Meanwhile, in Beijing...

Alright, back to the humdrum day to day goings on.  No more exciting spring break adventures.  It's eleventh hour and the workload is showing it.  For the last three weeks hear, we will be doing not one, not two, but three chapters a week.  Good times will not be had.  Thankfully, this is in a new book, which I refer to as the 大人书 (Grownup Book).  No more pictures and inane dialogues for us, it's all essays and black print, nothing to distract you from the fact that you have no idea what this character or that character means.  Sounds bad, but I was getting tired of hearing about the same four imaginary people and there imaginary problems.

Just to keep the happy train rolling, I decided to clean the air filter in my air conditioning unit today.  This was based on my friends advice, which he offered after he noticed the fact that my neck was breaking out.  This is an allergic reaction to the all the 空气污染 (air pollution) we've had the last few days.  I had no idea what I was about to face.  I should mention that I have yet to clean the air filter since I arrived.  That means this filter was jammed with three months of the dirtiest air on earth.  Even knowing that, I was still taken aback at how bad it was.  I took a side-by-side comparison shot after I had cleaned one.

Not for the faint of heart.

They looked like they had been eating small animals.  I think I saw most of a bird go down the drain when I was washing it out, but I can't be sure.  It has been running non-stop since I cleaned it, hopefully filling my room with clean air.  Well, relatively clean air.  

It's not all bad, though.  I find myself working for the weekend , as they say.  This Saturday I will be headed to the Great Wall for the second weekend in a row (stay tuned for a photo essay about the first trip).  That's cool enough, but I'm not just going to sight see, I will be there to watch a concert.  On the Great Wall.  The. Great. Wall.  (Am I being clear enough?).  It's not exactly my favorite artist, but I would go if it was somebody like, I don't know, Michael Bolton. (No offense to you Bolton lover's out there, or Boltheads, which I assume is how you refer to yourselves).  The only thing that stands between me and living the dream is some new vocabulary, a test on Friday, and...oh wait, this is getting depressing... I'll just stop there.