Commencement

I hereby begin blogging about my trip to China.

To set a bit of context, I was fortunate enough to have been chosen to be a part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps, a program to develop leadership skills while addressing economic challenges in emerging markets. It's also a very good example of blending corporate responsibility with corporate strategy, which I find interesting. From a personal standpoint, I'm excited to do some good by doing work I'm actually good at. I wouldn't say my day painting houses was a complete disaster, but they never invited me back, either.

So I'll be heading for Shijiazhuang, China to help a university build their research capabilities and improve MBA teaching and some other things. We'll figure it out when we get there. The work will last from May 9 until June 3, which should be plenty of time for me to learn Mandarin. In the meantime, on Friday I depart with Kristy and Angie to visit Shanghai and Beijing for a bit of vacation prior to kicking off the work. It will undoubtedly be excellent.

Why is this called "Dan Dan Noodles," you ask? First of all, my name is Dan, so that takes care of the first two words. I like noodles. And Dan Dan Noodles are in fact a Chinese dish, which you can learn more about right here. It is also what one of our friends has taken to calling me in recent years, so at a minimum Jessica will laugh.

According to that Wikipedia article, Dan Dan Noodles translates to "Peddler's Noodles." But it also says that a dan dan is a type of pole, which would seem to translate to "Pole Noodles." Either way, I'm getting pretty hungry right now.