theBartels.de » work

I’m an Alien!

CB — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:24:01 +0000

Ok, I know that “alien” can mean “stranger”, but for me it was more a synonym for “someone from space”…

Got a Chinese name

CB — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:04:27 +0000

To be able to apply for a work permit in China, a Chinese name is needed. I therefore asked Reading, one of our managers, whether he could give me a Chinese name.
He came up with: 白克勤 (Pingyin: Bai Ke Qin) which means something like wise, diligent, hardworking…

I tripple checked the name by asking several other colleagues (as suggested by Prof. Dr. Frühauf from LSI Bochum) whether the name is really great and everyone said yes. Next steps: Order business cards and learn how to write my name in Chinese characters

Well, best wishes from China…
Your 白克勤

Wrap-Up: Second Week Shanghai

CB — Sun, 13 May 2007 14:49:24 +0000

So, my second week in Shanghai is already over. Although there is currently a lot work to do at SAP, it is a lot of fun. The Chinese colleagues are great and help wherever possible.
On Thursday, Christoph, a German intern at SAP, and I went to Metro for shopping. As you can see on the pictures…we had a lot of fun:

2007-05-10 – Shopping@Metro

We even tested some bicycles. I will get the video from Christoph within the next days…so stay tuned.

Friday night, Christoph, Yi (a German-Chinese friend of Christoph), Alexander (another fellow student of Christoph) and I went to a Korean restaurant and had Korean BBQ. Afterwards we went to a club called BabyFace and had a lot of fun. Fortunately taking pictures was not allowed.

Yesterday morning Michael finally arrived. We will both work at the same department here in Shanghai. In the evening we went with ten people to a hotpot restaurant. Hotpot means, that you have a pot with hot broth in the middle of the table. Everyone throws different kinds of vegetables and meat in it. After some minutes it is cooked and you can (try to) get it out of the hot pot using your chop sticks.

2007-05-12 – Hotpot Dinner + Window’s

Coming Thursday, the German chamber in Shanghai hosts an event, at which the former chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroeder, will take a speech. The event is taking place in the Jin Mao tower in Pudong. Although it is not mandatory to wear a suite, I think it is better to be over-dressed than under-dressed. Therefore, Michael, Patrick and I went to the fabric market today to buy hand-tailored suites. The suites and shirts will be finished on Wednesday. So, let’s see whether the quality of the clothes is as good as the many Chinese shop owners promised.

And we went to KFC today. Look how much Michael liked his…erhh…chicken drumsticks…:-)

2007-05-13 – KFC and Fabric Market

Still alive

CB — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:08:53 +0000

I haven’t posted updates for quite some time. End of September I finished my studies and started working full time at SAP in October. The new department/topic/task is very interesting and time consuming.

Beside work there did not happen much in the last weeks.

I installed the newest Ubuntu Linux release on a notebook. It was very surprising to me, that except the internal win-modem everything worked right out of the box. Even OpenGL-accelerated desktop with AIGLX and Beryl as composite manager works without the need to fumble with any configuration files manually. Another surprise was that sane now supports Canon Lide 35/50/60 scanners, so that I can finally use my Canon Lide 35 successfully under Linux.

Furthermore I am currently upgrading my Intel Mac Mini. I already installed 2GB of RAM yesterday and will soon exchange the 1.5 Ghz Intel Core Single with a 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo (“Merom”).

Next weekend Judith and I will fly to Stockholm to visit her Cousine Julia and her boy-friend Arndt. I am curious how the IKEA-country will look like.