SSAB – February 1 2022
First day of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger! Gong xi ni fa cai! Xin nian kuai le! Hu nian kuai le! Health wealth and prosperity in the new year of the Tiger! Busy day as I spent much of it updating the website. All of January’s audio blogs are up and so are the tracks for Jamuary. Ninety days of creative output (NaNoWriMo, December Drumming, Jamuary) are over for now, next one starts in March. Was watching Saving Private Ryan on Monday, not exactly a festive movie, especially not the opening scene. Chinese studies today: 9/31 or 29%, but I was falling asleep. May have to split up my studies and practice tests so I don’t get bored as easily.
Show notes and tracks up on stevensirski.com.
Hope you’re having a good week so far!
SSAB – February 2 2022
Back pain from the morning gains. Take care out there when swinging the kbells. Chinese studies for the day included vocab review, HSK test prep work and… the Chinese version of Wordle! Takes some time but it’s a good review of the language and culture’s idioms. Finished up December Drumming with Shchedryk, you can find that on my website. Jamuary done, and website updated. Hope you’re having a good week so far! Olympics starting up.
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com.
SSAB – February 3 2022
Thursday already?! Hope this isn’t a hernia. Will get up to do my workout anyway if only at half power. Olympics have started, Chinese female skip speaks in Chinese but screams in English! They are a pretty good team. Spent the day mixing around December Drumming tracks, fixing the metatags associated with the track info. Spent some time going through the Russian grammar book written in Chinese, it helps a little bit.
Website updated, show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com!
SSAB – February 4 2022
Friday night, the night of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Too bad all we can do is watch it on TV like the rest of the world! Though the sport-specific instructional videos are cute. Might take a wander up to the Olympic Park later in the week to see how it looks. Some Chinese done today but not much, focusing on vocab and idioms. Borrowed a book from my neighbour, Interior Chinatown, written like a screenplay. Reviews have been mixed. Re-formatted Jamuary tracks with proper metatags, should have those uploaded soon. Also finally recorded Oct 17 Episode which marked the end of my ChongQing and Chengdu trip last year. Ordered pizza for the Opening Ceremony tonight, so will watch that.
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com! Enjoy the show!
SSAB – February 7 2022
Olympics officially underway but is China, is Beijing, really a winter sport place? Not much snow left on the ground but maybe they are trying to stimulate a new healthy lifestyle? Chinese studies continue, 49% on my practice test. Pinyin Wordle keeps me edutained. Looking to do a livestream of my tracks sometime soon as I’ve now uploaded all of the December Drumming and Jamuary tracks to Bandcamp. Stay warm out there!
Show notes n tracks on stevensirski.com.
SSAB – February 8 2022
TCM places are closed so no go for acupuncture atm. The other place needed a recent negative NAT result. Guess I’m home-remedying this back ache. Olympics, is it too warm already? Lots of people seem to be falling and crashing. Livestreaming and music, which is the best platform? Bandcamp, Single Music, Mandolin or the old favs of YouTube and Facebook? Are NFTs really worth it? Next Episode of the podcast in the works, look for that soon!
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com, have a good week!
SSAB – February 9 2022
At a comedy show, recorded podcast Episode 28, look for that next week. Met some other expats who don’t teach, some good stories. Small success with Automator getting a calendar event to then open up a webpage so I’d be forced to at least look at some Russian studies each day. Why don’t I host my podcast on Spotify? I’ll tell you why…
Show notes and tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a good one!
SSAB – February 10 2022
Life as an expat, is it that easy? Learning languages to help with culture shock. How do we classify different languages? Working on automation both for now and the future. Why I don’t post earlier.
Show notes and tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a good one!
SSAB – February 11 2022
Automation automation automation… for voice, text, video, photo, computer and phone. But how? Looked into using an Android automation program but doesn’t look like anything really feasible. Final Cut editing can be done with XML files, but can also use more keyboard shortcuts through the program CommandPost. How to build an online chat bot that could be a value added service for language learners? Olympics still on and we should be getting snow next week! Thanks for listening this week, five for five high five!
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a good weekend!
SSAB – February 14, 2022
Well Happy Valentine’s Day! Roses are red, violets are blue, it’s cold outside and so are you! Hahaha DELTA research, apparently a lot of people have done it, I’m one of the few who hasn’t Tiananmen Square Sunday afternoon, COLD! Police checking passports of foreigners Today was better with bluer skies Physio appt, can’t proceed till confirmation from another specialist… who works across the city only. Eech Chinese class – new student but she didn’t stay, wants to focus on HSK 5 grammar.
Show notes and tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a great week!
SSAB – February 15, 2022
Reading and learning, management and other responsibilities. Do you have any books you read that, even after a sentence, it spurs you into action? Those are the inspirational books we need more of. Thinking of the DELTA and how best to approach it, do I even need to do it or could I just read the books? How else can I leverage it? Podcasting, hope you’re enjoying. New Episode should be up soon. Hope you’re having a good week so far!
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com.
SSAB – February 16 2022
Out for dinner with a former colleague who is moving to Hong Kong for a new job. Talked about job transitions, education and what I would have done differently in my 20s! (Ok Old Man!) HSK studied a bit, vocab and text reading. Worked a bit on Episode 28, wait for that later this week. Sometimes we forget, being an expat can be pretty cool if challenging, and we have to make the best of our situations and opportunities.
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Happy Wednesday!
SSAB – February 17 2022
What’s going on in Canada? Is it true they can just take the money out of your bank account? Iunno, I thought it was a bunch of truckers protesting in the capital like the USAmericans did last year? In other news, TEAM CANADA WOMEN WON GOLD IN HOCKEY! Why is this not being talked about more? That would be because… no one is talking about the Olympics at all. Even here in Beijing. Episode 28 in the final stages of prep, should be out very soon. Will be posting vidz this time too! And what happens when you use an Olympic mascot for your own gain? You get smacked with a charge of IP theft. But they’re soooo cuuutttee!
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com, have a good one!
SSAB – February 18 2022
What do you do while you’re editing a podcast? Make banana bread! Done and done with Episode 28 of my podcast. Featuring writer and comedian Donnie Fan, we talk about life in China, the state of comedy, and what’s planned for the future. Now available on my website for download. Took much of the day to fix up some issues but was also able to publish some video clips from the Episode so that is a step forward. Made banana bread while waiting for things to finish up. Had no butter so used apple sauce. Had no flour so used waffle mix. We’ll see how this turns out! And let’s not forget about that Olympic mascot… he now has an NFT! And did someone make Bing Dwen Dwen imprints for face masks?!
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a great weekend!
SSAB – February 21 2022
Olympics are over! Canada is fourth in terms of total medals! Eleventh according to gold medals! Paralympics start March 4th. Want to go see Olympic Park to see what’s open. Will Russia invade Ukraine (again? still?)? How will that affect future work plans? Still worth doing the DELTA? Interesting they played the Greek national anthem at the end of the ceremony. Monday morning workouts are hard to get motivated for, so… how to change?
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com! Have a good week!
SSAB – February 22 2022
Palindrome and ambigram day! 22.02.2022, or how do you write it? Russia declares parts of Ukraine as now part of Russia. Read Sergy Plohii’s book Gates of Europe for some background on this. World War 3? I read George Friedman’s work on geopolitics for a better understanding. Hope this isn’t the end of the freedom we’ve had to travel wherever for so long. Is it easy to avoid these discussions as a traveller?
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a good one and stay safe out there!
SSAB – February 23 2022
Some DELTA books arrived, will start studying Sad to hear that some more colleagues are thinking of leaving after being here for only a short time. I don’t blame them. Why keep studying Chinese? It’s just become a goal of mine. Donetsk and Luhansk were recognized as break away republics from Ukraine, several other countries (all Russian allies) lauded the move. Question becomes, how would you unify a country with which a certain part, whether truly independently not wanting to be a part of things or not, doesn’t want to be there? It seems like the region is lost forever. Thinking back to my time in Ukraine. Should have stayed longer, but no money. So, how long does one stay in a country? I have a note scribbled here ‘when does it all go wrong’, but I can’t remember what I thinking about. I’m sure it was something prophetic. March Motion coming up, still haven’t done those live streams yet, but am in the process of booking the next podcast.
Show notes and tracks up on stevensirski.com. Happy hump day if you can.
SSAB – February 24 2022
Where did the evening go? Checking in on people. Russia has now officially invaded Ukraine, what a surprise that was to see at 11 am this morning. What are the repercussions for us over here? Should we be packing? How will this be resolved? Building up an online presence in case there is another gap in employment. What else to prepare? Investment maxim: buy when there’s blood in the streets. Does this count?
Show notes and tracks on stevensirski.com. Slava Ukraini! Слава Україні!
SSAB – February 25 2022
They changed my keyboard again and now I lost the autocomplete functionality Ukrainian and Russian anthems, what’s the difference? Some notable history behind each, particularly the Russian anthem. March Motion to start, am I even in the mood for this? Restricted eating keeping me away from the bottle, which I don’t mind.
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Try to have a good weekend.
SSAB – February 28 2022
Last day of the month! Went by quickly, Olympics, Ukraine, war, what else is new?
Apparently I tore a ligament in my hip, but it’s been this way for years?! Eeeee, time to rehab this thing!
March Motion… eech, have a blog post I have yet to put up but I like the idea of the challenge so I think I’ll go along with it. This won’t be as big as May You Make Your Movie in that a lot of Motion is used for very short clips. One thing I do want to learn is how to better integrate PixelMator Pro and Motion for animation and other uses.
Ran four miles this morning, about 6.5 kms, with vest. Figured we may not always be this free so I’d better get it done. What else would you do if not work out?
Aaaannnddd… SSP29 is done and recorded! This will be a shorter one as my guest agreed to meet in between other meetings.
Ukraine: is this Putin’s end game? If he doesn’t de-escalate, will he be able to hold on to power?
Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com