Two of my China friends, Liz and Rita, came into town this weekend for a visit. We went to see the Muppet Movie in Silver Spring with Meredith (Rita had never seen it) and had a great time. Other than that we watched cheesey Korean dramas on the internet and rejoyced in our reunion ( Read more... )

I came back from lunch today and had MAIL sitting at my computer!

Mail is a wonderful thing, especially when it is not junk from your bank or some random store that wants you to buy things.

So a big thank you goes out to Colleen who sent me a "Someone in Texas Loves Me" bumper sticker. It is now proudly displayed over my name tag on my computer.

Colleen and I went shopping at the Galleria this afternoon. The plan was to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and buy two pairs of shoes that I need... The plan was later amended to include a pair of khakis and a khaki skirt from Express, two other pairs of shoes, and a purse.

It was a good day.

This weekend was Laura’s graduation, so I took Friday off and drove out to beautiful Beaumont, Texas on Thursday. We spent Thursday night and Friday hanging out and I discovered that what passes for entertainment among the TAHL kiddos is going to Sonic, and that Lamar University doesn’t seem to understand that some form of food should be located ( Read more... )

Tomorrow is the last day of my last Spring Break ( Read more... )

I just got an e-mail from Colleen that is about towns in Texas with weird names. There is a list of towns named for happy things including (unsurprisingly) Happy, Texas. There is a list of towns with names that have to do with the sun (Sunny Side, Texas), a list of towns that are names after food (Oatmeal, Texas and Noodle, Texas), a list of towns ( Read more... )

Yesterday I skipped my *last* first day of class to go to a luncheon in Houston. The Houston World Affairs Council had my econo-idol, Muhammad Yunus, come to Houston as the keynote speaker for this lunch and then to speak in the woodlands. I figured that if i went to both events I would have more of a chance to actually ask a question. I didn't.

The ( Read more... )

This weekend I went up to Austin to visit Ariani. I had a blast ( Read more... )

I thought I had my first Caligraphy class today, but it turns out that I didn’t. The schedule that we got said that on Tuesday nights Art does a makeup class for travel, I thought that meant for the Yunnan trip but it is for the long weekends instead. So I will only have class on Tuesday nights twice this semester ( Read more... )

Today was the first day of class. I personally don’t believe that it is fair to have a tingxie (Dictation quiz, lit: hear write) on the first day of class, but I’m in China now and that may just be how they do it. So we had a tingxie; I’m not going to lie, it was really hard. I have never developed the skills required to learn how to memorize the ( Read more... )