these are my new slippers (we don't wear shoes indoors.) i paid about $1.50 US - rip off or bargain? 

rainy again today.

sun

it has actually stopped raining and been sunny for the past couple of days. on sunday, when the sun first appeared, i recoiled like a vampire. but it really was a welcome change. unfortunately, when the rain starts other problems start. for one thing, the rain knocks down the pollution. now that it stopped, i remember how all these scooters can change the atmosphere. also, my office is an amazing breeding ground for mosquitoes. i have lived in the swamps of florida and the mosquito infested suburbs of connecticut, i went to summer camp in the woods of new england and was a tourist in the hills of north thailand. no place i have ever been even comes close to my office building in terms of mosquito infestation. it's unbelievable. it reminds me of that off commercial from the '70's. i wave my hand from my pocket to my face and literally hit 3 mosquitoes on the way. i yi yi.

rain

it has been raining every day since before xmas. you would think someone who lived in seattle for 6 years would be unfazable, but i haven't seen the sun this year. it's remarkable and it never ends. richard claims one day was just overcast, and he may be right, but even so. wow.

by the way, i ate a remarkable meal today for under $3 us. 4 guo tieh (fried dumplings), and 6 shuei jiao (steamed dumplings - 4 shrimp and 2 spicy korean flavored), with a nice bowl of hot and sour soup and some soy milk. and it was all great. i would have been thrilled to get this for $12 at a fancy pan asian place in the us. it makes me happy to start to find the restaurants that i really like.

my chinese classroom. beautiful, isn't it? i enjoy my frankenstein-esque haircut. 

more with ugly santa. note the brown and yellow graphic on my tshirt between the lapels of my suit (it's a picture of bruce lee). 

very cute little girl. i am a very ugly santa. 

my boss sitting on my lap 

xmas and new years

my xmas and new years were fairly uneventful. i got an actual weekend (saturday and sunday off) for 2 weeks which was very nice, but i will make up for it next week when i substitute for a coworker off visiting his wife's family in Wisconsin (poor bastard). i will be working a lot, and substituting is particularly taxing. i need to take care of myself and not get myself sick. anyway, i will be happy when the week is over.

last night

nice long weekend right now. sadly, no cable. it has been very cold (40's and humid) the last few days, so people have been using space heaters. late last night one of my neighbors started shouting and the next thing we knew there were people running with fire extinguishers and then the fire truck showed up. all of the homes seem to be concrete here, so i'm not sure what burned, but the truck was loud and stinky. hope no one got hurt. i stayed up and wrote chinese characters until things quieted down a bit. anyway, no cable today.