...and we're back.

I'm sure I made a promise of one sort or another not to let my online log of my life lapse, as I am also sure I equally promised to add more pictures...





My excuse is two part, firstly that I've been very busy and secondly that I just got my internet access back after moving in September (which doesn't excuse a lack of post for August.

August in Luoyang carried that hard task of saying farewell to my students and coworkers many of whom I will in all likely hood never see again. I know that I was a positive force in their lives during the time I was there, so that made things both easier and harder.



It was easier because they all wished me the best and hard because they were all somewhat glum about me leaving, several of my students (at all levels) cried a little when I told them I was going to be going which is a sort of unhappy compliment.



Then September came around and I got on a plane from ZhengZhou, the capital of Henan province, and flew to Chengdu in Sichuan province where I now am living quite happily. And no, sorry Mom, thats a co-woker and not a girlfriend. She happened to complain that I was too tall and so I remidied the situation for her.

As you can see though, Chengdu is treating me pretty well. As I have probably mentioned before, Chengdu is known as a party city in china. The food is absolutely amazing, the scenery is breathtaking, the historic locations are rather fun, and the women (as you can see) are beautiful.

Not as beautiful as the children though.


This is my morning class, complete with the trouble maker Shaun (the one who does not look Chinese, well entirely Chinese). My morning class is a group of 22-26 (depending on who actually show's up) 3 year olds of various English levels. My afternoon school is where I teach many classes for short periods of time to ages 2-5 but don't get to know the children in the close and person way that I get to know them at the morning school.


Just this last week my afternoon school took all of its teachers on a short trip to a hot spring near Chengdu and then to a famous bridge in that nearby city where we all stopped to take pictures.



The bridge was done in old style architecture which I find beautiful and fascinating on many levels, but mostly I just had a good time running around with my coworkers and taking pictures.









In the group photo with 5 young ladies, the girl in the open gray shirt is Sophie, my co-teacher. In the blue is one of our dance teachers (whose name I don't know yet), in the black is Wendy, our piano teacher, and the other two I regretfully have forgotten who they are.













On a personal note, yesterday afternoon I had a wonderful date with a young lady I met this last week. While I use the word date, we never really called it as such, we just said we were hanging out as friends, but I have reasons to suspect (hope) that there is a potential for more. I don't yet have pictures of her or of many of the other wonderful places in Chengdu yet since I haven't been in the habit of taking a camera with me everywhere I go.

We may experience slight delays

Travel is often a stressful and trying experience even when nothing at all goes wrong. The further one is traveling the more likely that the effects of it will weigh on them for sometime.

I've not experienced enough long distance travel to be completely certain of myself and my abilities in any foreseeable circumstance in the future.

For my return flight from China to the States this last month I flew from LuoYang to Shanghai, arranged accomodations, and shopped for presents for family all while running a fever and having a chest cold which made it difficult to get out and about. This made the 12 hour flight from Shanghai to L.A. far less comfortable that it might otherwise have been, but rather uneventful none the less.

For my flight from L.A. to Shanghai we encountered some trouble with weather and incompetence which I have been assured are rather rare (at least when joined together). Due to bad weather forcing us to be redirected and poor communication over what type of aircraft and flight we were to air traffic control my flight returning to Shanghai wound up being delayed a full 9 hours (on a 13 hour flight) for a grand total of 22 hours between lift off in L.A. and touch down in Shanghai. We spent most of the delay on the ground in FuZhou a mere hour away from Shanghai.

Weather prevented us from landing and being redirected to an airport without the proper Taxi-jack for our airplane size were the primary factors involved in that.

As such between flying sick and extreme jetlag I feel I can handle any circumstance likely to come up in my travels.

Upon returning to LuoYang I've had a great many of my friends here eagerly wishing to talk with me and had my students happily asking many questions.

I'm getting to a point I need to secure my next job in as short order as possible and have moved on to the final stage of the employment process with a position in Chengdu. I am also in contact with a position in Ningbo and will need to make a final decision between the two cities very shortly. Currently I have an offer from Chengdu but do not yet have an offer on the table from Ningbo, simply a good word in with the boss and a strong reference.

Here are the two positions laid side by side:

Chengdu:
7,000RMB/Month + Acomodations near the school, Utilities, 1 free meal on working days (lunch).
Monday-Friday mornings and afternoons
Average schedule 3 hours in the morning (1/2 teaching 1/2 supervising) and 2-3 hours a day in the afternoon.
Kindergarten and Low grade primary school teaching (cute kids).
3 weeks national holiday + 2 weeks paid vacation/year
partial airfare reimbursement (paid as bonus upon contract completion)
Wonderful location near the heart of the City
City of Chengdu: Renowned for Beautiful mountains, lots of rainfall, spicy food, "most attractive women in china" (so the Chinese say, they are good looking on average though), Strong theater/opera traditions, nearby Pandas
Opportunity for overtime at 100RMB per 45-50min class. (~ $15 and hour)

Ningbo:
7,000RMB/Month to start, 8,000RMB after 3 mo. (final ~7,500 after taxes)
2,000RMB (untaxed) housing allowance (upscale single person apartment runs 2,200RMB)
40 hours a week working (preparation and classes combined)
2 days consecutive rest, both will be weekdays
Very small classes (4 students max) with grown adults (college students, businessmen, and people who which to expand their education).
Private office with personal desk, computer, Internet.
City of Ningbo: Coastal city with wide variety of and easy access to seafood, 2 hours from Shanghai, Considerable foreign population and geunie foreign foods such as pizza and burgers, location of a foreign university I am interested in attending year after next for Graduate school (Satellite of the University of Nottingham).

Also on the table until Sunday is my current job

LuoYang:
6,000 RMB/month (with possible resigning bonus)
Free Accomodations + 1/2 utilities (I will doubtlessly get a roommate if I stay where as in Ningbo I am assured a place to myself and in Chengdu can request it ahead of time).
Work 6 days a week very relaxed on weekdays and busy on weekends.
Students from 5-14 years old
Preset Curriculum and easy lesson planning
City: a little dirty and dull, but I will already have many friends here.

I am currently leaning to the job in Chengdu pending emails from current teachers there, I may lean back to the one in Ningbo but I very seriously doubt I will be here in LuoYang again next year.

Yes, it was an earthquake... and there's going to be another one at 5:00pm.

Of all of the interesting happenings to have graced me in my stay abroad, today was the first time when I was granted with anything that I had to fight not to laugh at. It was also the first experience which was purely human and had nothing at all to do with being in China versus being in America... I can very much imagine much of the same thing happening in Oklahoma while my home in California has been home to similarly foolish behavior during tsunami warnings.

Today, roughly about noon or so, my apartment building began to rock back and forth like a boat on a gentle sea. It was strong enough to rock the ship, but just sort of give it that peaceful motion that makes you feel a little uneasy until you work out the rhythm... that is, when it happens on the water. On land it presents something of a different sensation in most people. For me, I just found it odd because it felt too weak and too smooth to be an earthquake. In retrospect, I imagine that this quake was caused by a very different type of tectonic movement than San Andres creates, thus explaining the difference in feeling as it reached me here in LuoYang.

The real event was a 7.8 quake which was recorded in Sichuan province, I currently don't know more than that, but I also haven't gone looking. I'm waiting in part for the foreign news agencies to pick up the story so that I can read all of the available accounts and then put together the most likely version of the story based on the available information (being a literature major has had unforeseen side effects).

Here in LuoYang, the tremors were enough to be felt, but only enough to gently sway the ground, not even enough to disturb books on the shelves. Still all the people still at home had empties the buildings and were standing between the tall structures looking up at them and frantically dialing numbers on their cell phones. Local cell networks were busy for around two hours following the event as everyone in the city called about to find out if everyone was alright.

Two hours after the quake, my chinese boss got ahold of me by cell. "I was just calling to make sure everything was okay and that you didn't get hurt in the earthquake." She said with real concern, "Oh so it was a quake, it felt a little odd so I wasn't completely sure." I mentioned having entertained such ideas as high winds with a structural defect so far. "Yes, and you want to be careful there is going to be another one at 5pm. I hear its safer to be inside when it happens, but I don't know." "Don't worry Tracie, I'm a Californian... I know what to do in case of an earthquake."

The friend I was on the phone with through Skype began laughing at that point, only having been privy to my half of the conversation he was amused, but when I told him about the declaration of the still to come quake with the schedule ready time he was baffled. I'm still somewhat at a loss to explain why the news agencies here reported predictions (well, assertions is more the way of it) as to the times the aftershocks would strike at (or that we would feel them more than 24 hours by train away from the epicenter).

Still, it was the gathering of people between tall buildings, the flooding of the cellphone networks, and the confidence that once the ground had stopped shaking, all possible danger was passed, which left me very amused in the end.

I am sure a great many people did not derive any pleasure from the event that happened today, and I wish those actually harmed by the events all the best both now and in the times to come... but for those people who were panicking around me I had only one thought:

This is exactly what I will look like if I ever live in an area that gets Tsunamis, Volcanoes, or Tornadoes. I'd include Hurricanes... but those are a lot less likely with my current interests.

Revenge of the Cookie

When I first started keeping track of my personal experience here in China I had called this Blog "Behind the Iron Fortune Cookie" but the name really didn't fit. There was no resemblance to the previous communist era in China during that time. Before I came many of you, many of the people in my family and many others who I never met tried to tell me what I could expect in China. I heard everything from being told that I would have no electricity or water available in my home to being told that I would be arrested by the military and interrogated.

Neither of those are even slightly plausible realities, then or now. There has been no change recently in the Chinese government with regards to the protests of the Olympic Games being held in China or the more tangible disruptions to the progress of the Olympic Flame.

In China right now there is a strong atmosphere of Nationalism very similar to the state of the US shortly after the 911 attacks. Part of this has to do with the fact that China is still very Nationalistic (a trait rare in the first world in recent days) and also due to the fact that what little outside opinion they hear is currently negative of their country.

The facts:
+ Many foreign protesters are using the Beijing Olympic games as an opportunity to put pressure on the Chinese government to change their approach on issues in Tibet.
+ The Dali Lama has openly called for non-violent protests and does not wish for protests to halt the Olympic Games in China and has openly stated that he feels China deserves the games.
+ In London, France, and San Fransisco, pro-Tibetan protesters have tried to interrupt the progress of the Torch relay even up to attacking a handicapped athlete.
+ Many foreign media groups, some of them tabloids like the German magazine Bild and other usually credible news agencies such as The BBC, CNN, and The New York Times, have used images which are unrelated to their topic and or made unsubstantiated claims at a point in time where the Chinese Government decided to stop blocking the English language version of these websites giving China's educated population more access to them.

The results:
The Chinese people have over reacted to what they viewed as an Anti-Chinese bias in the western media and world. What is truly nothing more than capitalistic sensationalism has been misunderstood to be designed malice.

The Internet using population, always indicative of the most fanatical and least socially adjusted individuals of any population, has taken extreme stances and actions which are being further highlighted in Western Media, detracted from the real issue and pouring gas on the flames.

Internet rumors from Chinese sources are excepted with less questioning than before because the supposedly superior western media has presented untrue or questionable information lately.

One such rumor has been of a French company which supports pro-Tibet groups and a full Boycott has been called for in China.

The Chinese people are still reacting in a mostly peaceful fashion, though just like in the US as of 911 it is wise to keep you head down and not openly express views that conflict with the majority.


The change is not a pleasant one and the reaction is both more severe and has less grounds than the reaction in the US following 911. This reaction has not negatively affected me here in China though I find the general attitude towards foreigners changed somewhat in the last week, I also know that because of how fast the change happened and how temporary the cause was, it will be gone again shortly.

I wanted to assure any family member who reads the news that I am in no real danger because of the events lately and that I continue to have a peaceful and fun time in China.

These recent events have given me a much deeper perspective into notions such as Democracy and Nationalism so as to understand the theories which went into the formation of the United States America all the better. I regret that these events haven't changed my perception of the current state of America.

This was just a short blog post before anyone sent me email's asking me questions about the reaction to Olympic protests.

I can honestly say, I am now eager for the Olympic games to be over though, the fierce pride that the Chinese people have over being recognized as equals by the great powers of the world can be a very comforting and very good thing, but it can just as easily turn into a nasty circumstance. I would like to see what the nation is like when it is more, at rest. I think that life here wouldn't be too different from life back home if there wasn't such a galvanizing point of conflict to deal with.

Back from the Wilderness

With a New Year comes many changes, usually for the better and on the order of keeping up old commitments while picking up some new ones. Well the new year has certainly seen some changes. I decided to drop the Shakespeare villain facial hair I had been fostering for too long now, as well as the hair which had become simply too long. The pictures above are all me, though I have trouble seeing the resemblance from time to time. The darker photo in your upper left hand corder is of me in Chengdu las October getting ready to hike up a mountain. In the middle was a photo taken today on my camera in LuoYang's National Peony Park and on the upper right is a picture taken this last February at Pu To Mountain near Ningbo. Like wine, aging seems to improve the face the camera finds.

I'd like to talk about all the amazing adventures I've been having in the time I've not been updating, but really I've been sort of lazy lately. I traveled in January and February, but with my workload maintaining a very hectic schedule I've simply been content to crash early and watch the odd DVD here and there for my entertainment.

So to start with lets get some pictures of China's real source of wealth, the actual land and what it has to offer. Nothing about noisy cities or interesting people, but the reasons people should have to travel here.
Sichuan Province, a land of Spicy food, attractive people, Panda's, and Mist. I visited only a few of the scenic places outside of the city of Chengdu, but it remains one of the most amazing locations I have ever seen in my life.
The very landscape seems to be alive with fantasy and myth even into days which have long forgotten how to believe in such things. These majestic mountains are virtually always cloaked in thick folds of mist though on the day I chanced to visit a light peppering rain also frequented them. Rain is no stranger to these lands and is more often about the province than sunshine in some areas.I visited Sichuan Province October of last year with a friend. At the time I was there I still spoke next to no Chinese and was mostly at the mercy of good friends to show me the ropes of being in China, let alone in this wonderful city and area. Chengdu and Sichuan province are my top choices for locations to move to for the next year I intend to spend teaching in China.

Following my October exploits I settled down to my normal work teaching some of the most adorable students I have ever had the opportunity to meet. These two, Brandon and Judy (Who has changed her name to Lettie because she made a friend who had the same English name) were in my KK class (the 9th (K) Kindergarten level class (K) which my school had held. They are both now in SF class (S is the next level up , I'll let you work out what the F is for). Brandon likes to play in various ways which test not only his strength by my own, he also is one of the few children I know who still pretends to be Superman. Judy/Lettie is a darling little girl who can be very shy or endearingly affectionate with everyone she meets. She recently celebrated her 6th birthday.

While I was handling business as usual, the seasons changed. For a California boy that is a big deal as it simply doesn't happen back home. The weather went from very humid and hot... to well, something else entirely.
The snow fell heavier this year than it has in several past years, or so I am told. Many of my coworkers credited and/or blamed me for this depending on their feelings regarding snow as it very much did seem to be for my benefit after I admitted to never having lived anywhere which had Snow and to have been looking forward to trying this out. As you might guess, it makes it hard to ride that bike when I go places.

Still, with the change of the season, my students didn't change too much. Oh they advanced in the ciriculum, their studies improved, and many things went forward positively, but children remain children; and I am certainly still one of them at heart.

I took several of my breaks off to go have snowball fights with my older students, something they thought was a lot of fun (mostly because they got to peg me more than I got to peg them... but they've had practice). While I didn't participate in making snowmen this year I did see many amazing ones in the city.

The snow blanketed a usually somewhat dirty city in a clean sheet of white making everything stunningly beautiful in a strangely quiet sort of way. The cold did eventually start to seep in through the excess I carry on my person, but I had lost enough weight that I was able to double up on clothing. I made it through the cold of the winter a fair deal easier than I expect to get through the heat of summer.

In January I visited the Shaolin Temple, but the day I went up I was under the weather and the pictures I took were not very good to begin with. January is not a good time to take in Chinese Temples because all of the natural plant life is dead at that time of year. I plan to go back soon to get some proper photographs. Febuary was my next big adventure into the metropolitan jungle of Shanghai. Shanghai has more of a lanscape than a skyline as it is one of the largest cities in the world (easily making Los Angelas look rather small when you realize that nearly the entire expanse of Shanghai is more like a city center than a suburb).

Shanghai is a strange mixture of old Chinese architecture, modern Chinese architecture, Gothic western architecture, and modern western architecture. I stayed rather close to The Bund which is a district of Shanghai known for the Gothic western buildings and for shopping. Like New York City, many of the impressivee old buildings are banks.

Closer to the city center the image begins to look very different to the point where it becomes hard to believe that all three of these pictures are taken within the same city and even harder to beleive that they were all taken within a thirty minute walk of each other. In fact the first two pictures are literally opposite each other. The upper right is of the Pearl TV tower, the third tallest TV tower in the world, on the right is one of the many banks on the street opposite the view of the river taken above. The other picture of the city center was taken after a 30 minute walk through the shopping district, or roughly 20 minutes walking if you don't dawdle. In yet another place in the city, in between the two, there was a display for the Chinese New Year which was being celebrated at the time I was in Shanghai. The area is a recently rebuilt old city center which serves as a tourist attraction and a place for local shopping. This area also houses the noteworthy Jade Gardens.

Many displays were set throughout the artificial lake at the center of this old city replica. Each display is suppose to represent a scene from a famous chinese story, though I have no idea what any of the stories actually are.

After muscling through the crowd with a new friend I had met durring my stay in Shanghai I actually went to the Jade Gardens which in true chinese fashion containted neither jade nor gardens. Instead the Jade Gardens are famous for unique rock formations created through a process which my language ability doesn't begin to let me follow.

The Gardens are actually a Toaist Temple which have been maintained due to the beauty, fragility, and rarity of these stones. As I could understand very little of the signs which were not in English, and couldn't always follow the ones which were in English, I don't have too much more to say on that account.

My favorite picture from the Temple however is something which had no caption. The chinese people I saw there and I nicknamed it the Dragon Chicken.

After Shanghai I went to Ningbo and do to spending time about the city with friends I simply didn't think to take pictures of it. It was a pleasant enough location but nothing really called for a picture the way things like the Dragon Chicken or the Temple in the Jade Gardens did.

But eventually I took a day trip to Pu To mountain, a location which had a sign that would forever explain this country to me.The sign doesn't actually explain China in most respects as I find it to be a wonderful country full of wonderful people, but I hear stories from people here and occasionally meet people who make me think that the English on this sign is more accurate than anyone wants to admit.

Pu To Shan is one of the four holy mountains of Bhuddism and as such features some breathtaking monuments like the one I took a picture infront of. To get an idea of its real size you can see this picture well.

Pu To Mountain is known as the Sea Gate and is actually a sizeable island with a multitude of Temples and holy sites scattered about it. There are hotels and resturants scattered about these shores since whatever belief made them sacred has sense left the Nation.

And then after my trip I went home and have not been up to much. The remainder of winter was mostly a little brown and not very eventful. That is, nothing eventful until now that Spring is upon us.

Spring sees the drab coat of late winter shrugged off in brilliant displays of vitality, especially here. Luo Yang is famous in China and much of the world for these majestic flowers. The Peony as well call them in the west or Mu Dong as they are called here are huge, multiple petaled flowers. They can often reach the size of a salad plate in diamater and are nominally half spherical at several stages of blooming.













These giant flowers bloom for a handful of days before wilting making them a brief but marvelous phenomenon and the entire city is full of them while they are in bloom. The pictures of the flowers have all been taken in the last couple of days.

Firsts for Christmas...

This has most certainly been a year of firsts for so many things, Christmas seems like the smallest of them all in some respects but in many ways this was the time which made being in China, being out of college, and everything feel real for me.

Christmas has always been a chaotic time for me, but for all the added stress and confusion I have always found a warmth and acceptance in this time of year. It comes from the very physical parts of the season: It has been getting colder but not for long enough for people to have truely begun to dislike the cold. This year I've experienced that more than others since it has been getting genuinely cold, and having lived my whole like if San Diego I certainly have not felt the warmth of a hot radiator after walking in, out of the near frozen air.

This year for the first time I decorated my own place, my own apartment/room/house on my own and only with things that I got through borrowing or buying them. It is a completely different feeling to revel in another person's festivities than to celebrate your own fortunes in your own way. The more of life I see the more I become convinced that there is little in this world worth gaining through the hands of others.

Personal Acheivement is such a valuble thing that I when I turn on the lights in my flat I feel more relaxed than I can remeber, though there is very little awe in my lights. Back home people really strive to out do one another and their efforts I feel are worthy of awe, mine on the other hand just create a sense of home in my flat, a world away from the competition.

Sandy, one of the teachers bought me this stuffed panda and dressed him up for the holidays, he's not just an ordinary Panda though... ... Stay tuned as the story breaks.

In years past I have made special baked things and such for Christmas, some of my family knows that I have a flair for the dramatic and enjoy spending the time to make food which can be enjoyed before it is eaten. Of course most of the time I genuinely care about how it tastes too.

This year for the first time I decided to make gingerbread on my own, but in China there are some things that make this a little bit of a problem.

To start with, the Chinese don't bake, so all of the little things, like ovens, are not common out here. Include with the lack of ovens and lack of ingredients normally reserved for baking, like Vanilla for the cookies I wanted to make, and a complete lack of measuring cups.

Armed with an 8oz. drinking cup and a couple of different sized spoons which had been collected over the last two years be the flat's previous residents, I set out to bake in a toaster oven. I made peanut butter cookies topped with peices of Dove Chocolate and Gingerbread... well Gingerbread shapes. They started with Gingerbread men, and then I got bored and playful.

To the right you'll notice that the gingerbread woman on the right has a bun in the oven. Lisa is one of the teachers at work and she is expecting in March, so I make a cookie for her that she could relate to.

To the left you'll notice a cat person. Cathy the head teacher took on the nick-name "Super Cat" to try to keep her class from becoming too in love with their "Super Panda", me. The effort didn't work but she got her cat person cookie out of the deal.

On the far right you'll see a gingerbread rat... yes thats right, a gingerbread rat. The word for Rat and Mouse is the same in China and on top of that they are considered cute (when not actually seen alive). Sissy is rather fond of drawings of mice and so I did what I could with a knife to make a gingerbread rat for her to enjoy. If your wondering if I did this just because the girl in question is beautiful and single, I will admit that those facts didn't hurt the motivation. In truth she has become a friend of mine, and even if nothing else comes of it I will do nice things for my friends from time to time when I can.

Thats the real key, my motivation was exceedingly simply... I can.

Jessica is another of my new friends, and with her cookie I made a slight logisitcal mistake. Some of you will be looking at the cookie right now tring to figure out what you are looking for. Its a G and an h.

Jessica has a new class of students one of which did not get the smart genes in the family. In his latest exam he couldn't remember which small letter went with which big letter, his exam actually read "Gf" but I misremembered the exam while I was making the cookies. She enjoyed it anyways.

On the right now is the last of the special cookies that I made, this one was for Sandy who absolutely loved pictures of San Diego's beaches (because they are Sandy too).

More that that, she took the time to make a present which is still one of my absolute favorities that I have ever gotten. You saw the front of him above and you saw that he was wearing a tie.

This is part of his secret Identity as the seemingly normal Hughbert Hewer. In reality he is:

Did you see that comming? Really?

Of all these firsts there is another one which is small but very, very fun. This is the first year I have a looked out my window and heard something which is in all the songs about this time of year. This picture was taken on the morning of Christmas Eve, and while I don't think I will get a repeat show tomorrow, this still makes it officially my first White Christmas.

There wasn't more snow than just enough to look at, but that still makes it more than enough for me. I went out for a walk in the snow. I much advise this over walks in the rain, properly secured from the cold it is actually very pleasant. Rain tends to be much more wet while with the snow i stayed rather dry the whole time.

My firsts didn't end there, I just had my first Christmas party which I hosted. It was a small get together, light and fun with friends. I spent much of my energy in preparing cookies (Mom's recipes modified for lack of certain things), hot apple cider (Stef's recipie but with half a lemon peel in place of an orange peel because I was too lazy to go by an orange), and collecting movies that are fun for the background like Home Alone.

To the left are (left to right) Chrissy, Jessica, Sissy, and Maggie.

I topped the cookies with an attempt at Royal icing, it didn't come out to bad though I didn't get the liquid to solid ratio quiet right. I also didn't expect the various teachers to bring me presents, especially since I had only bought small gifts for them (apart from the four I am good friends with). The collection of gifts was actually very thoughtful and made me feel a little embarrassed that I didn't go find more for them than I actually had.

To the right are (left to right) Grace in the background, Vicky, Sandy, and Chrissie. I think its a safe bet that Vicky didn't know she was in the picture.

So on top of my other firsts this the first year that I was truly surprised by receiving gifts. I got an assortment of things not the least of which included a new pair of shoes all the way from America.

The foot belongs to Cathy, the head teacher of Xi Gong school.

I also got some new tea from Vickey, some Charlie brown drinking cups from Sissy (with hearts on them which I am hoping is a good sign), a bottle of paper stars from Jessica so that I can make a wish (If she didn't have a boyfriend I would take that as a clear sign of interest), a nice journal and day planner from Lily, and a little red lantern for candles from Cathy.

My christmas isn't quiet over, but this year, Christmas came early. Tomorrow I have work in the evening but I will be calling my family in the morning (their Christmas Eve). I work on New Years Eve, but I have the following three days off so I am going to start planning something. I might choose to go visit the Shaolin temple, you know... make sure the New Year is really kick ass or something? Maybe I'll find out if the girls want to go dancing. I'm 20 pounds lighter than when I got her, and have much more energy... I should have a few moves to bust out thanks to my year of Lindy-Hop.