Angie’s birthday, focusing on long term work strategies and goodbye JP

A very quiet Friday morning and I’m not able to concentrate on working activities. It’s close to lunch time and I’m still quite tired, so take this time to write you a 'Hello' again. The reason for my sleepy eyes is simple: no quiet evenings the last week (every evening was filled with going to bars, playing music or working overtime). And yesterday was the BIG birthday dinner of Angie, she turned 23. It was a very nice party and even though Angie just has been around in Shanghai for a few months she managed to invite over 20 people (so it was a lively dinner). A very happy day and I’m happy my stay in Holland has been postponed until August, so I was able to be her myself. Angie was also happy with the party and of course my present (an Ipod Touch)....

My work is not going to bad. It made some imported steps. I finally started with the realization of the Entrepreneurship program – from concept to a concrete project. Last week I had meeting with different entrepreneurs to get them interested in to coach in the program. I have three coaches now (of the in total 15 I need). However the Program won’t launch until springtime 2010, so there is still time. But it’s not just talk anymore, so that’s always an important step. Further I made the outline for my stay in Holland in Augustus / September. The schedule I made it quite crazy – if it will turn out like this I will be very busy during my stay in the Netherlands. However maybe some program elements will turn out to be impossible to arrange this quick. Let’s see what happens.

Since recently I work one day a week at the office of Your Op (www.your-op.nl). I had big plans to start a collaboration with them, but this will only be activated a small level, however as long as there is space in the office I can use it for one day a week. Quite nice! So everything slowly becomes more and more structured. I even found time last week to give www.debaak.com/china a small update (including a summary of the TNM-trip of October (in Dutch)). Next to the development of my own projects it’s nice to see some of my friends are also developing their businesses or projects well. Last Thursday I went to a presentation of Michiel’s GO WEST project, The Changing Face of China’s Invisible Cities. I really like this project in with they write a book about the current developments of China’s the mega, but to the Western world unknown, cities outside of the East coast. Definitely worth to check out their website: http://www.gowestproject.com/ .

So all has not been going too bad, my Chinese Teacher is on Holiday in Germany and gave me an extreme load of homework (which I haven’t started to do – so this I need to give up some of my other weekend plans to start catching up). My sister will come this Sunday to Shanghai and will stay here for a month – I’m looking forward to it. She needs to finish her Thesis, so we can sit behind the computer together (the modern 21st century live). Lastly my good friend JP (the now ex-singer of the band) has left to New York, he got a new job there. It’s a sad that people are leaving. I’ve been here only 9 months and I already seen some people leave and new ones come (slowly in some conversations I find that people are shorter in Shanghai than me). I can image if you’re here for more than 5 years you saw almost everyone come and go. Of course there is a small hardcore group here in the country that has been here over 15 years …. (so far I’m still on my way to complete my first year, which in the beginning seemed amazingly long).