Monthly Archives: June 2007

Looking Back At My Life In ESL

So, today is officially the first day of the next ‘phase’ of my life. It’s hard to chunk stuff into nice little boxes, called “phases”, but as my memory tends to work best when I remember defining moments – lets call this one. Yesterday ended my run as an ESL teacher; a roll I somehow …

June 29, 2007
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Things that go “squeak” in the night

I was working late on the computer yesterday, and after being quite certain I’d dosed my eyes with a suitable level of radiation, I decided to turn in. Maggie, having to be up bright and early (oddly, at the same time as myself – but she requires something stupid like 10 hours of sleep), had …

June 28, 2007
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Pan Gate – 盘门 (panmen)

One of the best things about having a guest visiting is it kicks you in the ass and reminds you that those scenic spots aren’t going to see themselves. Recently, while putting together a list of tourist spots around Suzhou for my Your China Pal site, I discovered a place I had not heard of …

June 26, 2007
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Random Australian Girl In My Bedroom

So, today I am receiving a guest. I love guests. Living in China for two years, I’ve had only a handful of people from back home come visit me, and so it is always with a great deal of anticipation that I receive new visitors. So much so, that I don’t really care if I …

June 21, 2007
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Announcing: Your China Pal

Hey all, I’m way behind in this announcing stuff, but wanted to wait until we had really got things going before plugging my newest venture on here. A friend of mine here in Suzhou and I have created this business as a way for foreigners visiting China to have access to an English-speaking local Chinese …

June 19, 2007
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I am not afraid… I am not afraid…

For years I’ve been plagued with a sleeping disorder, and didn’t really know it. Rather, I knew it, but didn’t do any looking into it until this morning. I guess there’s hundreds of reasons not to look into health problems, particularly ones that centre around the mushy mass in your noggin, but I’m blaming this …

June 17, 2007
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Pandamonium In Abortion Debate

The pro-life/pro-choice debate has just taken a step into the animal kingdom, and new technology is giving until-now silent beasts of boredom a voice and perhaps a choice. Panda Demands Abortion ONN “National Zoo’s giant panda Yun Mei has set off a storm of protest. The Onion News Network’s Brian Scott tells you why.” HT …

June 16, 2007
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Mask of China: Redux

Some of you may know my friend Derrick’s blog, Mask of China. Starting out in Dalian back in 2003, it has since followed its master to Hong Kong where it has continued to be a fixture of the Sinosphere. It was with moist eyes that I heard Derrick (Dezza) was hanging up his blogging cap, …

June 14, 2007
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Beijing? So, is it a large city?

I’ve just started a group writing project over at the Lost Laowai blog. Basically, the idea is to get bloggers in the Sinosphere to blog about what they knew or thought they knew about this massive country before they got here (and became fat, jaded bastards like myself). I think back to what I knew, …

June 13, 2007
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Unblock Flickr In China

John over at Sinosplice was nice enough to tune me in to Access Flickr!, a little gem of a Firefox plugin that lets all us Flickr photo viewers unfortunate enough to be subject to the schitzo ‘on again off again (more off again)’ whims of the Great Firewall of China once again see the images.

June 12, 2007
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Vicarious Suzhou Pubcrawl

Newcomer Suzhou Native (yeah… it’s complicated) Jim Zhou has a pretty good rundown of some of Suzhou’s finer refreshment stands in his most recent post. In a form I’ve not followed in years now, Jim throws himself into the bar scene and we get to watch the results. I was talking to Maggie last night …

June 10, 2007
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