A Travelogue and (occasional) Sketchblog
Last week was a particularly trying time: stressful, tiring, annoying, expensive, and long.
My brain and presence of mind being what it is, I’ll see what I can do to piece together the events of the last week for your reading pleasure…
…the first thing that comes to mind is the big hassle that was my endeavors [...]
Teaching. It’s… not me. I’ve thought about it for a bit – since I got here, really – and I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that I’ve got a lot of traits and skills that might make me like a teacher, but that’s not exactly my thing. My enthusiasm for the things here that [...]
I think I’ve mentioned this rule I decided to live by here in China, the first rule of improv, “always say yes.” I follow this rule within reason when people make suggestions of me and it’s gotten me into pretty interesting stuff. Of course, when I say within reason, I’m referring to things such as [...]
Yes. To those who warned me – that was stupid. For those of you who didn’t see it, you’ll see it eventually.
I was just incredibly excited about what had just happened and had only enough energy to write, rather than think about what I was writing.
Limiting what I talk about and how I talk about [...]
[written at 9:45 PM, August 16th]
The last couple days, including most of today, have been, for lack of a better term, filthy. By filthy, I mean there’s little else to do but get absolutely dirty. The weather over the first half of the week was a really pleasant, albeit extreme, dry heat. I like dry [...]
[Written at 8:16 PM, August 8th]
Being that today was yet another day off, I have a few thoughts to share:
I just realized that there isn’t a single fire/smoke detector in this apartment.
I accidentally ordered a big steaming plate of bony-ass, expensive fish for lunch. Noodle vendors put out all their ingredients so you can see [...]
[Originally written at 9:18 AM, July 23rd
Warning: This is an extremely long post.]
It’s about 9:18 AM and I’ve got a video date with Kelly in about three hours. I could just go down to the school and squat on their internet for the interim, but… I really don’t like just sitting around when everyone else [...]
What follows is a transcript of periodic observations during my ordeal in transience between Xuzhou and Xiangfan last week. Hard to believe that it was just last Tuesday. Anyways, it kind of runs the gamut from anthropological naval-gazing, self-piteous lamentations, to just matter of fact “this just happened.” Looking back on this, detached by even [...]
Illness
I just had the hottest bowl of noodles I’ve ever eaten in my life. I mean, it was so hot it flicked my fight or fight response wherein I actually wandered away from the restaurant in a daze after paying – the other guys just sorta watched me go in confusion “Where you goin’ man?” [...]
Jet lag be damned, I’m here to explore.
My roommate turns out to be this oddball of a fellow from New Zealand, the kind of guy who travels for the sake of adventure and has a habit of getting himself in trouble. For god’s sake, he’s had to call his Embassy twice, and once after getting [...]