Back in China

Here I am, after a month of relaxation and enjoyment in the US. I ate a whole bunch of stuff while I was there, too. Everything that's sweet in the US is just so much more sweet than anything in China, and as a result I ate them. Ate them all up. I was pleased to find that 3 of the Chinese teachers here commented on how fat I've gotten, and that I can no longer really fit into my pants that I left here.

I can already tell that I've begun to lose what I gained almost instantaneously. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, honestly. This kind of weight fluctuation might upset my homeostasis or something like that.

The time I spent at home was awesome, although I did nothing really while I was there. I just relaxed. It's easy to get lost in a loop of doing nothing around there, which was fine for me. But now that I'm back, I've started to think about why exactly I'm here.

This enters my mind nearly every day. Why am I here? Not, you know, here on this Earth. But literally, here in China? Some days I think it's because of the challenge, some days because I want to experience a vastly different culture, and some days I even think it's because things are often so absolutely absurd here that I can't help but laugh at it... to myself. That's right, sometimes I think I'm in China just to laugh at it. That makes people who come here just to some exotic Asian action seem more justified than me! Ok, maybe not.

I have never settled on one answer, and another thing that I constantly think about is that if I go to an interview, be it job or school, I know they're going to ask something similar. Why did you spend 2 years in China? What am I supposed to say? To find myself? To grow as a human person on this world? Or should I say that I'm impulsive and get bored often of one place to the point where I can't stay there for more than 2 years in a row without getting jittery. I'm sure they'd love to hear that when they ask where do I see myself in 5 years? "I have no freaking clue... um... South Africa? Maybe? Somewhere where this company ain't, I can tell ya that!". Yeah that will look really good.

I just hope that by the time I do interview somewhere, I'll have figured out what the hell I'm doing here. I mean, I think the problem is that there are too many reasons why I'm here. They keep coming to me, and every time I think of one, it's accurate and true. I can only think of a handful of reasons not to be here.

Anyway, classes start tomorrow and it should be exciting. I can't wait to see last year's bunch, and the new lot as well. I'm sure it will be a very interesting year.