I love sleep

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Well, after much tweaking, the previous entry is now up in its entirety. I had problems with the pics, and then there was a huge lightning storm (sorry, no pics this time), so thank you loyal subscribers for your patience. And I'm most pleased to see that I have more than one! I feel wildly popular!

I'm in the process of adjusting my sleep schedule. Since I essentially need to move it back 9 hours from AZ time, it seemed like a good idea to lob off about half of that so that I'm only moving it 4-5 when I get there. I figure that there will be enough other things throwing me off (food, culture, illiteracy...) that if I can reduce the stress of one thing, it will make it that much easier.
So last night I stayed up until almost 4am. And saw a spectacular thunderstorm. I've been waiting all summer for one of those. This was one of those storms that rattles the windows and almost shakes the house with the wind. There wasn't any real thunder, but the lightning really lit up the sky.
Then I slept until noon. I think I was tired. I never sleep that much.

Went and saw Wall-E yesterday with my parents. Robot love: who knew!? Today my dad and I went to see Dark Knight. Amazing. One of the better movies I've seen in a long time.

I'm in the process of installing Chinese fonts on my mac. I called the Apple 1-800 number and it's not quite working, so I think I need to call again. Also in the process of trying to figure out how I'm going to recall a language I haven't spoken in 9 years. I have no text book. But I do have 3 inches of flashcards that I found when I was cleaning out my apt. One person in my yahoo chat group said there's a ChinesePod site that I should check out (well, he told all of us). So Im optimistic. They put me in level 2 classes and those are the books I bought. I can't and don't want to buy level one if I don't do well on the placement test. I'm hoping that just remembering the 4 tones will give me a head start.

I realize now, looking back, that I forgot to tell you about someone I met in Minneapolis. His name is Bart. He's about my age (vs straight out of undergrad like many of the program participants). He did my program last year and is going back again this year. I met up with him twice for drinks. He brought photos and many stories and tons of advice. And he even managed to answer all my questions. And lucky him, I have more! All in all, a really nice guy, a definite friend, and someone who can show me where to get decent coffee when I get to Shenzhen. I'm on my own in Zhuhai during training.

Off to study flashcards and watch late night Olympics. Hopefully more of the former than that latter.

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