This past week has been hectic and sleepless; the details are all a blur. So I won't do this chronologically - I guess I'll have to do this stream-of-consciousness style. It might be hard to follow; it might be easy. I won't know (it will make perfect sense to me.)

I have gone to Wangfujing once a day for the past three days – Thursday to see if Matrix Revolutions was still playing (in English, with Chinese subtitles rather than dubbed Chinese with English subtitles) at a little theater hidden inside one of the two gigantic malls on Wangfujing Dajie (Dajie = Street) . It was. So most of the foreign teachers and I went to see it on Friday. The theater was modern, but the staff kept dragging gigantic strings of balloons from the back of the theater to the emergency exit at the front of theater. It was a little distracting and disturbing (where are they taking all those balloons?) We even attempted to track down the balloons after the movie, but alas, the balloons had disappeared. Saturday I went Christmas shopping, and I started out on Wangfujing. After a bit of browsing and a minor bit of hassling by “art students” (younger people, usually females, who wait on the street and sweet talk tourists into buying crappy art at ridiculously high prices – usually by claiming that a famous and obviously printed painting is their own work. They always claim to be students who need to sell their work to afford to attend school, and their ploy seems to work on tourists.) I moved onto the hutongs surrounding the Forbidden City. Hutongs are loads of fun – people yelling, “hallo – looka, looka!” at you as teem with the masses past their stores, kids barely able to walk trying to stick their little hands inside your pockets when they think you aren't watching, and no set prices on anything. I needed a “man-bag” to hold all my junk (map, Chinese-English dictionary, water bottle, etc.) that I might need when I go out and about, and I saw a nice North Face backpack in a shop as I teemed along. The first quoted price was 8 times what I ended up paying (after ten minutes of hard bargaining) and I still paid more than I should have. Of course I paid much, much less than I would have in the States, and I don't feel cheated, so I did well.

I taught my first twenty hour week this past week, and it did not go very well. 'Twas a long, long week, and by Friday it showed – I felt a little punch-drunk. Some classes are easier to teach than others, and some are just about impossible. Thankfully this semester is almost over – just six weeks to go. According to my boss, I'll be teaching Ph.D. candidates next semester, because I've been getting good reviews from some students that I'm teaching now. Students let you know what they think about you and your teaching methods here, there is absolutely no mincing of words. It's refreshing, as long as they say good things about you to your face.

I had another case of food poisoning this past week, but it wasn't anything that Immodium couldn't handle – more of an inconvenience than anything else. I can't wait until I finally adjust to the food here. I caught myself calling my flat “home” yesterday, and that's supposedly the sign of being settled (according to Mel and Mike, who were quoting an “written thingie – what's the word?” “Article?” “That's the word” written by “???” - it took them thirty minutes to agree that they didn't know who wrote it or where they'd seen it. So if any of you would like to come teach in China let me know – I can assure you that you're qualified.)

My life has simmered down at the moment; I need to start planning where I am going to go on Spring Festival ( a month long break that starts sometime in January – I'm not exactly sure, and getting details out of anyone here is almost impossible.) I welcome suggestions, if you have any.