time for a much needed vacation, with white sand beaches and clear water. see you soon! :)
picture from nahele, on flickr.
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à bientôt!
Category: just life
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so… yeah… and it’s all true!
hello!
posting on this blog has been scarce, and gently replaced by other tasks… here’s a bit of what has been going on:
– i’ve been keeping things running more or less at anita na china and hanzillion, while studying chinese and learning new characters like a mad woman. i’ve finished my first textbook and we’re moving on to a harder one, which uses characters all the way for the texts and exercises. it feels really good to read them now, in full sentences! but i am still too shy to strike up conversations in the street, on the elevator or even with our ayi… which is slowing my learning process a lot, says my teacher. i have to agree, things would go faster if i made the effort to use the language i am learning – must work on that.
– meanwhile, i’ve discovered the wonders of taobao, the chinese ebay site, on which i am now completely hooked. it feels like an online version of my dearly missed mama mini, a shop where you can find the most amazing treasures or everyday items for a small percentage of the price. oh! and all with the chinese convenience of things being delivered to your doorstep on 24 hours, for one euro. :) it’s perfect, and it’s working as a big chinese learning motivator.
– after considering guilin, sanya and thailand, we’ve set or heads on malaysia! we’ve been planning a trip to redang island, which will include lots of sun, sandy white beaches, coral reefs (and some sharks!), blue turquoise sea and snorkeling every day. looking forward to escaping shanghai for a while, especially now that the much dreaded steamy summer season seems to be here to stay, with 30ºC temperatures already!
– i’ve been fighting distractions… and headaches. daily headaches and some dizziness that sent me to the nearest pharmacy, to get checked on my blood pressure. “too high!”, said my mom on the phone. so we’ve been reducing the caffeine & salt intakes to nearly 0. not as hard as i thought it would be. the headaches persisted for a while (lack of caffeine?) but now they are gone and that also seems to be the case with my caffeine dependency too (not that i was that dependent). so how about that? a blog called meia de leite (café latte) written by someone who doesn’t drink coffee anymore! :P
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grub’s little trick:
every single time i get home, she runs to her spot, lays on her back and gets ready for some serious cuddling on the belly. :D
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1 year in china (一年在中国)
1 year in china and a lot of mixed feelings. hard to measure how much we fit here, with so many dramatic ups and downs, like cosine waves or bipolar periods.
yesterday, for instance. a bulldozer on a construction site accidentally hit a small brick wall by the sidewalk. p. was passing by on his bike when it happened and got caught under it. he’s cool, just scratches, bruises, a smashed bike and a dirty coat. nothing some ligaments and a lot of love won’t cure. could have been so much worse…
it makes you think, right? more than a year in china, today we’re celebrating each other and taking it easy. that’s it.
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on happiness ^3
three happy, unrelated facts:
* the other day, on the elevator, i was thinking my job title should be “i make people happy”, insted of webmarketing or something. because i think that’s what i do. i surf the internet all day reading blogs and forums, filtering information, listening to complaints and concerns, reviews and feedback, answering questions. oh, and i send out samples once in a while. everybody likes free samples, and sometimes they even say the nicest things of them. therefore, they’re happy, which makes me happy. :)
* postcards. 1 per minute. sheer happiness being received all around the world.
* on this map of web trends for 2008, based on shanghai’s own metro map, we live on the station “happiness”. it’s clearly a sign.