And I can't breathe! It's the craziest thing, but I guess I got used to the fresh country air at home - where air pollution is basically all cow farts and nothing else - and then came back to the scummy air of Chengdu, air that you can very literally cut with a knife. Hooray! I've been short of breath since I came here, but I only "noticed" it ( Read more... )

Btw...
For future reference, flying internationally with a stuffed cat sticking out of your backpack is an interesting experience, to say the least. Also, apparently, even the security people in Shanghai are still capable of being surprised by two foreigners who speak Chinese.

More later.

I'm back in China.

I brought Dan home to experience America at its greatest - Michigan in the height of a recession - and spent a month wandering around the backwoods and the basement to replenish my depleted stores of energy and decent clothing. It's been a month of revelations and interesting, weird events, stuff I'd never have expected and ( Read more... )

As a warning:

I’ve just learned that I can’t really go back through and edit my entries like I post them, unfortunately. So if I accidently post a buggy one, I can’t just hit delete and repost it like I thought I could. :/ I can’t even connect to Blogger, not even through a proxy, and Livejournal loads really buggily through a proxy ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

My time as a volunteer here in Chengdu is nearing an end. I have just a touch less than 4 months left to teach at my school, and then will be transitioning into a different sort of existence.

After a short jaunt home with my boyfriend, intended to introduce him to my parents and the myriad joys of America -- including our actual ( Read more... )

I'm leaving for the airport in seven hours. Wish me luck. All further posting will be in tiamatinchina, and will be locked.

This is clawsoftiamat, signing off.

Just reminding you guys that this journal is going on hiatus for a couple of years. If you want to find me, I'll be in tiamatinchina, since cleaning this thing out sufficiently will be a royal pain in the butt. Entries will be locked.

I still feel like something random is going to go wrong and all of this will be for naught...

Okay, fucking creepy. If ya'll wonder why I wear baggy clothes and no makeup and don't really care if I gain weight, today's escapade should pretty much tell ya ( Read more... )