Happy Equinox....

Dear Beida Students:
If you want to make out enthusiastically at 10pm in the middle of an empty field, more power to you, but please to take off your backpacks first. It makes for a much more aesthetically pleasing sight.

Love,
Shelley, who prefers her PDA tasteful

~

In other news, it's the vernal equinox. And while I put off an email, let me recount recent spectacular earring losses. First one vanished while I was biking (unmatched earrings are almost as sad as unmatched socks....actually perhaps more so). Then I lost 2 (different) backings, thus giving me unmatched backings as well.

Then one of the "marble" black and white discs from Dali fell and broke in half. Ironically, now that it's broken I finally believe the salesman's claim that it was real marble/crystal/rock substance. But the breakage is actually rather nice, so I will just have to artistically break the other one. Symmetry is so overrated.

All this sacrifice has not been in vain: my biking has been improving drastically! (Yes, they are correlated, and this is my personal opinion.) While I'd write a memo to Beijing drivers that bike lanes exist for a reason, there's nothing like dodging cars/other bikes/wayward pedestrians to make you really, really pay attention. I do need a loud jangling bell, though, or a "New biker—please stay AWAY!" sign, or perhaps just wobble so menacingly that everyone is terrified—who let this drunk girl out onto the streets? And etc.

After this, traffic in any other city will probably seem sedate and zombie-like. I secretly wonder if perhaps there has been a champion biker hidden in me all these years, and has now finally discovered its perfect habitat in Beijing.