Happy for different reasons‏

Hi,

Today is the Chinese New Year. I have hung some posters on my doorway. They are supposed to bring me good fortune and good health for the year of the tiger! We will see if they work. haha. Hopefully I have not hung them upside down or backwards. They are all Chinese characters so I can't be sure. If i put them up wrong will I have bad fortune?

Disney is making money. They are selling stuffed Tiggers and Tigger pillows, etc. Tigger is the tiger from Winnie the Pooh stories. Maybe they are knockoffs and Disney may not be getting the royalties but someone is making money.

It is also my 2nd anniversary. Two years ago this day was when I left home to go to China. So much has happened since then. My life has been completely changed for the better. I was in a rut. Now I feel like anything may happen. I don't know where my life's path will lead me and I like that feeling. It is a feeling of freedom. I can choose to do whatever I want and I only have to answer to myself. Life is short and getting shorter each day. I need to experience so many things yet. I was talking to my friend in Thailand. She thinks I should go there to teach. I am very tempted. I love Thailand. It has to be the nicest place that I have ever visited. Bahamas was also nice but I can't live my life on a resort. Well, it would be close to a resort if I were working in Thailand. Good food, nice people, beaches, not much more expensive than China. The language is equally as difficult as Chinese with tones. Maybe I will consider it.

It is also Hailey's 2nd birthday. She is my niece's daughter. Happy Birthday Hailey. I have only seen her once. I was home for her first birthday. She was born while I was on a plane to China. I am sure that she is sweet.

So it's Happy Birthday, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary for me, all on the same day.

Tomorrow I go to liyang (a city that is part of Changzhou) to visit lijun and her family and then on the 17th I will go to jingjiang (a part of Taizhou) across the river from Changzhou, to visit a new friend and her husband. Jingjiang is a little bigger than Ma'anshan. I met her in Shanghai bus station on my way back from Bahamas. She helped me make sure that I was at the right gate and then waited with me to be sure that I got on the right bus. The bus tickets have no English on them so sometimes I get confused. Then I will come back to ma'anshan to stay. That is assuming that I can get bus tickets. Soooo many people traveling. It is not easy for me to get around China when it is not busy. But now it is very difficult. The lineups for tickets are so long and then I find that there are no tickets. I had to pay much more money to get home from Shanghai than I should have but I wanted to get home. That's the way it goes when traveling during Spring Festival. I have never been in China during this time. The first year I arrived at the end. Last year I went home before it started. So this is my first experience with it. Awesome. The firecrackers started at 6am. I expect that there will be many more today.

It will soon be time to start preparing for the new term which starts about March 1. I will finish about mid-June. After that? Who knows? Ain't life grand!

Don