domestic adventures

Saturday was B's birthday, so we went out with some of his non-law friends to drink and celebrate. Blue Jazz was unfortunately (though probably not surprisingly) packed, so we ended up at Brewerkz in Clark Quay. Decent food, good drinks (x-rated sex on the beach! ...thusly rated because it is made from x-rated fusion vodka), and strange but entertaining conversations. A good time overall. Life is better spent not entirely sober, I feel.

Sunday, I met up with G for a delicious lunch. It's actually been a long time since I've had good, freshly-made Chinese stir-fry, because so often I just grab some fast noodles or pre-made 2 veg + 1 meat to eat in the interests of saving time. We had 笋尖肉丝 (bamboo and shredded pork) and 酸辣白菜 (hot & sour stir-fried cabbage) and it was so, so good with a bowl of white rice. I love Chinese food, okay? It is in my roots and in my heritage and in my blood. Also, rice. According to G, Thailand pledged some thousands of pounds of rice to help Japan. Now that is the generous Asian spirit, ha.

I did my presentation for Law & Development in China today - a brief powerpoint talk about my paper topic. It went... Well, let's say that while I don't necessarily have a great fear of public speaking, I am not necessarily good at either. I tend to talk on the fast side anyway, but when I am standing in front of people, I also tend to lose my train of thought, so occasionally there are periods where I have an almost out-of-body experience where I sort of look askance at myself internally and wonder what are those words coming out of my mouth...? It's like a different part of my brain is controlling the sounds I make, disconnected from the part of my brain that does the thinking. Additionally, my active versus passive vocabulary has always been a source of distress. It all leads to inadvertent but interesting faces while I talk, because I am WTF-ing at myself. Ah, rehearsing, this is why they recommend it.

Anyway, it was fine, it is over, and now I hope to be able to focus on writing my paper and getting it done and out of the way. I have many other papers awaiting me... Clearly I anticipate them with much joy, yes?

I am also writing again, for all the good and the bad that it entails. It certainly involves a lot of feelings, that's for sure.

Just browsed one of my usual food blogs and am craving a reuben in ways I can't even put into words. That will have to be one of the items on my to do list when I stop over back in STL in May.