Zen, part Two

When we last left our hero, he was brimming with optimism—the hope of a pleasant vacation to recharge the proverbial batteries and reboot the proverbial operating system on the horizon. (Is it obvious I recently had to take my computer to the Apple Store?) Alas, this happy ending was not in the cards…

That’s right. After writing about how low I had fallen during the fall, and writing about how optimistic I was going into the winter, I found myself crestfallen, perhaps lower and more downtrodden than ever before.

Why?

Well, I thought you’d never ask.

traveltraveltravel.

I know what you're thinking: "He wrote in December all about how he was going to be more proactive with his blog. He promised writing, and hasn't posted since... He's got a lot of nerve showing his face around here again."

Maybe you're kinder than that. If so, thanks. If not, I KNOW! I am the worst. There are two reasons for my absence. First and most serious, my VPN hasn't been working at all. Without it, I'm trapped behind the Great Firewall, and therefore cannot post. I have been unable. That doesn't mean, however, that I haven't been writing. I have quite the backlog that I need to publish (sound familiar?). At the current moment, I'm mooching a friend's VPN and thought I might have enough time to post something. 

The other, more awesome reason I've not posted in a while is because I've been busy. Busy travelling. I spent the entire month of January and the first half of February enjoying everything Yunnan has to offer (and making a pitstop in Chengdu for IST). I will talk more about all of that at a later date. However in the meantime, I'd like to ask anyone reading to remember how happy I was about my summer travel...

I HAVE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE

I officially have a VPN on my laptop.

And it's working. I'm currently using it.

My dear friend Matt set it up for me. He's the greatest.


I am currently in Chengdu. Tomorrow begins IST, the final portion of Peace Corps training. It will last for two weeks. Tonight, to celebrate my arrival (and surviving the twenty-two hour train ride on a hard seat), I went and got my favourite Chengdu meal.

I wish I could say it is something unique to Chengdu, or even Sichuan for that matter, but it's not. There is a Uyghur restaurant not too far from where I'm staying. I go there and order dingding chaomian and naan. Dingding chaomian are special noodles, chopped up and cooked up with stir-fried meat, potatoes, peppers, onions, tomatoes in a spicy meat stock. I eat it in Lanzhou sometimes as well, but this restaurant in Chengdu is the tastiest. The coup de grâce of this meal is the Dr. Pepper I bought from the international foods store down the street (a luxury I'm not privy to in Lanzhou). 




So, there you have it... My first blog with a VPN. From here, the question remains: what would be the best way for me to go about publishing all of my old blogs I have written?