Today was a great day because it was Friday! Our Chinese
class went a lot better than expected because our teacher didn’t collect our
quiz where we were supposed to know over 40 Chinese words, their definitions,
spellings, and characters. Thank goodness she didn’t collect it because I only
wrote one character on the whole page and that’s because it was written on the
board. In addition to getting lucky on the quiz, our teacher even cracked a
smile or two while telling some jokes, which was quite a change of pace.
Immediately after class we
had to rush to the bus to head back out to the Suzhou Industrial Park for our
plant tour of Eastman Chemical. After another hour and a half bus ride, we got
into the plant and sat down to hear a presentation about the company. They made
us feel very welcome and even made a whole new presentation for us which was
definitely not the case at Lilly. They talked all about PVB, which is their
product that can be put between two pieces of glass for a number of reasons. It
prevents the glass from shattering everywhere if it breaks, filters out UV rays
to protect your skin, acts as a sound barrier, and can even come in thousands
of colors. After the presentation they took us on a tour of their lab and
manufacturing facility. The tour was about 1000 times better than the one at
Lilly because we could actually see the production in action and the whole
process from start to finish. The facility was incredibly clean and ran quite
efficiently. They even designed it so that if there is a problem in the line it
can keep running and just recycle the bad material back to the beginning. As a
little side tour, they took us to a building that was actually not being used.
They explained the reason why and basically what happened is that they spent
tons of money and built this whole new line that turned out to be a dud and had
no market value. The guy showing us around thought it was worth seeing because
it was a good lesson that you will not succeed in everything you do and that
the market is constantly changing, making new projects a constant risk.
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| Eastman Chemical |
The tour ended and we headed back to the room we started at. They were
nice enough to provide us with snacks and drinks and even a choice of a nice
notebook. Thank goodness they gave us snacks before we left because we got
stuck in a crazy amount of traffic and it took about 2 and a half hours to get
home. Since it was so late, we decided to just head over to our favorite street
vendor for dinner. I think we can officially be called regulars now since the
guy knows our exact orders.
After a long first week of adjusting Adam, Nathan, Tyler, Flint,
Jessica, the two Johns and I decided that we earned a night out of exploring
the bar scene. We found a little strip not too far down the street and went in
to a few different ones comparing prices.
We finally found one we liked and it turned out to be a great choice. They
had live music and even started playing all American songs by the end of the
night to make us happy. It got real awkward though when I was waiting in line
for the bathroom and what I thought was a boy walked up so I motioned to the
men’s bathroom; apparently she was actually a girl. She couldn’t believe I
thought she was a boy but laughed it off and apparently forgave me because she
later taught us this awesome Chinese drinking game with dice. I didn’t feel so
bad later when an older Chinese man came up and asked if I thought she was a
boy or girl so I guess I was not the only one confused. We stayed at the bar
quite a while and then realized how late it was getting so we decided to head
home.
We got a little lost but eventually found the street we were looking for
which conveniently had a McDonald’s on it. I decided not to cave so soon but
when everyone got what they wanted, we walked back to campus to find the gate
we normally go in to be closed. We figured the other one would be open so we
started heading that way when we realized Nathan wasn’t following anymore. At
the beginning of the night I was designated as the mom of the group so it was
my responsibility to find him. I mean losing a child is probably the worst
thing a mom can do, so I went back to the other gate to look but he was nowhere
to be found. After contemplating what do for a few minutes we decided he must
have jumped the gate and was probably up in the room already. We got up to the
room, however, and he wasn’t in any of the rooms. At this point we were getting
a little worried because he didn’t even have a cell phone if he got lost. We
went back out looking and within a few minutes found him messing with some
stray cats with his laser pointer he bought a few days earlier. Once we all
made it upstairs we had some bonding time and ended up singing along to Tyler
playing some waka flocka on the guitar. All of the sudden it was 4:30 in the
morning so we all decided to call it a night.
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