It’s been a long week…

Really, it has. I just feel exhausted and I don’t really know why. Part of it is that I got sick over the weekend which is never good. Actually, I don’t technically remember the last time I was sick—I think it was right after I turned in my thesis though, or something like that I think—so I guess it was time. Deserved or not, it has done a good job at sucking all my energy.

It doesn’t help that my students haven’t exactly been in a hard-working kind of mood. Yesterday was the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival and Friday is National Day. I’m still not entirely positive what one is supposed to do to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival outside of eating moon cakes and staring at the full moon. However, given some of the hung-over students I had today… I remember reading about the Mid-Autumn Festival one day in my Chinese class last year and was like “yeah, like people really just sit there and stare at the moon.” But lo and behold, people were out en force yesterday to look at the full moon.

For National Day we get a seven-day vacation. Well, actually we get a five day vacation and they’ve moved the following weekend to butt up against it. You’ll love this schedule: National Day (October 1st—Mao founded the P.R.C. on October 1, 1949 which would make us 55 years old this year) is on Friday, so we get Friday through next Tuesday off. Then they moved the weekend from Saturday and Sunday to Wednesday and Thursday. We then pick up on Friday the 8th with our Friday classes. Saturday and Sunday then become Wednesday and Thursday. Crazy, huh?!

Anyway, for vacation I will be meeting up with Afton and Erin (two other Whitties who have been teaching up at Xi’an) in Chengdu (the capital city of the Sichuan province). After we get there we’re hoping to travel around Sichuan a little bit. It’s apparently a horrible time to travel, but it should be an adventure at the least. Actually, I’m excited because it will be the first time that I will actually go traveling independently in China (unless, of course, one considers Taiwan as part of China).

Now I just have to make it to this Friday!

Also, I have signed up for one of those help me remember your birthday services, so pop over to Birthday Alert and enter your birthday, and if you’re really lucky, I’ll remember to send you something!

And finally, I just got my computer back from the repair shop this afternoon, so I have some photos of my apartment and whatnot to share with y’all. Just head over to: HPphoto, and click on the album "Kunming 1."