Michael,

Today is the nicest one we’ve had all week. On Mon it was foggy, on Tues it rained, on Wed it was smoggy, cloudy and hot, on Thurs it was beastly hot and as humid as a Hungarian steam bath. But today we have a clear blue sky, pleasantly warm temperatures, and light breezes.

For some reason they left the doors open at the conference center yesterday, and it got uncomfortably hot and humid in the poster session area. Every 20 min or so I had to retreat to one of the speakers rooms, which were highly AC’ed, to cool off before going back to my post. By the side of my poster I left a little sheet to request a preprint, and when I came in this morning I found that Dr Asai, who I had met in Japan last year, had added her name to the list. Nice to get some positive feedback.

This morning as I was walking along the main street towards the conference rooms, a young Beijinger asked me what time it was. I showed him my watch (9:00 am) and said that back home it was 9:00 pm.) Then he asked if I liked Beijing (what could I say, but that I liked it, though if he had asked me yesterday in the sauna weather, I might have mumbled something else. Then he said he wanted to practice his English with me. He asked where I was from, and I had to explain where Maryland was. He said he also wants to learn French, because he thought that was the 2nd most important language in the world. (Interesting. The French would say so too.) He remarked that foreigners seemed to walk so fast he couldn’t keep up with them. And I said that I was in no hurry, because my meeting didn’t start for 30 minutes. He wanted to know where the meeting was, and I said the Beijing Information Technology School, right behind that building, so he said goodbye and walked on. His English was actually better than our 2nd tour guide!

–rakkity