"Jettison everything else, then, and lay hold of these things only, few as they are; and remember withal that it is only this present, a moment of time, that a man lives: all the rest either has been lived or may never be. Little indeed, then, is a man's life, and little the nook of earth whereon he lives, and little even the longest fame, and that too handed on through a succession of manikins, each one of them very soon to be dead, with no knowledge even of themselves, let alone a man who has died long since."
                                                                                                              -Marcus Aurelius

This last week was awesome! A few of the guys in our class were preparing for some performance and so the rest of us were just left to our own devices for the most part. It was great. I reviewed a lot of my forms, worked on correcting some movements that I was doing wrong, and stretched a lot. I always say that stretching is the only good thing about summer here (although showering is also pretty great) but I was getting frustrated that we weren't getting enough time to work on it. Now I feel better. I also had a chat with Shifu where he reassured me that we won't run out of time to learn the rest of the stuff before the program ends. I worry sometimes but he said we still have lots of time. It's a relief.

Wow, I haven't written in such a long time! I missed a week and then went on an unexpected vacation but I got back on Saturday night.

My boyfriend Simon had some friends visiting China and he went to meet up with them for a week. He invited me to go along and Shifu said ok but at first I declined, thinking I'd already gone on a trip this year and didn't want to spend too much, but then I found out that his family had a timeshare they could use on an island in the south China sea (Hainan) so the accommodations would be free. How could I say no? The summer here is always so miserable and plus my birthday was coming up so I went along with them and had an awesome time. The hotel we stayed at was outside the city so there were lots of stars at night and it had amazing gardens and swimming pools. I went swimming at least twice every day, usually 3 times. It was wonderful. There was also a beach nearby that we could catch a taxi to so we went to the beach a few times too. Hainan is a very laid back place (for China that is) and although there's not a ton of stuff to see/do it was so nice to just relax. A great birthday present for me. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in it.

I also got some really nice gifts and birthday wishes on my actual birthday. I knew there was a reason I was still on facebook! haha. Thanks everyone!

The view from our window

The main pool

One of the other pools, there were so many!

drinking a coconut with Simon's friend James

Simon kickin' it at the beach bar

The beach in Sanya.

Training has been less that pleasant but I don't want to dwell on it, I'll use the memory of my trip and the knowledge that summer is finite to get me through it.