On the advantages of having your spouse and oldest child living in the same time zone with you instead of having to communicate with Skype over a 13 hour time difference (14, once it went back to Standard Time)

I could go on for a while, but I think the title of the post says it clearly enough...

Ah, the things that Jane's been missing...

Since Jane has now been away from campus for more than two months, I thought it might be time for a timely update on happenings around town.


Presenting our University's brand new green electric intra-campus shuttles!  At the beginning of the school year, all of a sudden they were all over the place, whisking students from the back gate to the central classroom area, or from the side gate to the south gate (we're big on gates here), all for one Yuan.  Like crosses between oversized golf carts and a pack of wild dingoes with their vocal chords removed (large green and white electric wild dingoes with wheels and 12 to 15 seats), these minibusses now roam the narrow streets of the teacher apartment area.  I think the drivers must be working on commission - they make NYC bike messengers look relaxed by comparison.  As an added bonus, the open seating gives the opportunity for college girls from the far reaches of campus who haven't seen our kids before a brief chance to shriek "How cuuuuute!" and "Hello, boy!" as the bus whizzes by, almost grazing our elbows.

Other than that, the changes around campus this fall have been fairly minor.  A slight majority of parents and grandparents of babies and toddlers are now using strollers to push their kids around, instead of carrying their kid in the traditional wicker basket backpack.  When we first arrived, and Ysa was still most definitely stroller-dependent, we were the only family on campus that used one, and that only because our frame pack was killing a sore ankle I had at the time.  Are we trendsetters or are we trendsetters?  (The correct answer to that question, by the way, is "probably not".)


There are now more of these guys around who jump over curbs and things with their bicycles, who I call, for lack of a better name, "Jumping Bicycle Dudes".  I first noticed the first two Jumping Bicycle Dudes on campus the spring after we arrived, and since then their numbers have grown to around twelve, I'd say.  They seem to have been driven indoors by the colder weather and (maybe?) pressure to study, but I'm thinking that next spring, they may double yet again to around 24 when it gets warmer. 

Realizing some goals, beginning others...

I'm probably breaking confidence a bit as a dad, but here is part of my son's collection that I found the other day while cleaning up around the house. Before he left for the States, Xander had taken a plastic apple-shaped pencil holder and filled it with scraps of paper, each of which had an important life goal written on it. Here are a few:

• Get in world record
• Good life
• Nice Family
• Ride 1st class plane seat
• 100 元 (Yuan - the Chinese currency)

Hard to believe, but he and I left for the US on July 18 - almost four months ago.  I haven't been posting about his story much on this blog, but today, some good news - he had successful surgery to remove the pins and external fixators that were holding his bones in place as they healed.  That means a green light to travel China, so Jane and Xander will be flying back early next week!  To say that there is much relief at the whole thing being over is a bit of an understatement...

My Kingdom for a telephoto lens!

Had a borrowed camera last Sunday afternoon while watching the kids ride bikes in their usual kid rodeo area in front of the primary school.  Most of the time, a small portable point and shoot is more than enough, but on occasion, it would be nice to be able to zoom in a bit closer.  Still, with a little bit of cropping, I was able to get a few decent pics out of the deal, mostly of Ysa and friends because Zekey was zooming around too fast.  (You should have seen the pictures that got away...)




 
 



 

Back in the swing of things

Image:  National Day holiday travelers in the North Train Station plaza, Chengdu

A quick Sunday update to all, as the students stream back from almost a week off of classes from the National Day break.  Jane and Xander are still in the States, return date still not fixed, but now estimated to be late October or early November.  Ysa, Zekey, and I had a pleasant, if relatively non-eventful week off, mostly at home, with visits to our friends the Gaos and their farm, and several other gatherings with classmates and neighbors. 

The October weather, aside from a couple of gloriously clear days caused by factory shutdowns and the general lack of car emissions over the National Day Holiday, has been its typical lead sky overcast, with just a hint of nippiness in the air.  I'm realizing more and more just how solar powered I am, and I'm getting good at figuring out my mood lately.  Annoyed at the kids?  Weather related.  Not feeling like doing much? Weather related. General blahs?  Weather related. 

The good news?  Anything weather related usually disappears soon after diagnosis.  Or a strong green tea caffeine fix, whichever comes first.  And spicy food.  Oh, and as a further preventative, I've taken to burning incense, and lighting lots of candles at night to compensate for deficiencies in the red end of the spectrum outdoors.

Waitaminnit...  Green tea?  Spicy food?  Incense and candles?  Lots of red?  Hmmm, sounds familiar, but just can't place it....



Oh, yeah, right.  So culture is influenced by environmental factors!  Whattya know?  (Jane, don't be surprised if our apartment resembles a Taoist temple by the time you get back...)

15,790. And shrinking.

What is 15,790?  Why, the number of digital photos on our laptop's hard drive, of course.  That's 28.8 gigabytes of pixelly goodness, or over one third of this old Macbook's available storage space.  It's hard to believe that 80 GB was more memory than we could use when we bought this thing five years ago- now I feel like we've got the computer equivalent of the house with twelve cats and rooms full of stacks of old newspapers. It doesn't help matters much that the hard drive is now making a sound that sounds like a mix between an 1956 Vespa scooter in dire need of a tuneup, a foot-powered dentist drill, and, well, a MacBook hard drive that may fail at any minute.



Or maybe that will get better once I install the latest two direly needed software updates.  I've heard that can sometimes be the case.  (Please be the case, please be the case...)  Oh, but I need more space on my hard drive to install said updates, so back to the 15,970 photos that I'm in the process of weeding out.  I mean, Lordy, 15,970 photos?? I don't know why anyone in their right mind would have more than 13, 476...



This all just to say that several forces in the universe, chiefly being my need to delete a couple of thousand photos or so (don't worry, they're backed up onto the external drive), but also including the fact that my camera is in the United States right now, have conspired to send me back in time to re-examine the far distant past of 2010.  And wow, nothing like a year or so gone by to give you a fresh eye on your photos.  And Jane's photos, I might add.  The picture at the top of the post is hers, as is the one below, and several more on the way.



So yeah, I've been cropping like a Banshee, and sending all the results to Flickr.  Which is why you may see a few more things that are out of sequence coming up, but, you're not expecting chronology from me anyway, right?

Oh, and yes, you heard correctly:  Banshees crop their photographs.  All the time.  It's what they do when they're not screaming.

Henri Cartier-Bresson?  Not a Banshee.

Home is where 2/3 of your kids are...

...and, since Xander and I won't be there for a while, I thought I'd fire up the blog by posting some pictures of the kids that we took before we left for the States. Missing you guys!





Incidentally, Xander is doing fine after surgery, and is now recovering nicely. I probably won't be covering too much of our current activities in the U.S. on this blog, but we are emailing periodic updates to friends and family, as well as posting on Facebook, etc. Want to know more? Leave a comment, or drop us a line - we'd love to hear from you!

On the road

By the time this posts, I'll be somewhere over the Pacific on the way back to Chicago, courtesy of Hainan Airlines. I'm setting up a few robo-posts for the next week, and then after that, well, stay tuned for further developments...

The big news!

About a month ago now, we found out that Xander will need fairly major surgery within the next year to correct some bone growth issues in his forearms. (One of the other big reasons this blog was silent for a bit recently...) After many many calls back and forth, and many many people who have been invaluable in helping us in so many ways, we got confirmation that he is covered to have the surgery at Shriner's Hospital in Philadelphia at the end of July. Nervewracking, but good news, indeed.


We weren't actually in this department ever, but ya gotta love China sometimes for telling it like it is...

And just a couple of days ago, we got our plane tickets booked, so it looks like we're doing this, doesn't it? We'll be in Chicago for a bit to get acclimated, then on to Philadelphia for the surgery, then recovery after that. There will be a tricky shuffle as Jane comes out with Zekey and Ysa for a couple of weeks, then I go back with Z and Y at the beginning of September to start the school year, while Jane stays in the US with Xander until he gets the green light to travel back to China. (Although arranging all of this via email, and Skype calls back and forth has made it all seem very virtual indeed..)

So the upshot of all this is that Xander and I will be in the States for most of this summer. Starting in just a bit more than two weeks! I don't know what I'll end up writing on the blog coming up in the next couple of months, though I'm guessing that I'll keep more of the personal hospital-related news over on Facebook for those that know us. I've got a big backlog of China related news and interesting links to keep me busy posting, that's for sure. Or maybe you'll get a lot of links to YouTube videos and pictures of cats with funny sayings underneath. Or I might save my energy and not post at all until the fall, who knows? (Though this doesn't mean I don't like you. I do, really and truly!)

Again, proof that we still exist...

Yes, it's that time of year again - when we have finished grading our finals, vegged out a bit by watching too many (bootlegged - shhh) episodes of "So You Think You Can Dance", sent the kids out to run wild in the mild evening sauna (37°C / 98°F at 7:00 last night), and realized that it's time to get down to business and please the grandparents with cute pix of the grandkids.


Ysa starts this one out by adding to the shopping list on the dining room whiteboard. Apparently, we're low on blue flowers and "Mupus Asam".


Continuing the theme of family scribe, Xander shows us his Chinese homework, and incidentally demonstrates that, yes, I, your trusted narrator, am less literate than your average Chinese first grader.


Meanwhile, Zekey, having singlehandedly saved the earth from an invasion of malicious tropical plants, pauses to take a PR shot with his trusty sidekick.


Peace, everyone! Remember to practice your writing each day, and finish all your vegetables so that you grow up to be big and strong.
(Thanks to our friend Kate for guest starring in this shot.)

MIA for a bit

No, I haven't been to Dairy Queen lately, but we were gone for Easter weekend to the sunny hill town of Zigong to meet with our colleagues from our organization. That, plus a few ongoing projects on the side (including painting!), plus me running out of the obvious "wow, things are sure different in China" type topics means that the posts have thinned out for a bit here.

Not to worry, though. Still have lots of pictures to show everyone, some links coming up, and a few deeper observations (and a rant or two) that just need a bit more sitting down at the computer time that I'm using right now. So, as always, thanks for listening, and stay tuned...

What Jane's really been up to

Okay, so my wife really hasn't ever been a professional custard taster. But she has been known to get up in front of large groups of people to talk about worms lately. Specifically, the red wrigglers that reside in our worm composting bin that we set up last fall.



As a matter of fact, worms, CSAs (Community Sponsored Agriculture), organic farming, and Earth-friendly living in general were the subject of a talk that she gave at the US Consulate in Chengdu a couple of weeks ago. Go Jane!

Oh, and here's the article in Chinese, just because it looks way cool...)

Oh, by the way, we’re not in China anymore...

In case you were wondering where we were, the Slow Boat took a long plane ride to West Papua, Indonesia shortly after Christmas. We’re at the beginning of a (wow! gulp!) seven week vacation / business trip / travel adventure through Indonesia, Thailand, and a bit of Singapore at the end. No photos at the moment because 1) the internet is fairly slow where we are, and 2) after all, I am on vacation...

If you’re only keeping up with our adventures by reading this blog, it may come as a bit of a sudden switch, but trust us, we know what we’re doing here. (Well, we never know exactly what we’re doing, but at least we’ve been planning this trip for a while...) Why and how we got here is the subject for the next post (or twelve).

A warning - there’s still happenings in China from before Christmas that I ideally would like to write about, so there may not be too much in the way of chronological order or logical sequencing coming up. If you’ve stuck with us so far, however, this should come as no surprise. In any case, happy end of 2010 and beginning of 2011!

quickie update

Life is basically good here. Even though I got out of my pajamas and put in my contact lenses at 3:30 today (or maybe because of that).

I'm stressed about our upcoming 2 weeks worth of lessons. We've got something big cooking, but haven't figured out what order to put the ingredients in. More soon!

And welcome to the (hopefully) new readers I've invited!

Jane