You will never guess where I am right now. I never thought I would end up here. I am leaving Beijing today and will be on my way to Bangkok, Thailand and then Vientiane, Laos in about two hours. I am in...THE FIRST CLASS LOUNGE! Woo-hoo! Thai Air had a promotion with 'buy one get one free business class', so here I sit. And hopefully a delicious vegetarian meal is awaiting me on the flight.

Updates will probably be sparse for the next fourteen days as I galavant around south east asia before returning to the US for a two month rest. I brought along all of the snail mail addresses from those dear readers who requested a post card, so check that mailbox, baby!

I submitted my diary to several review sites, and it seems like my two downfalls are this layout and/or my age (depending on who is doing the review). I am not satisfied with this layout these days: I even went so far as to fool myself into thinking I could possibly design my own. I gave up on that genius idea after a successful Adobe Photoshop adventure and a frustrating HTML endeavor. I was thinking of some cute, smiley monkeys (which I drew), but I don't think that really reflects my content very well. Maybe something with a bamboo hut-type feel. Eh, who gives! It's what's inside that counts! That is what the guidance counsellor says.

Yesterday I said goodbye to my Chinese friends and my Chinese place of employment. It really wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be. There were a few tears, but it was all over so quickly because the bus was running on a schedule. We had to go when we had to go. I will miss my American teacher friends as well, but I have more faith that they will attempt to keep in touch with me. I hope.

Bangkok, here I come.

ckb

Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 4:34 PM