I'M DONE!

WITH MY GRADUATE COURSEWORK!!!

....until February. Still, it feels pretty awesome.

most awesome top 10 list ever

I have this love/hate relationship with flying.

I love the fact that it means I'm going somewhere, I hate the fact that it means I'm up in the air with my life in the hands of two pilots. I love the single serving meals (all about portion control!), I hate that they usually don't taste very good. I love looking out the window as we land and seeing the patchwork of all the crops, houses, and shopping malls, I hate sitting next to people who want to be my BFF for 3 hours and then never talk to me again.

Most of all, though, I love flying because it means I get to read Skymall. Forget that I read it cover to cover about a dozen times a year. It's one of those things that gets better with time, like, say, a fine wine.

Skymall: the champagne of in-flight reading material.

And so, behold, the 2008 Best/Worst of Skymall. You have to wonder, is it a top ten best items list, or top ten worst items list? The amazing thing about Skymall, is that you could really make an argument for either side!

I wonder if they ship to China.

the things we do out of shame

I spent 20 minutes fishing green tea out of my toilet because I was too embarrassed to show the ayi (house mom/maid/GRD/plumber) that I had clogged my toilet by pouring my used tea leaves down it.

Have you tried removing tea leaves from an overflowing toilet? Well, let me tell those of you uninitiated to the task: it's not easy. At first I tried to do it using some paper cups I happened to have in my room. The problem is tea leaves are really small--and there was a lot of them, too, damn my green tea obsession--and not heavy at all, so they sort of, swim away from you if you try to scoop them up from a toilet bowl.

The trick is, you have to be patient and let all the leaves sink to the bottom, then sneak up on them very slowly and scoop them up bit by bit. After about thirty seconds elbow deep in the cold water I realized how stupid it was to be using my toilet as a tea disposable system the past few weeks. Thankfully, that's all that was in there.

But still, not one of my finer moments here in China.