In other news, I now have a camera on my cell phone.  So here are some pictures that I have been collecting over the last few weeks.  They range from the Chongqing equivalent of West Lake (not so good) to piles of umbrellas.  And a retirement home--find that one!

It is finally carved into stone. I will not be moving back to Hangzhou next year, back to my so called Chinese hometown and beautiful West Lake. Which in a way is too bad. But I will be continuing to teach at Sichuan International Studies University, which is how the dominoes, in the end, lined up. It basically became a heavy weight slug fest between my desire to live some where beautiful and my desire to become a translator and have momementum moving forward. In the end, I reasoned that Hangzhou has not moved in about 1000 years, where as my educational window is rapidly shutting. I hope that this is not my only opportunity to ever live in Hangzhou again... It is one of my deepest wishes to go back.

At SISU, I will both teach class and study to be a simultaneous interpreter. And consecutive interpreter. And written translator. And every single possible Chinese-English skill I can get my hands one. Let the man who wants to invent the perfect automatic translating device be warned, I absolutely have it in for him.

Herding cats and being a flight attendant in China have to be somewhat similar. Quotes from my flight last night

• "No Ma'am, you may not bring a slingshot on board... I understand that you bought it."
• " Sir! Please! Don't stand up while we land!"
• "Please give your trash to me, Sir." (as a newspaper was hurled over the seat without looking, hitting the customer behind)
• "No Ma'am, you may not sit where ever you want."

And so on, and so on. I am actually in Nanjing because I have been offered a job teaching at Nanjing University. This is an exciting opportunity. Nanjing is one of the places I would like to live most, and Nanjing University is #5 in China. But I find myself almost hesitant to take the job. I am so comfortable living in Chongqing, even though I don't terribly like the place, and find that familiarity hard to leave. I have an "interview" in two hours, though really I am going to be interviewing them. Questions will include whether or not I live in a reconstruction of the Taj Mahal and whether or not a girlfriend is included in the salary and benefits. To be more honest, hopefully the opportunity is either obviously excellent or terrible. If it's just average, this decision is going to be terrible.