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i thought i was sleeping early yesterday but i slept for the same number of hours the night before - 6 hours - which means i will be tired later in the afternoon, just like i was yesterday. i did something new this morning: in the 10 minutes i had left before i had to leave the apartment at 7:20 to catch the company shuttle bus, i fried some eggs and yak sandwich meat for breakfast. it can be done but it's a bit of a rush job. maybe if i wake up a little bit early, that'd give me enough time for a normal breakfast, but that'd never happen. today was just a proof of concept.

mr.lee held a meeting today to issue his overly-optimistic a-claim-a-day decree, so we'd meet our end of june deadline. even on the best of days, we can maybe hope to issue 3 a week maximum. he then went ahead and went through all our claims - all 300+ items - reading off the status. we were finally saved 1:30 hours later when some other department had to use the meeting room. ellen was a little concerned afterwards, until i told her this was never going to happen.

lunch was so terrible that i managed to break into my emergency ramen ration afterwards. people were looking at me like i was one of the unlucky few people who wasn't on the office lunchtime dining plan. i ate in front of my computer and didn't get a chance to go outside until after work.

someone (probably XL) put a sign on her monitor saying she'd be on vacation up to the 19th, which meant she wouldn't be back at work until next monday. i'm still confused as to how she can just leave and never once bothered to go online and check up on the status of her office friends. at the very least send me a note. it's hard to understand how people can operate with so little feeling. but maybe the same can be said of me, since i haven't really hung out with the contract department ever since XL left for vacation. granted, i've been busy the past few days, and ever since the printer next to my cubicle broke, i don't get any traffic anymore.

after work i went to the tailor to go pick up my black shirt. the door was locked and when i knocked a few times there was no answer. i did however bump into the tailor as she was returning to her shop. she told me my shirt wasn't ready yet. afterwards i went to the chongbai mall, to the hair salon upstairs to get a haircut. the stylist - no.7 - did an okay job. the best part was the pre-cut washing, sitting on a vibrating chair, getting a scalp massage with a hot towel on the back of my neck as a pillow. all this for just RMB$38. the pretty hostess whom i saw twice before wasn't there this time.

i finally stopped by the supermarket on the basement level to get some white ground pepper and a bag of refrigerated udon noodles. i came home around 8:00 and started making some chicken stock from the leftover clay-baked chicken i had on sunday. into the pot was also some ginger slices, white ground pepper, and a healthy dash of chinese baijiu. no salt was required since the chicken itself was already plenty salty. once the broth was finished (i let it cook for over half an hour), i picked out the bones, added some cabbage and udon noodles to the soup. it made for a good dinner, i wish there was just a bit more meat, but there was enough leftover broth for me to eat chicken noodle soup again tomorrow night.