Time to grovel

Hello again!

The blog idea was a brilliant idea, except for the fact that a few days after creating it, I began a 4 week long seclusion from the internet and thus the outside world. The first 2 weeks of this was self-imposed: I decided to spend some time right when I got to Kunming immersing myself in life here and adjusting to living with a Chinese family. This turned out to be nice as internet access here is far from convinient. I have to admit, in a lot of ways those weeks were blissful. Intense, of course. I was suddenly living with a family with different customs and expectations that didn't speak any English and taking classes at a language school with a new teacher and living more or less on my own - finding my own way around a Chinese city without a group to make sure I found my way. By the time I finally found my way to an internet cafe, I found myself kicked off of both my blog and my gmail - or so I thought. I don't read Chinese characters. Being illerate has it's disadvantages, one of which is that you cannot figure out what is going on with the internet when things go wrong. I discovered a few days ago that I had forgotten my email address. Yes, forgotton. megan_schoendorf doesn't work because it doesn't exist. Woops. I feel like such a complete incopetant fool for this blunder that the only way to redemption is to announce my idiocy to the world. Especially coming from a technology based family that never finds itself far away from multiples means of connection, be it blackberries, cellphones, or wireless internet, I hang my head. Upon regaining access to email, I discovered in an email from blogger that my username was also different from the one I had been trying to sign in under. Again, woops.

I'd be lying if I said I missed you. I've thought a lot lately about the meaning of what it mean's to "miss" someone. People ask me if I miss home, my family, my friends. I love you all, of course, and look forward to seeing you again. But when I think about you, for the most part, I'm not sad. I don't long to be somewhere other than I am. Even though I love you, I am happy where I am, and therefore cannot honestly say that I "miss" you.

But lately things have been slowing down. The novelty of life in Kunming has worn off and routines have been developed. At times, I'm even bored and find my thoughts have been wandering back to home. That is what motivated me to finally deal with the problem of gmail and blogger and why I am back. I fully intend to continue posting to this blog, and my next post will be about an average day in Kunming.

Once more, I am very sorry for cutting myself off from everyone for so long. I hope you aren't mad and haven't forgotten about me.