I Saw the Light

One of these days I'm gonna begin a post without talking about how overdue it is. Not because it won't be, I just won't mention it. It is midterm time, so I've been, and still am, really busy. Perhaps that will buy me 30 seconds of understanding amongst the blog hounds out there.

The Great Equalizer

That is a fishbone. A fishbone that, uninvitedly, took up residence in my throat. Fish are rarely, if ever, deboned in China. Or at least everywhere that I have yet eaten. I have been warned over and over to be careful, and ordinarily air on the careless side of caution (that is, carelessly cautious). Well this particular section of endoskeleton had stowed away in an otherwise osseous tissue-free portion of unnamed aquatic vertebrate; part of a fish & preserved egg soup (about as tasty as it sounds). I didn't notice her until she was past the point of no return, so I had to try and force her down. I tried rice, bread, peanut butter, Foaming Pipe Snake (TM), Roto-Rooter, esophogeal bypass, nothing worked. I eventually had to go to the hospital to get it out, a couple students took me. The doctor was thilled at the opportunity to practice his english. I didn't think I was nervous, but the way I was sweating immediately before the procedure would indicate otherwise. Anyway he said he performs about 10 throat de-bonings a day. Common procedure. And a 100 RMB lesson: when eating fish in China, one should probably air on the slightly less careless side of caution.

As I have grown up, at somepoint when I wasn't looking, I started to like dressing up. Dressing up nice I mean. Well, what I think is nice. All my clothes will undoubtedly be tossed once a female enters the picture (they never let us have any fun...or so I'm told). So anyway I take any opportunity to don my snazzy duds and strut about like a chupacabra. Well, it seems this is very jarring, even intimidating, to my students. A necktie, you see, is very formal. And wearing one typically means you are very serious about business. No horseplay, no tomfoolery, no shenanigans, just taking care of business (at an appropriate rate of speed). I've received more compliments from students after seeing me in a t-shirt than all the Easter Sunday get-ups of my childhood combined. In this same vein I am known, among the students, as "The Detective."

Mr. Detective

Of course its too hot now for all those layers, but it seems I have been branded.

I've been working (and not working, its midterm season so I have been really busy,) on this post for over a week now. Thats no good. And what with the constant demands from my adoring public to hurry the crap up and write something else, I have decided to try a slightly different format. Well, not necessarily a new format, but I just figure that I will be able to write less substantial posts more often. So I guess until I start recieving complaints about watered-down content I'm gonna try this new way. But give me a break at first, it is after all, midterm season.