My first iPhone App

The title pretty much says it all! On March 18 (Beijing time) I jumped through all the necessary hoops and uploaded my app using itunesconnect. It was pretty easy. I was abit worried about how long it would take to be approved but it turned out to be just under 7 days. (6 days, 20 hours or so)

Clicking the above pic will take you to iTunes! Over all the hardest part has been teaching myself programming in Objective-C. But it has been very fulling. So far I have give out one Promo Code and supposed 2 have bought it. I already have a few ideas for upgrades and future versions. Namely integration with Facebook Connect and news feeds. my goal is to integrate that by April 17th.

Well I hope a few people find it interesting and mildly entertaining.

Oh, did I forget something?

So as you may have noticed. I've been woefully past due on posting an update. To the tune of 8 months. Wow, um, sorry about that. Blogger is sometimes hard to reach here and I am to lazy to go fishing for a proxy that works. But I am here now and that's what matter. So what have you missed. A trip home during the summer. A birthday. Visiting with a friend that came from China to Chicago. Return to China. The first term of classes. And Spring festival. The biggest thing. I went to Hunan (湖南) and Jiangxi (江西) over the festival vacation to visit friends and meet their familes. While in Hunan I had a chance to redefine my idea of what spicy meant. It's call "Niuwa" (牛蛙) or Bull Frog, but this dish also had congealed duck blood which is the dark ingredients. Seen here:



It was very tasty it had a nice clean spicy taste. But the heat stayed only in your mouth and on your tongue, and it's doesn't go away. And let me just say DAMN, the spiciest thing I've had here. And I've had food floating in overflowing pools of oil and chillies.

Hopefully with the wind up to the Olympics Blogger.com will be more accessible here. I'll try to make more frequent updates, I promise! But in the meantime, you can catch up to date updates on Twitter.

Overdue fees...

So as you can see it has been some time since my last post. For that I apologize. But I am in fact alive. It seems that every time I want to post there would be some sort of Internet problem, usually involving the "The Great (Fire)Wall". Anyway, here I am. The school year is over. Students are slowing beginning to return home, or do whatever it is students do during the summer.

Most exciting is the fact that I come/go home in just about 10 days. Sadly alone. MY favorite person was unable to get away from work long enough to join me. But it will give us a future opportunity. So it will be OK. I'm looking forward to the food/family/friends I've been missing. But I fear the time will go slow. I'll be home for 5 weeks, and be unemployed for all of it. So I hope to keep busy. I also fear forgetting all the Chinese I've learned. But I will try to study and review everyday.

These days I'm busy thinking about what types of gifts to buy as gifts/souvenirs. I'm also hoping to not come across any HP7 spoilers on the Internet. Other than that, I've just been resting and relaxing and enjoying my time. I found out what I'll be teaching next term pronunciation and history/culture again to my former freshmen cum sophomores. Pronunciation is new so I'll need to prepare for it, but history/culture I will refine my resources from last term.

That's all for now, I hope to see some of you soon!

First Bilingual Post...

On saturday, some friends and I had gone to a large shopping center called Jinwuxing and bought a few things. This place was huge! I bought some badminton rackets. I find it is quite fun. And good for my health. Afterwards we went to a park to play and celebrate one of my russian classmates birthday with some yummy birthday cake. We stopped of at a bakery called Weiduomei and bought 4 pieces of cake. As we went inside I noticed the music playing, and apparently Chinese bakeries like to party. Even worse, I think it was a remix, of "We like to party".

星期六我跟些很好的朋友去一个很大的商场，名字叫《金五星》，我们去买东西了。 这个地方非常大！我买了一副羽毛球拍。我觉得打羽毛球是很好完儿的！也使我的身体更好。 然后我们去一个公园庆祝我的俄国的同学的生日，但是我们先进去点心店，名字叫《味多美》， 买四块蛋糕。 我一进去就听音乐。你知道不知道中国人喜欢“庆祝”，他们喜欢...他们喜欢...他们喜欢庆祝！

As you can see I'm making progress, but miles to go...

When it rains, it pours.

I received 3 pieces of mail. 2 parcels and a letter. All this on the first day back at school. What a wonderful way to start the new school term. I miss you all very much. Thanks for the yummy treats.

From Friends:
Nestle Treasures
Chocolate Pudding
6 Pack Wintergreen Altoids
Box of Twinkies
Assorted Cookies
Pirate Stickers
Vanilla Mint Chapstick
Goldtoe White Socks
Velma Wobblehead
Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix
3 Cards/Letters from friends
Deck of Indiana University Playing Cards

From Family:
Vanilla Frosted Mini-Wheats
3 Bags York Peppermint Patties
York Peppermint covered Chocolates
12 pack razor blades
Apple smoked Cheddar
Box of pens.
A big comfy green towel
Gift for a Chinese Friend
A Valentine's day card

From France:
A lovely Letter (English and Chinese edition)
Postcard
Card

Cravings...

Cravings are starting to overcome me. Things I want:

Rootbeer - Prompted by the discovery of this Rootbeer Blog
Donuts - I'd prefer Krispy Kreme, or Dunkin'
Cheese - Cheddar. A hard dry sharp cheese.
Cereal - Need some Frosted Mini-wheats.
Cherry Coke - Grenadine would suffice.

These things always seem to be craved.

Unrelated...

While writing the last post a song came up on iTunes and I had to stop and listen. Despite the imagery invoked, it is some pretty amazing playing. I am of course talking about "Dueling Banjos". And if you've seen the associated movie you'll know the imagery I'm talking about. Funny coincidence considering the previous post was partly about pig tongue.