Update

I guess it's been a little while since I last posted. My new year in Thailand was amazing, thanks mainly to some great friends and the warm weather. I would recommend to everybody to make the pilgrimage to Thailand at some point. The people are friendly, the food is awesome, the weather is warm, the parties are crazy, the beaches are white, and the water is clear. Is there anything more one could ask for? I think I'll post pictures at some point as well.

Because I live in China, I got to experience a second new year as well. The Chinese new year is the biggest holiday here, by far, and it was a lot of fun. Well, by fun I mean that it seemed like every man, woman, and child in Wuhan was involved in a city wide competition to see who could set off the most firecrackers and fireworks. Chinese legend (so my students tell me) has it that there is a monster that appears at the end of each year, and that the sound of the firecrackers scares it away. The result was that it sounded like I was in a war zone. Also, they obviously don't have any sort of firework safety restrictions, so it was commonplace to see fireworks launched from the side of the road or sometimes even out of windows. New years eve was amazing in that there were fireworks lighting up the sky from multiple directions, which was really cool to see.

Other than that, my life has been pretty mundane. I'm currently busy with applying to graduate school and applying for jobs (I'll decide later which of the two I want to do) for the fall, so cross your fingers. We are nearing the end of our term, so I have to make sure the kids are prepared for finals (they are because I'm an awesome teacher). I finally bought an iPod and registered at the gym. All in all my life now consists of a pretty smooth routine.

The only question now is when to break it.