The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

Contract renewals, planning one year at a time in advance all the time, Peter Hessler's ousting from China, re-skilling and hope for the future in China. Aaannnd new May Your Make Your Movie up on the socials! Show notes, tracks n vidz up on my website, stevensirski.com.

Not registered for HSK 5 test since all of Chaoyang is still being told to work from home. Since I want to do the paper test, chances are it won't go ahead just yet. New study materials from ANOTHER EXPAT who is leaving! Some Chinese classics in there so now I have no excuse not to read them. Speaking of Classics... new language vlog is up. Episode 4 is now done! All about the Ancient Greek and La...

Friday the 13th! And THE VIRUS GETS CLOSER! So... how does a red spot become not red? Seems it's not an easy procedure for all of these closed off places to get the flag removed. BUT, govt says Shanghai will start seeing improvements within the next seven days. How do they know? More podcast episodes getting lined up, should be good! TOMORROW I will get to uploading! Spent the day doing some editi...

Beijing lockdowns... is that why everybody is buying groceries? Staying put n why. Learning Chinese inch by lonely inch. Building an online presence for what? Podcast #31 in the works! Show notes tracks n vids up on stevensirski.com! Have a good one!

Watch your back when swinging kbells! Probably should have done a lighter warm up weight. Depressing science books: despite all your efforts, the Universe will still either get ripped apart or crunched together. Gee... is this how I want to spend my days? Latin courses throughout the summer? Language vlog this weekend: might talk about ancient languages. Found a course online that will teach spoke...

Time to buy or time to hide? Trading stocks is not for everyone! Beijing is sloooooowwww and cold. NATs continue Is everyone home working killing my wifi speeds? Using mobile data quite a bit. Good thing it's cheap here. Spent much of the morning calling home and designing logos. Found Adobe's Logo Maker so I was trying that out. Then spent some time trying to trace it so I could animate the diffe...

Allergies after the rain! Beijing lockdowns continue and so does NATting! Got some more running gear just in time as businesses told to shuttter themselves. Futures down, markets down, victory day in Russia, for what? Language vlogs up, May You Make Your Movie up, have a good start of week! Show notes n tracks n vidz up on stevensirskk.com Have a grear start of weel!

Tried to get Waimai today cause I didn’t want to cook buuuut after waiting an hour and a half and watching the delivery guy go everywhere but to the restaurant to pick up my order, I cancelled. Got hte money back and I did feel bad. I guess I could have called the restaurant and offered to pick it up instead. So, tuna, kimchi, lettuce and seaweed mixed up and put on a bun. It’s my new go-to meal....

Do Chinese people get treated the same as foreigners do in regard to COVID prevention? One article says yes... buuut, the examples it gives are kinda tangential. So let's think of some times n places where we all would get treated the same... and surely wouldn't want the Bao An's job! May Your Make Your Movie animations done! Took the day to write 'End' + soundtrack the EIGHT SECONDS of footage! A...

May the Forth be with you. Watched more Star Trek esp Voyager but would pref to read books about the universe than watch science fiction. Great marketing gimic though! May You Make Your Movie animation offering: tried two-layers and more movement. Taxes: remember to consult a tax professional! Don't rely on podcasters for your information! Look it up and check your own situation. Subways are close...

Is this another disruption to the supply chain and the truckers in the US? The last time that happened was April 2019. Various cases increase (minimally) but more closures are occurring. Were previous compound closures preventative? Spent the morning getting taxes done. Not overly difficult but I don't do this very often so I want to be as meticulous as possible. Income in, expenses out. No income...

New month new day new cases! Restaurant closures mean takeaway only so good thing we went out on Friday! May You Make Your Movie has begun so you can follow that on my website also through the Instagram account just add @ to the name. Some Chinese done today Recorded another Language Vlog buuut now I'm learning just how unwieldy 4K files can be. May have to settle for 1080p. Show notes, tracks n v...

Paid rent too early and the landlord won't return it, did she spend it already or does she do what I do and put it into short term savings? Equation of the universe? Respect for those who figure in numbers. Is evolution picking us off? Mystical morning musing music Morning mystical music musing Musical morning mystical musing Musing musical mystical morning End of the month, end of the week, Labou...

Current virus counts, which one are we on? And why are there closures for this variant? The virtues of homeworking, or am I just in a honeymoon period? Two-a-days keep going, but not getting the same amount of language study done as a result. Walking vs running in the morning. Abs coming in! Would you drink vinegar in the morning? Stunt double training postponed. Six weeks to HSK 5 test?! How do I...

Finished Interior Chinatown. Brings up some good points. JP Getty taking over oil companies (had never been done before him), Elon Musk taking over Twitter, how can a regular person take over a company? What would I take over? AI, robotics, education and the metaverse. NAT tests - the block beside us got locked down Back to Michio Kaku - electrons as probabilities? Indian food for dinner because.....

Sluggish day, heavy pollution yesterday so was all congested Got through the runs but not much more Work tomorrow... from home Lockdowns spread. Creeping closer! Spent an hour trying to get After Effects to talk to my other programs and it wouldn't. Eech. Updated the website and created a Projects page. Jamuary, March Motion, etc. Put up the FULL track listing for Jamuary and December Drumming, no...

Here be the full track listing for my Jamuary 2022 Song-A-Day Challenge. From beat boxing to EDM to digital garage jams to global sounds, this was a mix of styles and inspirations. Much different from last year's, this year's efforts focused on building something a bit more "cinematic", that is, something I could possibly use as a film soundtrack or something.  Track listing is as follows: 01...

Beijing locked down! Well.... only a part of it. Passport in, mid-May completion and then need to renew visa. If lockdowns continue, what will I do? Still able to work from home. Started a new YouTube channel! Will focus on language acquisition. After Effects continues, getting easier. Gearing up for May You Make Your Movie. Let's hope it doesn't suck! Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. H...

Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake Mix! Two of them! Added flax and chia seeds to nutrition it up a little. JP Getty, Interior Chinatown, reading these two books is a bit of a contrast. Wearing a suit blazer from my grandfather, I look so professional now! Walk at lunch time and was able to do some Chinese listening but not much more. After Effects working faster! But still pretty slow. Working on so...

Look what I found! A pic taken exactly 5 years ago to apply for my current job! A drop of 16kg: 94 to 78. Nuitrition, working out, not lifting heavy, and mobility. How many homeworkers wear pants during work hours? Chinese HSK 5 books -first read through DONE -writing out characters (still need 1-16) -Grammar & exercises (still need 14-18, 19-36) -Writing 100 characters about each topic (1-36) Sti...

420! Tee hee... and that's all it's really good for. Homeworking continues, and working out a viable structure to my day. Why can't I get any language studies done during work days? Was able to get some Chinese character writing done. Spoke too soon about Skritter? Unlike my previous character writing wherein I copied the character as I saw, Skritter doesn't show the character unless you ask it to...

First day of home working while living abroad! EVisas, are they still a thing? Experience was...? Running after work hampered by sitting so long or because I ate too late in the day? Could just go for a leg-stretching walk after work. Like a party but no one else involved. Reading Interior Chinatown, just want to get through it, but it is a decent read. No Chinese done today but that's because I h...

To the Great Wall (Badaling section) Why did we go? To take the sakura train, otherwise known as the zigzag train that is supposed to go through a valley of sakura trees. The problem? The sakuras are kinda done now. So we went to the Great Wall Why so steep? Did they have rails to assist soldiers getting up and down the slopes? Thinking might go to other sections Noticeable difference in air quali...

Good Friday along with a Ukrainian-Canadian hymn to start the show. A description of Easter weekend as I remember it from my childhood including Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Church critics move along, this one isn't for you. Historians and travellers will find it interesting. Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a Good Weekend!

The mental aspect of starting a blog or podcast: what would I talk about? Hosting provider: bluehost, dreamhost, godaddy, squarespace It's like teaching a writing class Obvious candidates: your skills, hobbies, interests, your job (but you need to be careful if you don't own the business cause you might now know the whole situation) Brainstorm, mind map, free form writing What do you want to learn...