Got a little stuck today

I got a little stuck today in some ways.

First of all biculturally, as usual. At work. First of all he can't figure out how to feed himself for lunch. At the salon his mother brings food to them every lunchtime and they all sit and eat the hot food together. As opposed to here in the US where most people take their own lunch to work and we have break rooms (thank god for those, I was missing them in China where my schools never had them). Second he's on QQ at work. For those of you wo don't know QQ is like AIM (American Instant Messaging) but in China instead of in America. This is a very common occurrance in China, in fact Cam talks to his mother and people from his Salon through QQ while they are at work almost every day. However, in the US chatting on-line is something that we try to avoid and that's almost banned in most places. So I just had a talk with him and told him he couldn't do it at work. Third the tendency for Chinese people at work is not really to think about what they're doing, just to do it. So they get super bored while they're working. I don't know how it is for a lot of Americans but for me I spend most of the tedious time during work thinking, either about how to do the work better or differently or about something else that I need to be doing. This leads to me bringing up ideas to my superiors (or whoever gave me the work for the day) which is a huge no-no in China. In fact in China one is not allowed to think up any new or different ways to do things and if they are allowed to think of them they sure aren't allowed to tell them to anyone else. Finally I came home with a Chinese book today and the first thing that he asked me was how much it cost. I took this as a bit offensive as it meant to me that he didn't care about where I got the book, or what I was going to do with it, or whether it was a good book, just how much it cost. However, he was just thinking as a typical businessman about how much profit one could make bringing a Chinese book over here and selling it. Bicultural relationships sure are interesting.

I was looking for a notebook today so I decided to go to Harris Teeter (our local grocery store) and look for one. However, once I got there the only thing I could think of while looking at which notebook to choose was the fact that none of them were made of 100% recyclable paper. This got me to thinking whether there were any places where I could buy 100% recyclable goods. I know you can get 100% recycled paper towels, kleenex, and toilet paper at a lot of grocery stores, but where could I buy a 100% recycled notebook? I know about The Green Office online but were there any stores like this in real life where you walked in and everything was made of 100% recycled materials? If so Carrboro would be an awesome place to open one. I was thinking about this so much that I managed to make it home without the peaches that my husband had requested. See where thinking gets you sometimes?