It's still 2015!

it's been so long since i last blogged that my browser didn't auto-fill the url.

9 months if we're counting.

things have changed drastically in my innards and seem mostly the same aside from that. i'm still employed at the same place though i volunteer at a primary school and i've met genuinely inspiring mentors. i'm in the same relationship from the last blog i wrote which is a little unbelievable. i've lost friends and gained none since that time. i travelled china with j where we fought and made up and hate and loved an assortment of things, people and places: 

- dodging a baby shitting on the street as we were driven by a lunatic on an old bike as we rushed late to the airport
- returning to an airbnb apartment with funky furnishings and the odour of sewage
- climbing the badaling great wall north and south
- eating pomegranates the size of my head 
- watching j watch the world through binoculars
- avoiding face collisions with air dried chunks of meat hanging off any ceiling or roof.
- visiting the world's most dangerous mountain; hua shan, where a chain (or not) was the only thing between you and a 2000m fall to death.
- conversations about chinese education systems and politics with middle aged taxi drivers who chain smoked and let you know their entire family history on your ride home.
- museums where everything is interesting and any rock or vase is at least 5 times older than Aus.
- peking duck, savoury meat pastries, xi'an lamb soup with bread chunks, date flavoured yoghurt, chinese bakeries and their crispy garlic baguettes, pomelos,egg yolk congee, cheap ass beer, the most amazing pizza hut pizza (no joke), dongbei sauerkraut hot pot, yunnan bugs, freshly roasted almonds,  macadamias and walnuts in their shells etc. we ate a lot. 
- tandem biking the xi an ancient wall; defeated. it was actually cute.
- hocking. everywhere. everyone. 
- singing folk songs of my mother's childhood with the old lady who let us row her bamboo raft.
- drinking with my generation's version of chinese club rats and not enjoying the company
- 5 star $40/night hotels.
- acidity scraping massages that make you burn/itch.
- crazy, crazy family.   

enough with the listing. lately i've been sick and busy and emotional and okay. i've read consistently less, watched tv consistently more (fucking netflix) and have black hair and wear blazers. i now get pretty drunk off four glasses of wine and love jigsaw puzzles and colouring in. i'm excited about my teaching career. i give my brother the kind of advice my mum would agree to. i tell off employees of embassies and post offices. i love dark chocolate. i miss reading. i love sleeping next to someone. i don't complain as much anymore. i see doctors when i'm sick. i'm still learning how to be patient, and silent where it counts. i think about whether i'm living the life of an old person and whether i'm enjoying it. so far my answer is: staying in is "da bomb".

and most relevant, i really miss having this outlet, even if for petty ramblings. i was reflecting on the past two years and my deteriorating self control and accounted it to a variety of fuckery and also my (initially) gradual and (following) sudden plummet from the blogosphere. 

i miss having time to collect myself; unwind, listen to music, and coordinate my inner workings. i need a place to appreciate beautiful passages and lines from books/other, and to come back to them and be reminded of them again. i need a quiet space. 

i'm going to start doing this again, even if unpublished.