The Absence of Christmas

It's getting interesting here in Beijing now that it's nearing the winter time and the pollution days are becoming ever more frequent. Waking up to ashy grays looming on the horizon on a regular basis, its making me try to remember what green looks like. I'm not complaining really, just stating fact. I knew it would be like this, so I'm not surprised in the least. It was inevitable, Mr. Anderson. Add the fact that Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I couldn't be more oblivious to the fact. The stark absence of holiday cheer is quite interesting. While it would probably be a bummer to most, I find the existence in a society in which Christmas is just the faintest murmur among the few foreigners peppered throughout Beijing just one of those life-enriching moments.

Classes are going just fine, and it's weird to actually see kids growing. There are alot of things that have really surprised me about spending all this time with kids, that being one of them. But memories of myself being that age are actually coming back pretty strong. When I see a kid in class sort of talking to himself and speaking gibberish (not Chinese, I swear) it reminds me of myself when I was that age. And some other things, like I don't remember loose teeth in my own jaw freaking me out as a kid, but seeing another kid with a tooth that's about to fall out really makes me cringe for some reason. It's pretty shocking to me that I reacted that way. Either way, it's staggeringly impressive to see just how far the kids have come with English. They're geniuses. I dote, I dote. But here, not only are they smart little tykes, but they're staggeringly cute. Just take a look at these two pictures.

That's Rain, wearing Annie's glasses, and Kaylee, daydreaming about something. They've set the bar pretty high in terms of how cute kids can be. The worst part is that they know it, so they can work an angle to get away with being little bastards sometimes. Us softy teachers are so easily manipulated.

This, contrasted with the shocking spectacle of the bizarrely (yet aptly) named "Beijing Acrobat Macrocosm" show that Laura Kavazanjian, Lauren, and Laura's friend from home went to. I thought about that whilst watching little kids bend around in shocking ways and flip around like... I don't know, like some sort of supernatural flippy creatures. I mean, these kids are going to have some serious bone, muscle, and body issues. When you are able to bend over backward and balance yourself with the sole power of your jaw muscles, I'm pretty sure that's one thing that wasn't really intended for the human body to do. Just take a gander


Yeah. Ouch. Not alot of room for error there.

I've been spending alot of time away from home. Everything is pretty surreal because of it, I'm used to copius "me" time, and I'm being more of a socialite than I've ever been ever ever. It's all fun and good, especially since recently some of this quality hang out time has been at the absolutely beautiful location known as The Bookworm that lets you play the absolutely divine piano there and is one of the very few places that has Guiness and Bass. The only problem is that all this action is making me really exhausted. But I'm becoming accustomed to it relatively quickly, and it's great to have such a variety of things to do now in my life. Plus, when you go out, you can come across such awe-inspiring moments as these:


"The policeman remind," I will ruin your life if you commit all sorts of crime. He's so jovial looking. He derives much pleasure in punishing you severely. Now you see how they work here in China!

Well, I'll end this rather anticlimatic e-chron with a picture of me chilling with my homie Santa:

Yo yo yo! Merry Christmas!