No Excuses

It's been a long time since a substantial post...I have no excuses for that. Just shear and utter Brian Viani laziness.

Some highlights of the past few months here:
Finished my grad school Apps (MA in International Relations here I come!)...

Celebrated New Year's in a similar fashion as last year

Got a new roommate...for those keeping track at home, I am now living with 2 girls. One from Cali, one from Vancouver.

Planned and booked a trip to China for Chinese New Year's

Learned some new words in Chinese

My old friend Peter, a fellow NYer and the most Italian Asian kid I know... came for a visit

Decided to go to Kenya in June

My English ability has continued its perpetual decline....seriously my vocabulary is that of a 5th grader's now.

and that's about it. All of these were good times. Having an old friend here was especially awesome because there were so many things I've grown accustomed to here that I was able to look at with a fresh, New York City perspective; for instance...for some reason people here think it's lucky to let the hair on their mole grow long. We all know those hairs. If you have moles ...chances are there is some odd hair growing out of it. But most decent people simply shave it off, especially when said mole is located around the chin or cheek region. But here that mole hair is supposed to be good luck. So there are all these old Taiwanese guys walking around with a clean-shaven face.... save one or two or three INSANE and LONG hairs coming out of their mole on the chin. Imagine not shaving your one hair for your entire life...and then feeling so proud about it you want to take it with you on the subway, and stand inches from my face...

I'm not saying I got completely accustomed to this hair; I'm in no way planning on growing out my own, but let's just say seeing Peter's reaction to such things helped me put things in perspective.

But for now I'll leave you loyal readers with two interesting articles:
1. This article about several elementary schools in China named after Tobacco Corporations

and 2. This gem about the movie Avatar actually killing some poor Taiwanese dude. I didn't realize being long, a little predictable and too preachy could kill...

More substantial posts coming soon, promise


-B