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Even with the in-laws in town, I find myself twiddling my thumbs a lot and playing a fair number of games of solitaire. There just isn’t much to do in Qinghai in the winter (at least there isn’t much that I want to do, especially if it involves leaving the warmth of our apartment.) Less…
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As the thermometer outside bottoms out and the frost builds up on the windows of the apartment I have one brilliant inclination: it is called hibernation. I mean, why shouldn’t we mimic the natural world? But since sleeping for 4 or 5 months straight to wait out the frigid winter is not a very viable…
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I was giving my friend a hard time recently about how all of his favorite musical artists/groups are not of the female gender. This is not exactly a nice thing for me to do (i.e. make fun of him) because I was the one who asked him to tell me some of his favorite albums,…
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Seeing, really seeing, takes time, training, and concentration. My New Year’s Resolution is to really begin to see the beauty all around me wrapped in subtle, often disguised, small packages. In many ways (for me) it’s a new way of looking at the world. Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, likens this seeing and…
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In the last post I was mentioning how we had an issue with the hot water tank at the Jianzha Estate which forced us to retreat to Xining. Well, on our way back to Jianzha we discovered that there had been an issue with the coal stove which heats the house. Evidently a pipe leading…
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The Johnsons were back in Xining for the New Year. (We lost the hot water heater on the shower at the house in Jianzha so we vacated, but we’ll be heading back there for the weekend.) The in-laws arrived from Seattle last week so we took the opportunity to "hit the ice" at the People’s…
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Happy New Year, everybody! 2008! Woo-hoo! He might not look like much, but I have a feeling he will be much more easy-going than 2007. At least I’m hoping…
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I was born in 1974 with a perfectly good set of eyes. They were (and still are) brown like my mother and father’s. I have never had to wear contacts, glasses, or even a Planter’s Peanut style monocle in order to see things near or far. So far, and I take nothing for granted in…
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Well, it has been a month of photo albums with no end in sight. Our Christmas here in China (yes, we stayed put this time around) went pretty well even if it felt a bit non-standard to me. The girls (Anna and Sarah) were very, very excited this year and when asked said that they…
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MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Jianzha Christmas Day Stats (as of 11:30 a.m.): Sunny, clear skies. 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius 0% chance of precipitation (my prediction)
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yeti speak... 