MIA.

i haven't updated my blog for awhile now mostly because i've been busy but partly because i've been uninspired. and also because since i've figured out how to upload pictures on facebook more efficiently, i don't feel like uploading them twice if i do it on here too.

work has been picking up, alot. i am always at least 2 reports behind, at any given time. i am now teaching Applied Psychology to a small-group of students in my home. i never knew preparing for a class takes SO much time. i will be training new volunteers for Lifeline, the only crisis hotline here in Shanghai, and i have not begun to work on that at all. i inadvertently volunteered to be part of the marketing committee for SIMHA. i have enjoyed making a few new female friends here through D2H3, the drinking/running group that i am equally enjoying. since that is my only form of exercise, i am guilty of not being more active in that. and i have enjoyed seeing my orphans for the second time and hope to be more involved in BEAN's other events. oh and my ex and i decided to give it yet another go. and a relationship alone can take up a bit of time.

about the uninspired part. i started asking people who really loved shanghai what it was about this place they loved. it all came down to their experience of it. it was exciting, new, different, changing and a melting pot of cultures and local and expat activities. it had night life, it had day life. china is going through a metamorphosis of modernization and shanghai is the epi-center. one of my friends said, "there is no place else more exciting to be right now than shanghai." but the thing that inspired this question was one i had asked myself: "why wasn't i enjoying shanghai as much as others seemed to?" is it because i don't work for a company that pays for everything, including a driver, an ayi, rent, moving expenses, furniture renovation, utilities? well that could be part of it. could it be because i just don't have the right attitude? that's likely related. so how can i change my attitude so everything's exciting, fresh and new again, just like when i first moved here? could it be because the air quality is so bad, as is the tap water, food of any ethnic origin is mediocre at best, it's overpopulated so people are rude because they're cramped and fed up, the streets and facilities are generally dirty and unsanitary? when you leave shanghai for a while on vacation or work and you see how other cleaner, more peaceful and less polluted cities filled with gracious and genuine people are, it makes it really hard to come back and not think how much shanghai sorta sucks. i had that experience with qingdao, taiwan, japan and wuhan. maybe i need a vacation. maybe i need to move. but lately, i've been having some pretty bad "China days."