I've been going back and forth on whether to keep writing on this blog. On the one hand, I only did this for China so people could keep up with my adventures more easily. I never wanted to be a 'blogger' in the sense that I wrote down all my thoughts from everyday in a public journal. But on the other hand, I still have some China related thoughts and I guess I wouldn't want to disappoint Jay's parents and that girl from Italy whom I've never met. So I continue for now.

I'm now in Houston, visiting Michelle (my partner in China), Megan, and an old friend from high school who now works for NASA. It's great seeing Michelle again. We talked about what its like being back and it is very comforting to speak with someone who knows. Not that I feel like I've experienced any radical emotions. It's all small, subtle feelings that are easy to ignore individually, but that add up. A sort of general disorienting, like things are different but nobody else notices (which they don't, obviously). Tomorrow I get and insiders tour of NASA, and tomorrow we're all going to 'Ming's', which is a restaurant run by Yao Ming's parents. This will be the first Chinese restaurant since I've been back, and I'm very anxious about it. I'm glad Michelle will be there, so I'll have someone to make my inside Chinese jokes to. I plan on speaking Chinese and generally embarrassing everybody. I really wonder if they'll respond when I yell "Fu Yuen!" at the top of my lungs to get a servers attention, as they do in China.

Here's a culture quiz for China. I got 100%, so I guess I learned something.
http://tools.monster.com/culturequizzes/chinaquiz/question.asp

-The Wandering Norseman-