Ah the changes...

Hmm, it's been a while since I wrote something here hasn't it? The first long pause in news was due to an oppressively busy schedule, the second time was due to a lack of news to report, and it's been much the same since then.
However, recently a few notable things have been taking place, most of it kind of personal, but I have a lot of other things I feel comfortable sharing.

Despite being on the opposite face of this wonderful ball of rock, air and a myriad of other elements we call Earth, it didn't take long for me to hear the results of the U.S. Presidential election. The news came from Mom yesterday at exactly 13:28 local Wenzhou time in the form of a two word statement on my cell phone: "Obama WON!"

The other night before this event had come to pass, I was in a classroom as a teacher's aide and the students asked me (among other things) who I supported. I told them I preferred staying out of the political scene, but given the choice I'd go for the younger, more optimistic candidate.


For my part in this "new age of change" I've been looking into a program called Future Generations© and its graduate program for a Master's Degree in Applied Community Change and Conservation, as well as its volunteer program for university students called the Green Long March.
I mentioned the G.L.M. in my classes and asked the students to look it up online in order to help with our talk about "Advocacy" next week. Most of the students seemed unable to grasp that the homework was for them to research the subject themselves and continued to ask me "what does it mean?".

In the coming months I'll continue my personal "clean-up-crusade" on the mountain near my school, but I'd like to make it more than that - I want people to see what crap I'm bringing off the summit and make it clear that we ALL need to be more responsible. I also want to involve all my students so that I can communicate with the locals and make my students see what's up there being destroyed through carelessness. But at the same time I don't want it to interfere with their studies.


I also loaned my copy of Uncle Mike's book "Following John Muir" to a friend of mine who's quite fluent in English. Thus far she's only looked at the pictures and not touched on all the great writing, but hopefully she'll get to the literature later.