Surprise! Or maybe not surprise. But I'm home.
That home. That American home. I'm back!
Being in America is as awesome and strange and happy and depressing as I expected. A lot of people have been asking me why I moved back, and as always, the answer is complicated. First, I missed my family and friends. I've lived away from home for seven years now, and I've missed too many Thanksgivings and bar mitzvahs and reunions to count. I wanted to see my brother march in his high school band and I wanted to light the menorah with my family in realtime, not over the computer. Second, I was stagnating in China. I wasn't going anywhere in the education sect, and I didn't
want to go anywhere. As much as I loved and will always love teaching (and my awesome students), I wanted to get paid for doing the
other work I was doing, like writing for the Shanghaiist or Sweet Generation. I wanted a different career, and I knew that even though the kind of jobs I want exist in China, they don't exist for non-Chinese speakers who want to work at an open and transparent company. Third, there's no central heating in Nanjing. Let me repeat:
no central heating. I'm that person who's always cold. I needed to warm. up. Just kidding, but not really. My real third reason is this: I stayed in China to teach and travel. And even though I am so thrilled I was able to travel so much, I was getting tired of living out of suitcases and constantly throwing myself into new places where every moment had to be occupied and every meal was unknown and communication was close to impossible. I mean, literally tired and exhausted. I will travel again when I get the opportunity, there's no doubt in my mind. But I was drained, as was my bank account. I will always love traveling, but I will also always love being a homebody.
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| Snow marching |
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| My first American Thanksgiving feast in SEVEN YEARS |
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| Sisters reunited! |
Of course, I miss my friends in Nanjing, and elsewhere in China. I miss my life there. I miss my students. And damn, I miss the food. But I'm also really happy to be home. I'm getting into my routine (two part time jobs for the time being, but I'll be highly employable in the next few months, so check out my
LinkedIn if you know of anyone looking for a smart and adaptable worker who is an excellent writer and fun to have around the water cooler.) Luckily, leaving China isn't the end of my adventures. I'm just having adventures somewhere else, and I'm really excited about it.
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| 北京路, just a random street in Nanjing. Beautiful, amiright? |
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| I'm gonna miss those mugs |
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| But I think I'll miss you most of all, 刀削面 |
I will keep updating this blog, because there are a lot of posts I never shared (like my trip to Malaysia!) and because I'm still traveling! So don't go away just yet...
