on this date in history...

[helenmelon]

last year at this time...

i'd been to a temple in zhengding

i'd been to beijing for the first time (second if you count flying in)

i'd been hiking at the xingtai gorges

i'd gone clubbing for mark's birthday and been hit on by him and some chinese men

i had only just figured out that daniel was gay

no one else knew he was gay, so EVERYONE thought we were dating

i could match names to faces with about half a dozen of my students (maggie, wendy, alice, richard, oscar, mohammed)

i'd had about three weeks of classes and hadn't started night classes or movies yet

i'd judged at one english song competition but there hadn't been any performances/shows on the stairs yet

i was still all bruised up from taking win chung lessons with george, daniel, and nathaniel

i had next-to-no money so i was borrowing from everyone

dave didn't have either of his girlfriends yet

in chinese, i could say thank you, tummy, rabbit, big, small, have you eaten?, pretty good, and count to five or six

i couldn't order my own food in chinese

i was on my second cold

i was super-sick of doing so many things as a big group, with the other teachers

i didn't have the internet in my room yet

i didn't have a dvd player yet

i was already really in love with china