Happy Thanksgiving Day. Let the shopping hysteria begin!

It's friday and I'm working, yet again. Only this time it isn't reatail related.  Since I started working at Wal-Mart in 1997, I worked all but TWO (2001, 2002) Black Fridays.  I've passed that baton on to Angie, my sister who's happily working for Target these days.  I do have to say that I do have fond memories for black friday.  Particulary the ones from 2000 and 2004.  Mainly because I worked the morning shifts of those to see the craziness that is a Wal-Mart 530AM rush and then saw the "organized chaos" that was the 3 hour waiting lines to check-out at Best Buy last year.  Fun, Fun, Fun. The only reason those days are "great" is that they go by fast. 

For Thanksgiving dinner, 12 staff people here went to Paul's "Steak & Eggs" and had Turkey that he imported from the USA (It is the only continent that Turkey is native to).  We also had stuffing, yams, mashed potatoes, salad, veggies and of course the pumpkin pie.  It was yummy and I won't eat much today because of it.    I hope everyone reading this has/had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.  And remember, no product or bargain is worth getting hurt or up at 2 am for!

There are some things that I’ve learned in my three months here and most of it stems from the fact that we’re only as happy as we allow ourselves to be.   Since I’m rather happy, happier than I’ve been in a long time, I feel quite good.  This could be from the fact that I’ve lost around 50 pounds of weight since I’ve been here or the fact that I am more true to myself than anytime in my life.  For too long I lived my life “for others.” 

This isn’t to say that anyone in my family that reads this should feel guilty about my “living for others.”  This is something that many people do.  Be it a child who doesn’t want to disappoint their parents or a mother who (should) live to make sure their children are raised properly.  There are also many who live their life to gain approval from others.  That’s something that can take a lifetime to overcome and thankfully, It took me moving to Beijing to understand that I need to live for me.  Not anyone else.  And, now, I do.

I guess living here, literally half-way around the world, away from family was a bold step to personal independence.  I cannot believe I was (on some level) afraid of moving out on my own.  It really is something we all must do.  It just took me almost 27 years to do it.  I also am happy because I am working at a job that is quite rewarding.  Though there are times of tediousness, it’s not as if most jobs don’t have such problems. Being a teacher, even if it’s only for this year, is something that is an experience of a lifetime. 

Onto some other news.  I am now officially an owner of an iPod.  While I was completely against the iPod before I came to China, I decided that Apple’s product is one of the most refined, well-thought out, products on the market.  It’s so easy to use that even a “dummy” would be able to use it quite effortlessly.  It’s a gadget that is worth investigating.  Now, nobody needs to really get the 60 GB (gigabyte) one that I bought here, for a price about 50$ more than USA prices, but even the new 1-5gb “iPod Nano” audio players are worth investigating.  Don’t be afraid of “sticker shock.”  They are definitely worth the price.    I bought my big iPod because, well, I am a huge music fan (as if anyone who knows me needs for me to say it again) and I cluttered up my 60GB laptop with 30 GB of music.  Wow.  That’s about 8,000 songs.  It’d take me 22 days to play each song once.

Midterms in school are over and most of my students did quite well.  It took me 7 hours Wednesday at a café to grade them and average out my student’s midterm grade reports.  But I know me, if I hadn’t done it Wednesday I’d have waited until the last minute to get stuff done.  It allowed me to have a 4 day weekend with absolutely nothing to prepare for (except for about 1 hour or so to get stuff together for oral English.  That class had lower grades than I had hoped for so I have had to devise a different way to teach better.  So I’ll start with some common, everyday, words and situations and go from there.  Less reliance on the book should help. 

I’ll try to get around and take some more pictures one of these days. I haven’t religiously been taking my camera around like I normally do (for instance yesterday and today).  So, until I post again, that’s all folks!