I'm Back!

It's been a while since I posted, I'm sure everybody is delighted that they can once again hang on my every word.  OK, maybe not so much.  Regardless, it's nice to be writing again.  I have been really busy this week.  I'll take a moment to complain here.  We normally have one five minute presentation a week.  For some reason the professors have decided that this week we needed to have two.  On the bright side, my second one was based on an interview with a Chinese graduate student I interviewed yesterday afternoon.  We traveled together to the campus of a local university, where we were instructed to randomly select a student that was walking around.  Imagine asking someone to take a survey, and then having to ask them to help you read the survey, Yeah, it was awkward.  The girl was incredibly nice, however, and we managed to muddle our way through my questions.  Ironically, she was from Sichuan, the province I'm planning on visiting this spring break, and the other reason I've been a bit stressed.  Planning a trip like this is always tiring, but the added pressure of making the most of my one week off is only heightening that.  The last thing I want is to look back and say I could have used my time better.  I really need to acknowledge the fact that it's quite ridiculous to complain about planning a trip to a place that looks like this:

Yeah....Life is good.

Oh, and it's known for having a few of these:

Maybe not I won't get this close...they're still bears, you know?.

So I'm finding it hard to get to sad about having to deal with a travel agency or two.  Not to mention a Chinese friend of mine will be going with us, so we won't be lost the whole time.  Speaking of pandas, I will hopefully be headed to the Beijing Zoo this weekend, so I'll have pictures a plenty.  At the same time, I still need to post my pictures of the acrobatics show I saw last Friday.  I'll just give you a teaser: it featured eight motorcycles, lots of spinning plates, and 8 women...on one bike.