A quick post while the thoughts are still fresh...

With the bum knee, I've really taken up swimming with a passion. It's a real bummer the pools all close by 9. I have no choice but to be an evening exerciser and on the nights when I meet with my tutor until 7, it makes it tough to get a sufficient workout in. Oh well. Such is life. My soccer team that I play with apparently has six members who are doctors. I had them take a look last night to see what they thought about my needing surgery or anything like that. They said there was nothing to worry about and that I just needed rest. They also prescribed some Chinese medicine to help the healing process. It's this Red Flower Oil that smells a lot like cinnamon, ginger and cloves and makes the skin mildly warm to the touch when you rub it on. No improvement just yet but the lingering smell is nice and so I will continue using it as many of my non-doctor Chinese friends have also attested to its potency.

Met a taxi driver on Saturday night who was young, super easy to talk to and pretty good looking besides. My friends were very approving and so we had him pick us up later that evening and I got his number. We're meeting on Wednesday for dinner or something. I'm quite excited. Everyday I meet someone new. Sunday, a woman on the bus turned around and started talking to me, gave me her card and now is planning on introducing me to some of her friends and is all ready to take me in as her new foreign friend. Sometimes, I think the Chinese view me as this big Barbie doll that they can play with and make friends with and show me off to their other friends and whatnot. Like I said, part of me is thinking, I ain't no one's play thing. The other part is thinking (and this is becoming more and more common these days) "wthticwthn?" (what the heck, this is china, why the hell not?)

One of my friends here (the lawyer with lots of connections) told me about a business idea that he and another couple of teachers had recently. They want to start this consulting business to encourage foreigners to invest in the NE part of China. The details sounded pretty promising and we'd definitely be the only folks in the market for it. It could mean a lot of good connections and it'd be good money once we got it going...I'm just not sure it's something that interests me. I like the idea of working in business but entrepreneurial ventures scare the living daylights out of me. I'm not a starter...I'm much more of a sustainer/improver or finisher. It's overwhelming sometimes. The possibilities here are both numerous, sometimes everywhere, but at the same time very limited. If you don't speak Chinese or have the proper network, it's kind of like looking at a candy shop through a glass window. Oh sure, teaching jobs are ubiquitous but getting out of that circle requires a bit more. I'm still slightly baffled as to how to get out of it. The problem with so many people is it's really hard to know who to make friends with. Obviously I don't want to burn any bridges but at the same time, I don't have time to really establish good bridges with everybody. Shoot, I'm 22 years old and living in China...it's not like I'm sitting around or anything. I'm likely just thinking too much about it but I worry about walking the fine line between missing good opportunities and being a networking whore. Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated in this regard.

My classes started presenting their final presentations today. I had them do skits/plays based on a story of their choosing. My English majors seriously went all out with costumes and soundtracks, just totally hammed it up. It was the most entertaining 4 hours of classes I've had in quite a long time. After such a fantastic morning, my business students were really disappointing and it continues to baffle me as to how the same lesson can go so many different ways depending on the class. I got some video of the English majors, I'll have to see about posting those somewhere.

One of my students needed to redo a speech so I let her do it at the end of class. She spoke on the bible and the love of Jesus Christ. Her speech was essentially 5-6 minutes of proselytizing to her classmates. I was shocked by her bravery and several times throughout the speech I caught myself thinking, "I can't believe I'm hearing this. Here, in a university classroom in the middle of China." It's an extremely difficult thing to get up there and speak about your faith, let alone in a foreign language. Moreso here in China where so few people know anything about the bible and the word of God and where dissemination of religious material was up until recently (and perhaps still currently, I'm not certain) closely monitored and regulated. Hans mentioned that it could have been bad for me to allow someone to use class time to evangelize. I felt I was in the clear since I had been pretty open with allowing students to choose their own topics and I guess it's an indication that she felt safe enough in my class to be able to present. Her message was honest and inspiring and I give her a lot of respect for speaking as she did. Unfortunately her organization and delivery as far as a speech goes was pretty terrible and I'm having a bit of a time figuring out how to distill and grade the speech itself as opposed to the content. I thought it was interesting that after her speech, it was almost as if things were too normal. People went about their business like usual and no one seemed to care or notice that she had just spoken about Jesus. I didn't say anything mainly because I didn't know what the repercussions might be to support her publicly. I gather that it wouldn't have caused me or her any trouble; despite not being very popular or widespread, organized religion for the most part seems to be a neutral point for most people. I just thought the situation warranted a share since I'm sure many of my readers will find this interesting.

So my "quick post" that I started around 9 has turned into an all evening post interspersed with many many distractions and interruptions. I am so unfocused right now it's not even funny. I need an assistant or another set of eyes and hands or something. It's quarter to 12, so much for getting 8 hours tonight. Sigh. Off to bed.