A collection of observations, thoughts, recollections and things barely worth posting:

Yesterday was Jill's birthday and she made tacos and a chocolate cake and basically had a ton of food. It was a big foreigners' party which moved to karaoke fairly early in the evening. A really good time and a chance to develop some deeper relationships with some of my new friends here. There's a group of about 4 or 5 guys here that have kind of taken me in and adopted me as their little sister and they've kind of become my family away from family here as older brothers.

At one point I found myself looking around the room and being greeted by smiles from all sorts of people--Chinese, Aussie, American, Brit. What a diverse and interesting little community I've found myself in, full of people whom I would consider friends. My social life here as truly blossomed and I'm loving it.

I'm very excited about classes this week even though I'm sad to see the vacation come to end. I decided to teach exactly what my students wanted me to teach: how to talk with foreigners. I'm thinking it will be highly entertaining (at least for me) and my students will just eat it up because it's what they seem to be most concerned about.

Friday was Mid-Autumn Festival and it's best understood as the Chinese Thanksgiving. Everybody visits family, eats lots, etc. Even though I'm not Chinese and have never celebrated this festival, I was nevertheless struck by it. Holiday spirit was in the air and for the first time since being here, I was a little homesick. To not have family to be with left me unsettled and a little sad. Darren and Wang Yang were around and Wang Yang was feeling similarly so we decided to go to Government Square to see the full moon and take in the evening sights and sounds of people out enjoying the holiday. Government Square is this big plaza in the middle of town and there were all sorts of folks out. They had a roller skating "rink" set up and there were older people dancing and there were jump roping contests and Chinese "hackysack" tournaments. The fountains were on and there were beautiful lit flower arrangements and it was all very festive. It was a good idea to get out and see it. I've found when I'm lonely, the easiest way to take care of that is to find Chinese people and let their sense of family kick in. We found an ethnic restaurant and had a late meal and then walked part of the way back to campus before deciding it was too long and too late and we were too tired to walk all the way back.

There's an Town Hall meeting at the American Consulate on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it because it will be a fabulous opportunity to do some networking and just meet other Americans and see what other kinds of jobs there are for foreigners here in Shenyang. I've decided I'm probably going to stay on longer than a year but that it won't be as an English teacher. This is a good way of getting the foot in the door, but not something I want to do long term in any sense of the word. I started doing some internet research and it seems that the opportunities are available, I just need to meet the right people.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this in my blog but I'll speak about it again anyway. One of the things I'm struggling with here is finding my place as a working foreign woman. This city (and country) is overrun with Western men but there is a significant absence of women. This is troubling, or at least makes things tricky, because for someone who's new here, it's hard to know what my role is, what is acceptable behavior, what I can get away with and what I need to be doing in order to establish my place. The water is relatively untreaded for people in my situation and it's a little daunting trying to figure out just how to get myself in the position I want as far as jobs, career, networking and social life in general. My dad put it best when he said I'm somewhat of a pioneer in all of this. I'm looking forward to the deal at the consulate because hopefully I'll meet some like-minded people who can at least share some of their experience. Here's to hoping.

I'm finding myself starting to grow out of the just play mentality. China is dangerous in the sense that it's very (VERY) easy to become complacent. If you don't want to study Chinese, you can get by without it. If you don't want to do anything other than teach English, there's no shortage of opportunity there either. Bottom line: effort required to move forward and I'm feeling the call to push on to make more opportunities for myself.

Current mood: Motivated, but feeling a little disorganized.