The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

Updated website Morning spent looking at the ESL landscape, ran some numbers, did some thinking. If not here, then where? If not Beijing, then where? Reading Latin... cause why not? Tiktok, snap, and other 'new media', how many do we need? Talked an old friend who decided to situate himself near... Russia. Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a good middle week!

Last day! Packed up and airplane ready! Will we or will we NOT be allowed to take alcohol on the airplane even if it's in our checked luggage? I say yes! She says no! We'll see... Museum day, Chengdu, Sichuan, and Dufu? Should be easy enough. 城里人 - city people 冒险 - adventure 拖鞋 -slippers Chengdu Museum: downtown, BUSY! FULL of families! Most likely meant for kids anyway. Pretty big, five fl...

Alcohol is not a reward! Beer or donuts? How does the body metabolize ethanol, carbs, proteins, fats? Happy International Women's Day! (Isn't every day?! Can't say that!) And all this going on in Ukraine reminds me of literally the first day I stepped into Ukraine: the people actually took it seriously. Contrast with Valentine's Day. Russian news showing flowers being delivered to women. Ukrainian...

4x4x48 done! Ran over half of the lengths. Time for recovery. Lessons learned and why this challege? Read 'real Chinese' this morning. Difficult but more applicable than vocab lists. Updated website, SSAB n March Motion. Why this pcast? Looking ahead to Adobe After Effects in April. Thoughts about war in Ukraine. Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com Have a good one!

Initial thoughts after finishing this year's 4x4x48 Goggin's challenge. Learned a little bit more about pre and post run care, esp the order in which things should be done. Happy with the results as I ran just over half of the lengths, 8/12, which is two more than last year. Would I do this agaijln next year? It is very demanding and takes the whole weekend. Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski....

The generator is off. It's quiet. Paralympics starts, caught the end. 4x4x48 starts today. Four miles every four hours for forty eight hours. My goal is to run every leg this year. Last year I only ran half and walked the rest. The two rounds I'm concerned about are the trip to work and then at lunch time. I figure if I nail those then the rest should fall into place. March Motion continues. Creat...

They left the generator on! Ukraine and Russia. 17 days sooo March 15th it'll be over? There's no going back. Bridges are damaged, Ukraine is now literally cut off from Russia. Did Bitcoin finance this? Is Putin shorting the market? Spent most of the morning recovering from last night! But still productive. No Chinese today, just wasn't focused on it. Studied some of the DELTA material. Apparently...

After six pints, we solved the world's problems and got smarter as the night went not. Did we? Podcasting and sustainability (of creation). Ukrainian history, reading up on it. March Motion continues. And... met the owner of the local pub who I had heard about before, asked if he would be on my podcast and he said yes. Turns out he's Canadian! Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com. Have a goo...

March Motion begins! Wish it was under better circumstances but there's little I can do. For the next month I'll be working my way through Apple Motion, a video FX program for Mac. I'll post progress pics n vids on Instagram and YouTube. Ukraine War continues, Putin says he'll stop when... what? But he started it! How can this be Ukraine's fault?! Commodities moving. Two Sessions starts Friday......

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 f...

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.

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...

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 unif...

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...

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...

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 s...

This Episode, recorded on Wednesday, February 9, 2022, sees me sit down with writer and comedian Donnie Fan. A self-described “mixed blood of Chinese descent” hailing from New York, Donnie has found a new home here in Beijing China. Fresh off of the production of his first tragedy, Medea , based on the play by Euripides, Donnie is now focusing his efforts of developing his own hour-long stand up r...

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 t...

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 situat...

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. Ho...

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 cit...

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 learner...

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!

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...

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...