<3 <3

My brother is taking a class on urban cities in China, focusing primarily on Beijing. Oh, my heart. I think I need to sit in on this class as long as my schedule will permit. I just got a peek at some of his readings that were posted online, and I have to say, it was really the first time that I've been excited about reading Chinese in awhile.

Times like these I get super excited to go back to school. But unfortunately I get excited over the prospect of classes like urban studies or creative writing or anthropology or the likes, and never in the direction of the professional coursework that I will probably ultimately wind up pursuing. I think I will be a dabbler for life, and I've been trying to ignore this fact for a good number of years now. Sigh. I don't think there's much of a way to make a living off of dabbling, do you?

Yesterday I participated in an international dragon boat competition at Treasure Island, just in time for my birthday. I will say this, I don't recommend participating in sports competitions for your birthday, unless you are SUPER in love with the sport [which I'm not - I was part of my old org's novice team, meaning we had 3 practices then hit the water for some friendly competition. Panda Express entered an Orange Chicken team ... I <3 that name to no end. Hilarious. You can imagine how their team chant went.] and even then, it might be a little dicey. But Friday night I had some friends over for a mini potluck and impromptu dark chocolate blind taste test - and funnily enough, the 4 of us each chose a different of the 4 types of chocolate as our favorite. I am super dark all the way, preferably over 70% and no fructose corn syrup.

And today some more friends are coming over for a little tea party. Hehehe. Pastries and tea with my girly friends. I love my girly friends [well actually the dark chocolate tasting friends are girly friends as well - I'm referring to my childhood friends, i.e. childhood starting in high school]. I'm making people recount their first memories/impressions of me, as part of my narcissistic-I'm-turning-24-streak, but when you go far enough back it can be hard to get much of a distinctive memory of people.

That's OK though. Its the laughter that the process brings about that makes me happiest.