It’s war here in Cartias Bianchi Lodge. Tensions are rising and it’s all because of these five letters: b-l-o-g-s. We’ve had a rash of blog attacks recently, the garrisons are shaky and the troop’s morale is low. The barbarians at the gate are constantly gathering, feeding off each other’s mutual cruelty and insidious sense of humor. The Battle of Chinese Class was an epic disgrace for the side of emotions, while fraternizing and “bro-ing” out were on the march of victors heading into lesson. The blog’s defenses had been leaked earlier in the day and were hastily defeated in the run-up to the battle.

Once the hooligans had control of the all-powerful computer, the game was all but won. The tapping of keys preceding the decisive access to the web page. Public readings from the blog ensued. The Battle commenced and the leading women banded together in defense of their sister, the author, who was visibly troubled. The readers were quickly shouted down and the battle stalemated. The stalemate was a relief to see after the blog reading Battle of the Lodge Room 1312. I was lucky enough not to have witnessed that gory skirmish, but the battle reports included lots of screaming, tears, and a highly prized MacBook Pro being thrown to the floor.

The reports and finally witnessing the blitzkrieg of internet use in the Battle of Chinese Class were almost enough to make me want to put up even stronger defenses on my blog. Passwords? Moats? Fire breathing tarantulas? I just don’t know if any of it will be strong enough against the onslaught of bros who want to target another helpless blog and do the unthinkable: read it. Oh the horror. Then again, maybe keeping it a secret will protect. Secrecy is the ironic secret of success in this battle; those of us who write do so in silence, not knowing if our neighbors and classmates are writers, or readers. Who can one trust? It took only one blog to go down the road of Tituba in The Crucible, now we’re all witches; 21^st century heathens armed with words and a shoddy internet connection. Knowing there are supporters out there is all we can do, for our personal blogs are taboo as a topic of conversation, as it should be. Reading another’s abroad-mates blog is like a longer, worse version of Twitter, except you already experienced what they’re writing about.

The preceding story was a dramatization of a few events that have happened in the last week. It was also a very real, and in my opinion accurate portrayal of some of the ridiculous reactions towards what was simply someone finding out about two blogs. Public readings ensued and while not kind, you’d think someone’s best friend had been shot and pitched out the window. Good God people. We just passed a health care bill and people actually care about shit like blog access. If the bill the house passed doesn’t make you want to scream, this Neanderthal-like behavior should.

As an aside, we went back to our romping ground at Lon Kwai Fong and there was a massive carnival like food festival. Upset because I just spent HK$20 more on a drink than I should have, we looked at all the stalls and suddenly I heard the voices of angels. A stand had corn dogs. Not like Pronto Pup mind you, but at this point bits of hot dog and a corn tortilla chip would do. I did not buy because it was chaotic and I didn’t want to be the fat kid who held the others up. I regret that decision now because once we had circled around, the stand was closed down. No corn dogs for me. It’s all for the best I suppose, and the carnival was fun. Additionally, I found a new park called King’s Park that is great for reading at in the sun, which I’ve thankfully seen a lot of more recently. Things are looking up here at the Hong Kong Life & Times, and I’m excited to both leave for traveling and to come back. Apologies for the length of this post!

I finally booked my flights to Vietnam, with much help from Bekah, who eased my desire to kill someone due to our internet working so poorly. My mild illness didn’t help matters, nor did the 2 hours of sleep I’d gotten the night before. Over the next week and a half I have a Finance presentation on Thursday (We’ve been told he is looking for reasons not to give us 90′s), Human Resource presentation on Friday (where my group of three will present to our two, yes two, other classmates), a Human Resource final exam on Monday, Chinese oral final on Wednesday, and Chinese written, History of China, and Finance final exams on Thursday (what a bitch). Fortunately, I’m not really stressing about any of them because being abroad affords you the luxury of not caring about classes. Unless you actually go to Syracuse. Then you deserve to have to care for choosing a program affiliated with your school. Morons.

My favorite professor, our Chinese teacher Sophia (Or Sophia “lao shi” as we call her) secretly took my class, Group A (the other Mandarin class being Group B) to a late dim sum lunch. She is so funny and makes the best facial expressions. She is a constant story teller and gossip hoarder who literally asked us our opinions of all the other teachers, students and significant other’s in our lives. She is my Facebook friend, which is a little weird because she brought up how “beautirfa” we looked in our “Harroween” costumes…and then asked how many beers we’d had. It’s ok though because she gets beers with us when we go to lunch. So this post has served no real purpose other than a simple update on the goings on here at the wonderful SU Abroad-Hong Kong program.

“You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent…. I’m not joking.” – Joe Biden

Here are some of my other favorites, most of which came from the 2008 presidential debates and other proceedings, but which propelled Vice President Biden onto stardom.

“If your kitchen table is like mine, you sit there at night before you put the kids to bed and you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It’s a pretty hard experience. He’ll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.” –Joe Biden

“I should start with an apology to Rudy Giuliani. I said every sentence Rudy utters has a noun, a verb, and 9/11 in it. I was wrong. He called me to tell me after Pat Robertson’s endorsement, there’s an Amen in every sentence he says too.” –Joe Biden

And the reason I’m writing this today was because of the recent uproar over his comments about Russia, which I have to say are pretty spot-on. This is the kind of straight-shooting I wanted when I went to Iowa in 2007-2008 to support his campaign. Biden this the following about Russia while on a trip around Eastern Europe:

‘Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.”- Joe Biden

Sounds exactly like a textbook I read on international relations. Either that means Joe Biden is simply reading from a textbook, or is dead on…and as a man who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations committee for years, I’m going with the latter. Way to go Joe.

My God, will Sarah Palin seriously be the 2012 nominee? As long as she keeps it in her pants (or in her case, opens her legs…maybe) she might be the only nominee without a sordid marital status. What with Sanford’s newly found indiscretions and then Sen. Ensigns (R-NV) problems in marriage from a few weeks ago, it looks suspiciously like many of these former (or future) front-runners are trying to get it all out there with plenty of time. Coupled with John McCain’s strange marital stories from generations ago or even Newt’s infidelity, it seriously seems like all the supposedly pro-family values (whatever that is) Republicans must side with Palin. But let’s be honest, we knew that A) that was going to happen anyway and B) It’s not like those people ever really support people who follow their own values anyway. I’d say as long as my governor, Tim Pawlenty, keeps his vows he may have a unique ability to capture the “purity and abstinence” vote.

In other news, everyone should be able to comment on my posts now. Send me an email if you can’t at evan@evandoran.com. God, that sounds so conceited. Also, I’m in a generally good mood because the United States beat Spain in the Confederations Cup. While the CCup isn’t necessarily a good indication of World Cup performance (I mean Iraq is in the C-Cup), it is nice and it will be hilarious if North Korea (Who has actually qualified for the WC) is in the same group as the USA (Who has not yet) and we get to watch Kim Jong Il watch the game. I was also glad that Roger Federer won his Wimbledon match as I’m pulling for him to get to 15 majors.

I would also just like to address a concern that I received about this blog. Mostly it dealt with the impression that I have the same focus as a blogger that my 8 year old sister does with a television. That is fine for me right now, as I get used to this whole thing. Hopefully, one day I will transform this blog into a more specific site mixing my passions for investments and travel into one.