Well, it started off cool and grey this morning. We had the day off from classes for the Autumn Moon Festival. Last night all of the squares and roads were lit up and most restaurants and shops were closed. Driving home from a late farewell gathering, we watched little lanterns being released and floating up into the misty night sky. They rose slowly from the square and then drifted westward as they caught a light breeze. It was a very mild and peaceful evening and the bright moon was muted through the clouds.
I spent a lot of today in a prolonged meeting to schedule out the fall's activities through December. There's lots to do: a trip to Mongolia for local partners to learn from similar environmental and development projects, another study tour to other conservation projects in China, monitoring trips to check up on the 11 clinics that we help build/train staff for/fund, water monitoring work, checking up on the grazing study and repairing fences, test-running the snow leopard study equipment, test-running the bear fencing on-site (which we got juiced up and tested in the city last week), and so on and so on. There are conferences to attend, lectures to give, relationships to build, relationships to maintain. All this for three full-time workers with Shinay and I helping out part time after classes! Never a dull moment.
The day was less grey- but not very warm- by the time I left the meeting at 3:30. It wasn't cold either, just not warm. I headed home to see Shinay who'd been studying all day. We took a nap and then went to make something of the day off by playing soccer. Wouldn't you know as soon as we stepped out the door, clouds started rolling in from the west. We got in a good forty five minutes of play before the wind and rain picked up and the game fizzled out. We went to a noodle and fried rice restaurant for a quick dinner and were happy to find jia-jia-myun on the menu- but it didn't taste anything like the Korean dish we're used to.
After dinner, we studied some more together, checked up on our fantasy football team (we're almost last in our league- didn't really want to play but were coerced by some friends), dug through an old music collection, and practiced some swing dancing. Not bad for a day that started off with 5 hours of meeting! Tomorrow I'm skipping class to try to get our paperwork straight for residence permits and visas.
