What's Making Me Happy!

Hello everyone. Sorry I don't check in more, it would be nice to revive the forum, maybe a WeChat or WhatsApp group would be better than a forum? Maybe there is one and I'm not cool enough

Anyway, what's making me happy right now?

I have two.
1. I moved back last year and was in university accommodation where MeiTuan was this hassle where the guards complained and the delivery guys didn't like me so I didn't use it. Now I live in a private apartment so it's not problem. I know that this is one of those things that was cool for most people about 15 years ago, but it's a novelty for me.
2. A bit of self promotion but hopefully fun. My hobby has always been electronic music and in Covid I got into making videos. Last couple of weeks I got pretty much all of them uploaded to Bili. It's quite niche, but I'll post it on here

https://space.bilibili.com/3546702720011103

Glad you're back.  I may want to consult you on how to most effectively embarass myself on videos. 

Glad you're back.  I may want to consult you on how to most effectively embarass myself on videos. 

I don't put myself in the videos, I just chop up bits of animation and films to music.
 
But you probably should make some videos of you telling your mad stories, I remember you have a wife and a daughter in law, I'm sure that they can help you with making it coherent and that leaves you time to concentrate on embarrassing yourself

Any suggestions for free (or incredibly cheap!) software for chopping up and reassembling videos.  My daighter and my wife are happy to film me being an idiot, but haven't volunteered to edit.

Sorry for the late reply, didn't see this...

I use a one called Wondershare which costs about 500rmb to own or you pay a subscription. I use it because it's really simple, I think that the best one in DaVinci which is free for basic, but I couldn't get my head around it (I didn't try to be fair

Thanks!

I may have some time to play with one or the other during my own "What's Making me Happy!"

Small sad intro - my schedule hit some speed bumps so I am not on the train with the other charity members heading to FengHuang today.

But I am heading to Xiangtan next week, and finally also sponsor a student there.  When that's done, I'm not heading home.  Instead, I'm heading to FengHuang by myself for a week (at least).  I need time away from everything to work on my book on Dragon Boats.  Also, if I can find enough words that rhyme with paddle, I may be able to put together together some poems for the book.

So hard the Lunatic paddled
That his brain became deeply addled.

I did do a quick Google search --

RhymeZone
Word: 
addled
   
Find rhymes

Words and phrases that rhyme with addled:   (7 results)

2 syllables:
paddled, raddled, saddled, spraddled, straddled

3 syllables:
skedaddled, unsaddled

I may have to pick a better word for rhyming. 

It is an Lunatick Mariner,
And he stoppeth expat companie.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

 

Lots of adventures so far.

I didn't make it out of the High Speed Rail station before a couple of girls ran up and asked "Uncle, can we take pictures with you?"  I bumped into them again while walking around the ancient town.

There are lots of foreigners here.  Turns out the nearby airport is part of the visa-free scheme and many people are taking advantage of it.

Was barely awake one morning and got a video call from a photographer friend here.  He wanted to kidnap me for some sort of photo/video shoot.  I was about to say "Call me back when I'm awake", but he turned his phone to show me the lovely Miao girl who would be in the video.  I told him to pick me up in 10 minutes.  Even better - there were 2 lovely Miao girls.  I was only in a few scenes with them, but tagged along the whole day taking photos and videos of my own.  Since I was also in costume, I got more than my usual number of people wanting pics with me.

I got grabbed by a Miao drummer who was working at one of the attractions in town.  The next thing I knew, I was getting drum lessons. (Too bad I REALLY suck at drumming. )  I thought I was about to escape, but the Miao wizard who was part of the group grabbed me to be an assistant for a magic trick.

The decorative lights come on at 6:30 PM. I've managed to get two fairly nice videos (and one sadly blurry video) of the moment of enlightenment.

For inspiration in writing, I visited the memorial to Shen CongWen.  He wrote the book that made Fenghuang famous.  On the way out, I was stopped by a pair of lovely girls who wanted pictures with me.  As I was turning to leave, a pair of lovely ladies also wanted pics with me.  I feel that this is a sign that Shen CongWen appreciated my visit.

w0w!!!  You do have the very best of adventures!!    

you must live right. 

Progress.  I've created a simple 4 line poem (2 rhyming couplets, 7 sylables each - Tang Dynasty style, but in English) for nearly all of the initial set of chapters.  I also got some more details added to a number of those chapters.

I'm going to have to add additional chapters to make it to 300 pages.

For fun, I've been going off-map.  The tourist maps show the major streets, but there are big blank spaces in the center of areas looped by those streets.  So, take a turn off the map and explore every branch.  Many are dead ends, but a few are suprising.

I found my best one ever last year, but didn't remember where it was hidden.  I was coming up a side-street when I saw a familiar looking pathway.  From the outside, you would think it would end in a wall or a closed door, but instead, it opens into an area several hundred meters on a side.  There are only a handfull of houses at the entrance and then it's mostly a garden and a huge overgrown field.  I could only catch glimpse of a group of people in the field, but could hear the dogs they had.  Two of them eventually popped out, ran past.  Happily, they didn't decide I was a dangerous intruder.  Sadly, they declined my offer to pet them and mostly ignored me.

I've also been getting videos of the lights coming on along various points of the river each evening at 6:30.

The only drawback of all this running around - my feet are tired.