Starbucks Retrospective


I find myself at the Starbucks near the Hospital, using the computer as I did 4 months ago- but how different I am now. I don't pretend to be an accepted member of the community, but I am constantly assailed with a certain awareness of how this is my home right now. it's not always easy, but I can get around my town by bus, subway and taxi and even bike. I've actually run into people I know on the street (which always blows my mind in a city this size). Going to the Great Wall this past Sunday was just completely profound! It was incredible to imagine being marooned out there at one of those guard posts (we had to climb a rusty ladder to climb over a short section of the wall), and then imagine having to build the crazy thing. just incredible. (i felt like an accomplished mountain goat by the time I got from one guard tower to another- man, was it steep...and no steps on part of it. augh)

WOW- just this second I got an amazing phone call. The guy I worked with, who directed OLIVER here, recommended me for a pretty freakin' cool gig and it just got confirmed!!!!! whooo hooooo! I'm helping with English/vocal coaching for people singing at the closing ceremony of the Olympics! holy Cow!!!! I don't know any details, and it's all confidential anyway...but I'll let you know at the end of August how it was!!! :) he he.

I met two great people last night, after a really incredible yoga class and hanging out with my beautiful friend Jessica and her roommate Dalida. I've come to a new place in my Beijing existence...playing with grown-ups. :) I have had a wonderful time rockin' and rollin' and staying out dancing...but I realized that I was pretty much continuing some old patterns that weren't maybe that healthy for me (inside or out). The woman i met last night works for the World Food Program at the UN and the guy is a Brand Manager for Volvo. Her apartment was ridiculously cool and the wine was brilliant, not to mention the art and sculptures she'd gotten from the many countries she's worked in. But it wasn't just the stylish trappings that I enjoyed. We talked about so many inspiring subjects and some silly, yet all the while i was just happy to be a sentient being, as opposed to the getting wasted/high school drama/sex swapping crowd I floated through before (*i wasn't in on the sex-swapping Mom, and i'm not even lying) :) Beijing produces (or attracts) an interesting specimen of the Western Male. No matter what he was like back home, here he is a rock star with beautiful/skinny/long-haired/

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