An American Expat in China

The clock is counting down to the April holiday (Qing Ming) break.  Since my last post I went hashing on March 16th for the St. Patty's Day run.  It was a local run and we went up Wentianxiang. Despite my significant hangover on Sunday, Faye and I scouted trail for the hash on Saturday the 23rd.  We chose a trail on Yangtaishan.   During work that week, on March 21st, there was a cat in the 3rd floor garden.  It was not entirely clear how it got there but it had two kittens.  The staff took a while to try to catch them.  Our trail on the 23rd was pretty good.  We laid a great trail with a view stop, a beer stop, and a wine stop.  There were even a few minor injuries and close calls but nobody ended up in the hospital so it was ok. This last week has been slow going.  There is 4 days until our trip to Tokyo.  We are both looking forward to it but it will be a short trip so we will need to get as much out of it as possible betwee...

There are only a few major updates with this post.  The first and most important is that I was not promoted to high school science department chair.  Despite being familiar with the school systems and having an amazing record as a teacher with Basis, they decided to offer to job to someone with admittedly more leadership experience but less experience with the school.  It is disappointing.  What is most annoying is that the new hire who was offered the role will not be able to assume the role until after the first semester of next year.  This forces the current department chair to maintain the position for half of the year while this new guy proves himself worthy of the responsibility.  It is beyond me why they would put the department at risk and waste resources like this.  I am on the path to losing the weight I had gained since moving here. I am down to about 80-81kg (depending on what time of day I step on the scale).  Part of the success come...