September

The past month has been pretty up and down with little time to relax and sit down to reflect, so blogging hasn’t been a priority.

I moved into my new place and started teaching a new semester of classes four weeks ago. I have a pretty light load of classes so I’ve taken up some tutoring work, Chinese lessons with a tutor, and some sports. Most of my classes are math classes, only one is an English class, and all are with middle school students. Teaching math is a nice change; I find it more interesting and easier to prepare for, though there was some adjustment in figuring out what the kids know and don’t know, and how to teach things that I learned ten years ago in a simple and understandable way.

I bought a new Giant road bike for about $100 and met a young guy at a small bike shop (there’s only three places that sell road bikes in the entire city) while looking at bikes. He owns several nice bikes and introduced me to a group of young people who do group rides and join mountain bike races around the area. I’ve also played some soccer and started a basketball tournament for the students at school. I went through a couple difficult weeks with little free time or energy to keep up on my running, but I did sign up for the Shanghai marathon, which is two months away so I should focus on running much more now.

One of my two roommates had a bad cough a couple weeks ago and went to the hospital to find out that he has tuberculosis. It’s one of those things that you hear about but never expect to happen to you. It’s also one of those diseases that has plagued humans for ages and you easily forget that it is still around in the 21st century since we have so little firsthand experience with it. So it’s a huge shock when it affects someone you know. He spent two weeks in the hospital before being able to part of each day and will likely go back home in another month or so. He’s able to get out of the hospital for part of each day now but is weak from the medication and limited in his diet and activities and has go back to his dumpy hospital room every night.

It was depressing to see someone’s life turned upside down so abruptly and face so much treatment and an extended hospitalization. It put a damper on our moods as others who live and work with him wondered how the heck he got TB and if we were going to end up like him. Everything has brightened up and improved lately, however. A friend from Beijing visited last weekend. School and work has become a stable routine, the weather has cooled down, I’m able to focus more on Chinese and the marathon, and starting today we have an eight day break for the Chinese National Day on October 1.