Cold as Ice

Dear people,

Yes I am still alive! But I have to admit, I was close on not being able to talk to you for a loooong time. To be fair, I had some nasty mixture of a flu and tonsillitis. I had to stay in my bed for the whole last week. Some of you might think that would be pretty relaxed but I got to tell you guys it´s not relaxed at all to boil like a crab when it´s cooked. 39.5 degree was kind of too hot. But never the less I am now perfectly alright…with one exception: IT IS GETTING REALLY COLD!

I have no clue why the weather changed so rapidly but it happened too fast if you would ask me. Suddenly whole Shanghai puts out its winter clothes and is running through the streets trembling, me the worst of all. The worst is that it´s not like in Europe where it is damn freezing during the winter but you have heating in every building and you never need to freeze seriously for a long time, noooo every city south of the Yangtze River is forbidden by the government to have heating. So your only “heating” is the air-con and if it´s a rather old one, like I am lucky to have in my room, sometimes it is not working at all. But not only that I am punished by not having a hot room, my office has no, or they won´t turn it on because of something I-have-no-idea-why, air-condition. So practically the warmest time of the day for me is when I am in the metro and that’s just because I wear my thick winter jacket and there are about 10 million people who want to “cuddle” with you during rush-hour.

But why am I acting like a wimpy child. As my father always tells me “What doesn´t kill you just makes you stronger” ;-)

 So right know I am sitting in my office and I practically do nothing. Fortunately just today is like this. Normally I have to do a lot, ok not a lot but something and I even like it. At the moment I have two tasks. On Saturday my organization is hosting a workshop at our organic farm for about 20 UPS-volunteers. The will learn how to plant organically AND my big task is to tell them something about composting. We will actually build a compost heap and this all as me as the man who is in charge. To be well prepared I read nearly everything about “composting” and “how to build a proper compost” available in the World Wide Web. I hope won´t screw things up too bad ;-)

My second task these days is also related to our organic farm. My superior really wants to have the selling of organic food as a solid financing for our NGO. So I have to do a lot of research, share some ideas and experiences and just do everything related to organic food in China or Germany (as a kind of role model). Sometimes it is a little bit boring but I am looking forward to actually help Summer (my boss) to sel the food and so I see the reason behind all the work :-)

So that’s status quo right know in my life. AHH one thing I nearly forgot…tomorrow two weeks ago I was at a “Boys Noize” concert with a really good line-up as starters. It was so incredible good and I had a hell of night…though I had a bad morning after ;-)

Weekend is Halloween and I am very disappointed that I can´t go around the street and ask for sweets :-( Lets all be tensed about what Halloween is going to be like and how I will figure out to compensate the non-“trick or treat” time!

Now I gotta leave…out of the cold office, on the cold street and finally in the warm metro :-)

Cheers

L.