This comment sounded as if I was talking with myself… „Dear Mike… Best regards, Mike“. Perhaps I should sign my comments as „Sichelputzer“ instead? I am a real person, but there are quite some benefits for being an anonymized digital creature. On the other hand, I have no fear. Come, challenge me, oh dare… 3,)

It’s quite simple: University kept me in line this day, and the evening was an entertainment session of delicious food, some beverage, soccer, handball and my woman on the couch. I haven’t felt being responsible to maintain my online services and activities running, however I considered to migrate a little bit here or there… not going to unleash a bunch of details, but who knows… the Sichelputzer might look different soon. ;)

…I’ve got some things to do while listening to the Chemical Brothers‚ newest smashing hit:

• Galvanize something… I’d really like to!
• Copy the VWL 2 materials from Kat’s script.
• Create, maintain and publish the fictional DCFP blog/website for the Election Project in Regional Development 2.
• Get dressed… since both of us sit again on my couch, laptopping the whole world.
• „Disban the Senate“, or logically our laptops. We’re medial addicts. No newspapers, just digitalized tidbits of society flash on our screens…
• Drink less coffee. One of these cups of blackness really kicked in now.
• Consult the optician for Kat’s eye problems.
• Upload some pictures of Andi’s re-birthday party on Saturday.

Ok, that’s it for now. I’m sure the list is going to become bigger and bigger the longer I’m awake.

Being honest with myself, I have to admit that I’ve been reaching my personal levels of maximum capacity yesterday. I was absolutely exhausted and tired after university. Today has been quite a simple day without much to tell: After participating in the Spanish language course, I returned back home, had a small shallow debate with Kat and in the end I wasn’t doing much except emptying my head. Right after the small intercourse with Kat about our Desarollo Regional 2 course to prepare our assignments, we left to the city and I figuratively got sick of food after consuming so much. Fact is – my girlfriend might need some glasses or contacts. That’s why we went to the optician and my assumption was prooved right… :)

About three weeks ago I’ve been quite interested to know some more information concerning Chinese Names given to foreign/non-chinese people. Since I knew Kevin was from China, I asked him per E-Mail on how these names were assigned and if this would result in some kind of standard method to transform my own name, Mike Schnoor, into a Chinese Name. This is an excerpt of the reply from Kevin:

About giving names to foreign persons, there are actually 2 major kinds of rules.
For Korean/Japanese, just use their Korean/Japanese names, since these two countries use Chinese characters as well, but tho they use some of the Chinese characters that in China that we don’t use anymore, but for this issue, that we will find the replacement nowaday for that character.

As for the journalist Hao Ande, I guess his german name is probably Andy/Andreas and last name is some like Haussen? This is the usual way for a foreigner who’s from a country that use phonetics/alphabets.

If you don’t mind I will use your name for a simple example: Mike Schnoor
First we will use the first sound of your family name which is Sch, and in China it souns similar to Shi, so your Chinese family name will be Si. One of the most famous people who named Shi is a writer call Shi Nai An. Usually Chinese name are no more than 3 characters, so here we come to your first name.

Mike – In Chinese, vows don’t change pronoucation as in English, so Mi in Chinese Pingyin is Mai, and Ke is same is Ke. Please remember that all the vows in Chinese need to be prounced, so instead of „Mai-k“ as you usually will pronouced in English, we pronouce it as „Mai-ke“. So in this way, your Chinese name should be Shi Mai Ke.

And wait a minute here, and then I found out if I use this rule, than your Chinese name will sound very similar to a word Schmuck, which in English means a jerk. So then we do the other way. Since I don’t know your middle name, you can do it like use Shi Mai and then the first part of your middle name.

This is the most common way of giving somebody to a Chinese name, but also you can look into the name itself to study the origin or the meaning of words. Like Grace, in Chinese the meaning is nice, and you can pick some words that have the meaning as grace, graceful to use as a girl’s name, and it doesn’t need to necessarily sound like Grace.

Giving a name is a quite a tough job, and knowing somebody first and then to help him to find a name is usually a better way.

Thank you for the input, Kevin. I understand it’s better to know somebody first before assigning or creating names to them. This is the best way on how to do it, and I agree with you on it. In the end, I’d rather go with „Shi Mai“ instead of the jerky variant. Perhaps I’m able to find out more information once I get a chance to speak with one of my lecturers at University.