Ah, Monday. You are never going to be my favorite day of the week.

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So, Qin and I spent our last session talking over his goals and the best way for him to continue improving his conversational English. Since he has no one he can practice with in China (it's considered the height of arrogance to overtly speak English, as if you're styling yourself as better than everyone else) I recommended that he watch as many movies and TV shows as he could, in English with Chinese subtitles. Because really, he has the vocabulary, he has the gist of syntax, he just needs to spend a chunk of time in a totally English-speaking environment and I'm positive it will all click. I mean, even when he's visiting here, his parents speak only Chinese. He's had a hard row to hoe.

This segued into a discussion about The Walking Dead, True Blood, Game of Thrones and ultimately to LOTR. He loves the movies, never read the books, so I spent the better part of an hour filling in the blanks. We talked about Boromir, Faramir, what happened between Gandalf and Saruman, what went on in the Shire until Sam, Pippin, Merry and Frodo returned, how Bilbo found the Ring -- it was so cool, and I surprised myself at the amount of details I was able to remember. Which shouldn't be a surprise, I guess, since I've read those books about a thousand times. Heh.

"Maybe next year," his father said to me when I left. I sincerely hope not, because that would mean Qin has not been able to secure a position -- so, as much as I would love to repeat this again next year, I hope hope hope that's not the case, for Qin's sake.

We take so much for granted in this country. So much.

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Now, we gear up for the wedding. I am so glad it's a small affair, although having a big crowd in which I could become lost has its appeal, I can't help but say. I am really looking forward to seeing my girls -- even my extra daughters will be there, and I AM SO STOKED ABOUT THAT!! Omg. I can't wait to hug and squeeze every single one of them. It will be like old times, and much Joy will be had by all. EPIC.

But I can't lie; the highlight of the entire she-bang will be Muffin in his little suit and tie. I will probably never recover from the Kewtness Overload. Heh.

That means I have a ton of shit to do between now and the departure date. Oy.

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The other night, I stayed up until 3am reading over journal entries from three years ago. I'm not sure that was a really good idea, but then I'm pretty stupid from time to time. In my defense, I will say sometimes, you have to take a look at where you've been in order to see not only where you're going, but how far you've come.

Also -- holy shit. I was pummeled pretty bad. Totally a hot mess of epic proportions. I am actually amazed I'm even alive today, to be perfectly honest. It was just one thing right after another. How the hell did I survive that?

I have no clue. One foot, then the other. How else?

I am so thankful I blogged through it and why I'm blogging again. Without those entries, I think I would have lost all that time completely. I know blogging helped, and so did the support of all the wonderful people who stood behind me through that time. I will never be able to express my gratitude to you. You know who you are.

That part of the blog is still private, but I may take it back out to the public at some point. I'm just taking it carefully at this point, for obvious reasons those of you who walked with me will understand.

Some things are better, some are still the same. At this point, that's amazing from where I started so I'll count that as a win.

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I think I might be a workaholic.

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Well, like I said, I have a ton of stuff to accomplish so I'd better get on it. Updates as they happen.

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