Tianjin - day 8

OK, I think I over did the relaxing thing yesterday. I woke up at four o'clock this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I can't blame it on jet lag either since I've been here a week sleeping just fine. I think I just got too much rest yesterday and I've been going to bed at ten or so every night and that is way earlier than I normally go to bed. I just wasn't tired, I wasn't exactly awake but I wasn't asleep either. You know when you're just fading in and out? I finally grabbed my book at about 5:30 and read until seven when I had to get up and shower. I had my breakfast and caught a cab for the meetings. Talk about information overload. Wow. They had a new speaker every half hour all day long. In addition to that they have over 500 poster sessions. How can someone possibly get all of that? I wish I had Brandon here. You'd think that with batteries I would be safe from organic chemistry but noooooo. Some guy from France is working on "renewable" organic anodes. I know enough to get the jist of what he's saying but I'm sure Brandon could have helped me. There are people here from all over the world. I've talked to people from China (duh), Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, US, Kazakhstan, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and a whole bunch more. There was a guy who presented today who was from Scott land. His name is Peter Bruce. I want to look him up and ask him if he's related to that "Braveheart" guy.

It's times like this that I feel real handicapped by my unbalanced personality. You know how Heavenly Father has blessed us all with talents but rather than giving people all of the talents he gives some to one and different ones to another thereby forcing us to rely on each other? Well I like to think that I have a pretty good memory and I do know a lot of stuff but I do have a major weakness that almost never bothers me but constantly frustrates my wife. I can't remember peoples names. I can usually tell if I've met them before but I don't always know where and almost never will I remember their names. Lisa accuses me of not trying but I really do try, I just can't remember them. There are nearly a thousand people here and I REALLY want to remember some of them but I can't even remember them for an hour let alone until next year when I'll see them again. People come up to me and talk like we're old buddies and I haven't a clue who they are. When I was young and stupid I would pretend like I did know them and carry on a conversation, the whole time I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out who they are. Now that I'm old and stupid I don't even pretend. I just out right ask them, "I'm sorry, please remind me again who you are?" It might be embarrassing but it's less embarrassing that getting caught in that make-believe conversation. The dumb thing is that I remember the companies flawlessly. As soon as the guy today told me he was with ProTech I knew exactly who he was and where we had met and what we had talked about. Dumb eh? Oh well, we can't all have all the talents. I'm just lucky to be married to Lisa who meets someone once and she remembers them for life along with their birthdays, and the names of all their kids. I'll study all of the business cards I got today before I go to bed. I've already forgotten the name of that guy from ProTech. To make it harder how am I supposed to remember some of these Chinese names? Zhang Zhong lin! For heavens sakes, I can't remember "John" let along Zhang Zhong lin. So today we had seventeen presentations about everything from "Nano Ionic Cathode materials for Lithium Batteries" to "Anthraquinone Based Polymer-Novel Cathode material for Rechargeable Lithium Batteries". It was a wonderful day. Don't ask me what Anthraquinone is but it does have a lot of benzene rings in it. This conference includes lunch and dinner every day this week. It is quite a deal. Tonight we came out of dinner and went to catch a cab and it was pouring rain and lighting every minute or so. There was a huge line up for the taxi's and they weren't coming but we could see them driving by on the street. Tim and I figured we'd be smart and walk out to the street and catch a cab there. We weren't nearly as smart as we figured we were. They weren't stopping because they were all full. By this time we were pretty much drenched (it was raining quite hard) so we decided to just walk to our hotel. It was only a ten or fifteen minute walk but there isn't a dry spot on my entire body. Luckily it was warm. Well, I'm pretty wiped right now so I think I'll sleep better tonight. Oh, to answer Lynn's question from day 4, those squatter toilets do actually flush. They're like a little toilet bowl that sits flush with the floor. They're always really gross though because too many people are lousy shots and don't aim very well.