星巴克星冰乐咖啡

Before I came to China I had never...

the list of possible endings for this sentence is nearly infinite.

I've never felt fat before in my life.

Then along came China.

The last thing I was expecting when I sat on that flimsy little red stool was for it to splinter into dozens of tiny pieces and deposit me unceremoniously onto the cold, hard floor.  I am glad there was a large, mirthful audience there as witness to my obvious obesity.  Most of the Chinese girls I'm acquainted with seem to suffer from near anorexia and now I know why.  It's because the chairs are designed to hold exactly 40 kilos, and not a fraction more.

You may wonder how I got to be the rotund woman I am today and I'll tell you exactly where the blame should be placed.  On the shoulders of the foreign affairs office at Three Gorges University.  Every year they give the foreign teachers a box of moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, which was October 3rd this year), while knowing full well that we all hate them.  Even Chinese people don't really like moon cakes.  They just eat them because that's what you're supposed to do on Mid-Autumn day.  I was looking forward to my giant box of moon cakes again this year, just about as much as I was looking forward to my overnight stay in the Lodi train station.  Then...in a surprisingly wonderful turn of events our school blessed us with gift certificates to Eliville instead of moon cakes!

Eliville is the glorious location of the things you see in this picture, and I finally got around to cashing in my 100yuan gift certificates today; since Thanksgiving is this week I figured I might as well get in the gluttonous mood ahead of time.  So rather than mysterious, strange-flavoured round "cakes" I got to enjoy chocolate cake and a frappuccino.  Which is why the stool collapsed under me to the delight of my friends.

Now the sun is shining so I believe I'll go run off some of this extra weight in a game of football!

"When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson