I've been back for a week now, and what a wonderful week it has been! I've reached such a good place in my life right now, I can honestly say there's no where else I'd rather be and nothing else I'd rather be doing. It feels so good to be able to say that! Having gone so crazy before my trip to get ready for the substitute and everything, I prepped up until December so I can actually leave school after my last class and not sit there for an hour or two getting ready for the next day. And I don't go home thinking about school or worse worrying about what I'm going to teach tomorrow. I can really see how the first years of teaching are the worst because once you've got your materials together for a class, it's really not so stressful doing the prep work. Marking is still a reality that will never go away, but I'm slowly figuring out how to make the best of my Sunday afternoons spent marking assignments. I go to school for a couple of hours, blast some techno music on my sound system in the classroom and I find that works well for me. I know, I know, I should take Sunday's off, but at least on Sunday's I'm not tired from teaching all day and I'm rested up from taking Saturday off (provided it's not a week where we work on Saturday). So anyways, things are going very well. An odd little anticdote just to end off this tale of my blissful existance in China...today the single strangest thing happened to me that I think may ever happen in my life. I will remember this day as long as I life simply because it was so bizarre. I was at my friend Tony's house for lunch and I'm currently fighting a cold, so I was passed out on the couch after eating. Tony was still at the table eating with the Aiye (the Chinese lady who cooks for us). All of a sudden, without a knock, or word of annoucement, an old lady opens the door and walks in the house. She wanders into the kitchen, speaks some Cantonese with the Aiye (Tony doesn't speak much Cantonese, only Manderin) looks around at everything on the main floor of the house, then she proceeds to come over to me in the living room, smiling all the way, she comes up to me chattering, slaps my butt, shakes my shoulder and leaves. If this sounds completely random, that's because it was. We have no idea why she came in the house, why she felt she had the right to come in the house without knocking, and why on earth she felt the need to slap my butt (this is very UN-Chinese!). So that's my story.