Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

I’ve spent the last two days suffering from the minor food poisoning that is all-too-common in this part of China and while I managed to make it to class, I only made it through the classes because I’m supervising midterms in most of them, which requires little actual work on my part. I also used nearly every minute outside of class to sleep (including thirteen hours of sleep last night). Unfortunately, this has left me with an overwhelming backlog of papers to grade. Thus, posting is likely to be sparse for the next few days.

The ornate linens on my bed (seen here in its rare state of fully made) came as a Lunar New Year gift from Shengda College.

Also visible are various notes for once and future writing projects stuck on the wall, as well as the ugly pink reading lamp that I though would be green (with a frog) because of the picture on the box.

I finally made it back to my little apartment on the campus of Shengda College late enough last night for it to be early morning. The flight on which I had been rebooked in San Francisco boarded on time and in a fairly orderly fashion, only to be stuck on the tarmac for two hours while crews checked the plane for an unspecified problem. This time wasn’t too unpleasant, as the flight attendants gave everyone drinks and little bags of Fritos, but of course any added time in that cramped space is unpleasant and the possibility of a mechanical problem with the plane made every bit of turbulence that much more worrisome for the duration of the flight into Beijing.

By the time I landed in the capital, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to get on a flight for Zhengzhou that night. In fact, had it taken as long to get through passport control as it did the first time I traveled through Beijing, I probably would not have been able to. This time, however, there was no wait, and my suitcase was one of the first to appear on the belt.

I got a ticket on the 9:55 PM flight, checked in, and headed straight for the gate where I was fortunate enough to run into two other teachers from Shengda College. This was especially fortunate as they had pre-hired a taxi, so I was able to split the fare with them rather than flagging down my own cab and haggling over the price while terribly exhausted.

I’ll be finding out my course schedule at a meeting tomorrow, which gives me until Monday to come up with lesson plans. I’ve already noticed changes that have taken place in Longhu since January: a large arch has gone up over one of the roads beside campus with signs pointing the way to locations selling plane and train tickets, which will certainly be an added convenience.

I’ve also been warned that tonight is the Lantern Festival, which means I’ll have to be careful to avoid getting burned by, or losing a hand to, fireworks.

She has not yet left the country to which her passport belongs. She was supposed to transfer flights at SFO, but by the time her plane from Seattle touched down, check-in had closed for the former. Because the delay had been caused by weather (allegedly), the airline declined to obtain a hotel room for her (providing instead a voucher of half off for what would still be a fairly expensive room). Spending half an hour on the toll-free customer service line explaining that it was in fact the airline’s fault, as the gate agent had insisted she would be able to make her second flight and so had refused to reroute her or reschedule her for the next day (despite her statement that she would rather be stuck in Seattle than in San Francisco), only yielded a $100 voucher for a future flight, though that’s more than other people got.

At the moment, she is in a cheap hostel near the Powell Street Station. She took advantage of being stranded to walk past places she used to live and found that the neighborhood (the Tenderloin) had been cleaned up just a bit.

And yes, stress does make her talk about herself in third person. Why do you ask?