Migrant Worker

"Without work, all life goes rotten." - Albert Camus I just had one of those days at work that is so stimulating (not amazing, not horrible, but something like overload) that I've been trying to calm myself down for the last few hours. It all started when a couple of people from an international NGO called GRAIN came to our office to continue some connections and get our help with a bit of research on China's hybrid rice varieties. It had been a few weeks since I had to do any formal oral translation, and I was feeling a little rusty at the beginning of the day. By 11 AM, when we headed over to the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences to meet with guy #2 in the China hybrid rice research world, I was back into the swing of translating things that I only vaguely understand like "hybrid rice" (杂交稻) and things that I have no idea what they are beyond the English and Chinese words involved, like "apomixis" (无融合生殖) After that was over, we headed back to my office to discuss some research we've been doing on Bt Cotton. This lasted for the rest of the afternoon, during which I ate a ridiculous quantity of the fantastic "Philippine" Mangoes that the guy from (surprise) the Philippines brought over as a gift. We went to a mushroom restaurant for dinner -- if you haven't been to Yunnan, it's a bit hard to explain, but bear with me and imagine a restaurant where most menu items are some type of mushroom. We had mushroom-broth hot pot and added some Songrong (松茸) and Niuganjun (牛肝菌)... normally I can't justify the pricey mushrooms but these things are excellent, and can't be cultivated, they have to be harvested from the wild. I also like the subtle feeling of risk I get from mixing and then eating strange varieties of mushrooms. Apparently my grandfather was also into this, but I can barely remember him. If he was still alive, I'd get him to come over here and go to this restaurant with me. apomixis n. Reproduction without meiosis or formation of gametes (In case it was going to keep you up at night. If you need to know even more, check this out) If you want to see more of what I do at work, check out my flickr photo set called "What I Do At Work." I'm so creative.