A second first in China

Sunday the 21st was the Winter Solstice, which, according to Wikipedia, "is the instant when the sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer's hemisphere". It was also the shortest day of the year (or the longest night, whichever you want to call it). Although I recall studying this in Geography some 15 odd years ago, I'm still rather clueless about the whole mechanics of it, what with me not being very bright about things like these and all. The one thing that there is no mistaking, however, is how bitterly cold it can get. When I stepped into the office this morning, the first thing my colleague told me was that it was the official start of the winter. My eyes nearly popped out. I'd been piling on the layers and wrapping myself up in scarfs and gloves for over a month now.. all this while, all the cold, and it wasn't even winter yet? You have got to be kidding me!

A mere 5 minute walk from my flat to the school just across the street this morning left my ear stingingly numb (ha! an oxymoron, but is that really a word?) from being nipped by the frosty air. In the evening, while I was paying for my purchases at the supermarket, at the check out counter, which was near the entrance/exit but still within the building, my fingers turned red and started to swell and within minutes, I could barely feel them. I don't remember ever having to subject my poor almost frostbitten fingers to such torment, not even when I was in Tasmania during winter which, according to a friend, was the coldest part of Australia. Man.. this is the real thing.. real cold hard winter. It really bites! This ... is my first winter in China. It's just started and already I can't wait for it to be over.

My previous blog in Friendster's

Here's the link to my previous blog in Friendster's. The blog was abandoned after I created the one which failed, right before this one here in Blogger.

http://www.germio.blog.friendster.com

Finally.. my first blog.. from China.

I'd started off highly-motivated and very ambitious. I'd just gotten a teaching job in China, my first overseas assignment, and as I had a 5-year travelling (and teaching) plan in place, I thought I'd maintain 2 blogs -- one, a teaching a blog (to be filled with the anecdotes of teaching) and the other, a travelogue. I'd spent a long time working on choosing the best layout and template, writing the description, the whole works. And then, when I finally got to China, I discovered that they had a firewall that blocked out most blogs. Needless to say, I couldn't even read my blogs, let alone update them. My friend, on being bugged by my exasperation, gave me a list of proxies to try. It worked for a while, but just for a while. And then, even before I could post my first interesting entry from China, it was back to square 1. I couldn't load the pages anymore. After that, I just gave up and totally abandoned the whole blogging idea.

I'm into my 10th month here in China. A while back, I chanced upon information that there was one blogging site whose blogs weren't blocked by the great firewall of China, and so.. here I am!

Initially, I'd had the same big ideas about categorising my blogs, one for teaching, one for my travels, one about books (I'm currently in a reading frenzy), and one about writing (something I'd always wanted to do, but wasn't able to devote much time to), but then I thought about it long and hard and decided to be practical. Let's face it, teaching isn't exactly a leisure job, not if you want to do it well. Sometimes it gets so crazy there's hardly any time to sleep, let alone blog. So, I decided to keep just one blog. After all, I don't even know if I'd really blog diligently and frequently anyway, so keeping it simple would be a good enough start. I figured I could always break it into categories later if it got too messy.

And so.. here's my first blog from China. Hopefully, there'll be many more to come.