new toy

First, let’s just get the grumpiness out of the way: I hate Zhongguancun, and I can never understand why it’s so full of idiots.

And why did the woman doing the English announcements for Line 10 decide to Americanise the names of several of the stations? Why does the ‘tu’ in Xitucheng come out sounding more like the English words ‘too’ and ‘two’? There were several other incidents, too. And I say ‘Americanise’ because she seems to have been one of these Chinese learners with a bizarre need to ape and exagerrate a very nasal ‘American’ accent. Words like ‘transfer’ got to be very grating.

Right, moving on: Zhongguancun does have its uses, though, one of which is buying new computers. In my experience, it’s best to know in advance exactly what you are going there for, preferably even which shop you are going to, then make a beeline for it and don’t deviate for even one second. Once you are safely inside the shop looking at the stuff you want, it’s cool. Well, quite hot, actually. They might like to consider turning the heat down a little. Once you’ve bought what you want, make a beeline for the subway or busstop and get the hell out of there.

And so now I have a new Lenovo Thinkpad R400 and I’m having to get used to Vista. It’s a little odd, but I’m sure I’ll adapt. I’m also having to get all the stuff I normally use. That, naturally, is taking some time, but I’ll get there.

And I’m still trying to figure out where the week went. It’s strange, I wasn’t especially busy, and with half my writing lessons being taken up with Test 3, it wasn’t exactly strenuous, but somehow…. I must’ve been abducted by aliens or something. That would explain the apparently missing time. Maybe.

Anyway, back to adapting to Vista and installing programmes.