laundry), using the shower head to spraying off the gunk into the floor toilet. the floors were still a little wet afterwards, but i had my AC heat turned on, a short moment later it was dry. the apartment felt a lot cleaner.

on my parents' recommendation, i decided to fry an egg in the evening, for tomorrow's breakfast. that'd give me more time to sleep in the morning. i actually thought about doing that last night, but decided i wanted a freshly fried egg experience. but seeing how hard it is to wake up in the morning, i'm now satisfied with a pre-prepared fried egg.