Hello 1994!

I just wanted to throw in a quick word about how this country is culturally "behind" in many ways (post-modernly speaking). We usually joke that the styles and music that are popular here are what was popular "back in the day" in the States, if you will. A great example would be the still current obsession with Titanic and singers such as Celine Dion and Mariah Caray. This isn't to say that they are not still popular in the States now, or even that those who like them are out-dated, just an observation generalized. I guess with my study at UGA in geography, I had a lot of time to think about cultures and their developments, etc. and find this really fascinating. Anyways, nerd alert is buzzing rapidly, I know. So in the last two months rollerblades have taken our city by storm. They are THE big thing. Everyone who's anyone (apparently I'm not) is trucking around on rollerblades, which thus reminds me of when they were a really big trend in the States give or take a decade or so ago. The shops underneath our apartment complex are selling them by the dozens and even the number of shops that sell them are popping up all over the place. It's crazy, yet so fun to see them so gungho (which derives from a Chinese word, fyi) about skating. It's made me think of skate nights in elementary school and playing street hockey in the cul-de-sac. Here's to nostalgic moments!

To The Du One For One Final Shebang

Well, I'm not doing a very good job at keeping on this blog like I said I would. Seems my life is less interesting these days...or if not that, then too tired at the end of the day to pop a post up. Really going to try harder, I promise! So this past weekend I headed up to Chengdu for a wedding shower for our friends Ashlei and Kelly, who will be getting married to fellas here from our Company on July 1st, and August 18, respectively. We had quite a good time, and let me tell you that I ate all the American food I could shove in me. Chips and salsa- YAY! I will not be travelling back to that city again, unless I return in the years to come. Peter's Tex/Mex has these wonderful chicken biscuits that melt in your mouth, almost as delicious as Chik-fil-a! It really was an out-of-body experience to taste some good cookin again! The shower was a great time of fellowship and hanging with the girls while the boys played baseball and drafted their fantasy baseball teams on Yahoo. April Fools Day was really fun too. I played a joke on my sweet friend Leigh Anne from home and told her I'd begun to date a guy here (ha, we all know the truth...still holding out for Date #1!)...LA was a good sport, and my friends and I enjoyed some small antics around these parts too (unfortunately nothing worth noting...just a laugh or two). The bus ride home *4 hrs.* was long and boring, but we're back and the weather has been crazy wonderful. It was even windy and as clear as I've ever seen it here today! My folks are somewhere in the Grand Canyon right now, enjoying the Wild Wild West and making me green with envy that I can't be there with them, though I can't wait to see their pictures. I'll post some on here when they send them to me. For now, enjoy what I've got from the girls' time! Hope your first week of April is feichang hao !