元旦

Yuan dan - the solar new year is tomorrow morning.

In America at this time I would be having a party at my house, fireworks going off, lots of food, and more familiar surroundings and people.

At present I'm in my office in 瓯江 college, I finished putting grades into the computer program and now I'm just burning up some more time before I go back to my place to sleep - yeah, this is how we do it in China.

I'm sure at least a few of the other foreign teachers are staying up to party or hang out, but for me I need to be back at the school gate at 6:00 tomorrow morning to catch the bus into Wenzhou city center - there's a 4,300 meter run going on somewhere around that time and my college bought the participating faculty members brand-new sweatshirts and pants for the occasion - the clothes are pretty nice, and they actually fit me.

Being in China is great, but this last week I was really feeling kind of homesick. In class last week I told everyone who asked that I didn't mind working on Christmas because I'm Jewish, but I feel the call of habit telling me to go to Uncle Mike's, sit with everyone under the tree, do a huge puzzle and at some point frolic in the ocean...

...haven't seen that ocean for a while now...

On the lighter side of things, last night was my colleague Riz's birthday, so we had a big get-together in her apartment - food, talk, music and lots of her sophomore students that kept treating me like I was a rock star - I have to say when it makes everyone nervous to talk to you because they think you're so "handsome" and "popular" it's kind of frustrating... still not used to that treatment and never wanna be.


Well, as one eventful year ends, so begins a new one.

My resolutions:
- train martial arts at least a little bit everyday,
- practice languages for an hour everyday,
- study science every week,
- be a little less serious,
- take more time to explore,
- spend a lot less time by myself,

...and,
- get some more experience out of life.