Tryin to hop back up onto the writting horse....

Whew! My greatest appologies on the amount of time between blog posts. Being in China, blog sites and social networking sites in general are blocked. If one wants to do some face booking or blogging they must acquire what is called a "virtual private network" or VPN. This basically tells the internet that you are logging on in someplace other than the PRC. The commuter that I came with and had been previously writing these blogs on had a VPN but it sadly bit the dust and is now sitting around collecting what it had bitten. I now have an ipad (dusting my shoulders off) and it has a VPN but the keyboard on it is not to my liking for longer writings. But now! my lovely mother purchased an ipad compatable keyboard as a Xmas gift and here I sit. Damn, where to begin. So much has happened since May. I've hit my year mark in China and have decided to sign another contract. I came to this decision pretty easily considering the economic distress America is currenly in. Its easy to save money here and I a good at what I do, so why the hell not? My family is healthy, im single, and I have no debt. If not now.... when? I have come to the decision that this lifestyle is for me. Not teaching english in china per say but traveling around and living in different places, doing different things. At this point in my life setteling down in one place for the rest of my life makes me kinda sick to think about. I suppose if I find a place where I can continuously grow I could consider it but i've yet to find such a place. Oh China! My beautiful, smelly, confusing, gigantic, infuriating, consistently inconsistent home. Cooper and I have grown to become pretty attatched to this small city. People in our appartment complex know Cooper by name and he has a few doggy friends (an enemy or two also). People still don't understand Cooper yet, they are terrified of him for some reason. One night I was walking him and we came to the front door of our building. About 30 feet away from the door was a woman walking to her home. She saw us and stopped dead right where she was standing, petrified. She stood there and stared and once she felt it was safe, she took off running as fast as she could. Sprinting as fast as a woman in heels could sprint she made it to what she thought was a safe diastance between her and my killer American canine. I was trying to open the door but I just couldn't, I was laughing way too hard. I hollered out in my best chinese "he is friendly!" but she didn't seem to care. Only the other dog owners seem to have no fear of the beast they call Cooper. If i've said it once I've said it a thousand times, if Cooper ever bit a person, I would walk up to that person and punch them in the face as hard as I could. Reason being, whatever that person did to get my dog to bite them, they deserved. So now they have a dog bite and maybe a little red mark on their face since i probably have the punching strength of a 7 year old. Friends have come and gone since my last entry which make me sad but thats the nature of this beast. It sometimes works for me since I have a hard time attatching myself to anyone anymore. Most recently one of my closest buddies took off back to America. He had been here for a few years and it was just his time. He came to China to be with the woman who is now his wife (she will be joining him after her visa interview) and I was fotunate enough to be the best man in their wedding. It was a pretty amazing experience, being in a chinese/american wedding. There really wasn't too much of a difference in the ceremony. My friend took pride in how little chinese he knew considering he had been ther for years so I had to hit him in the leg when it was time for him to say "I do" in Chinese. The ride to the reception and the reception itself was the interesting part. For some reason it is popular to be taken to the reception venue in a red convertible with someone hanging out of the back of a minivan filming the whole thing.. Once at the reception, it is tradition for the bride and groom along with the maid of honor and best man had to go to every table have have a toast with them. This involves drinking a small glass of booze, not just a sip. They had 10 tables of guests. Needless to say I had to pass a few times or at least stand behind some people and pretend i was drinking. That was the first thing we did! I had the whole night ahead of me. Remember the "music group" I had mentioned in previous posts? CrewesiFreed? Well that ship has obviously said dues to Crewe moving to Moscww but not to worry! A new group has been formed. Its a 3 piece comprised of my friends Ricky, Tim King, and myself. Our name is "King Richard the Freed". Good stuff. any who, the bride asked me a while before the wedding if I would sing a song at the reception and I agreed. Thankfully Ricky and Tim were there to go up there with me. Ricky played guitar, Tim played the bass, and I was on the mouth. We played "Crazy Love" by Van Morrison and it sounded really good. Our first gig was a success. I wish I could say the same about our second........ to be continued.