Activity Report
(or, How I Managed to Get Off the Musty, Smelly Sofa and Actually Have Human Interaction in HK)

I fell down on the job today, but have been trying my darnedest to adhere to the Code this week. If it weren't for the unholy trifecta of (1) not having someone to drag with me, (2) not having the right clothes to wear, and (3) being tired from last night's effort, I would have gone to the club in Tsim Sha Tsui tonight, I swear! I would have gone and danced and wondered what the hell I was doing there and whose sweat was getting on my clothes, but you know the trifecta. Resistance is futile.

Oh, the Code. It's this: When new to a place, never turn an invitation down.

This is how I ended up going to dinner at a steak house last night, and then to a bar afterwards, which turned out to be the venue of a weekly networking event for finance industry types, at which the partner ended up talking to a friendly English blonde finance type and I ended up talking to the blonde's clever Welsh-Polish salesman friend until midnight. They take networking seriously here -- both actually followed up and emailed me today.

(Side note: There was something oddly rapacious about the encounter. I told them that it was my first week in HK, and amongst the welcoming words, I felt radiating from them a kind of knowing cynicism -- or perhaps envy? -- about my newcomer status and a touch of hungry vampiric interest, simply because I was new.)

Following the Code is also how I got invited to the aforementioned dance party, to which I would have gone, but for the trifecta (and some suspicious sushi at lunch, I think -- ugh). And why I'll be going to my co-worker's fiance's birthday tomorrow night on a rooftop bar.

But acting in a student film on Sunday, that was more about begging, I admit. I've always rather fancied being a star.