Grass

This is a view you don't see in Beijing. I see this every day.

A year ago I landed in Beijing, China. Before then I had stepped foot on the soil of two countries: Canada (my home and native land) and the United States. Since then I have stumbled through China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Spain (a bit of a detour).

I chose not to renew my contract at the school despite being welcome to do so. I wanted to review my options and pursue other avenues. I arrived back in New Brunswick at the end of June with relief and joy. The pollution was not oppressive and I could see stars in the sky. It was great.

I went camping and bounced around from city to town for a couple weeks re-uniting with folks I hadn't seen in a long time. I hosted a great storytelling event at the Dooryard Arts Festival (the recording of this event will be available...hopefully soon). I have began writing and work on several projects from a novel to a screenplay to a new website(s) to a non-fiction memoir/how-to and more.

Quite productive.

Then I saw the status updates. Everyone I worked with last year were announcing their impending returns to the urban sprawl of Beijing. They were prepping their classrooms and getting ready for the year and the slew of new students. I wondered if I made a mistake.

This was unavoidable. We tend to build up the alternative options or the choices we didn't make in our minds and calculate the what-ifs. I found myself thinking that maybe the grass was greener on the other side.

Now, in a literal sense this is not true. The grass is definitely more lush in New Brunswick than in Beijing. They both have their pros and cons.

Ability to collaborate with my writing partner (Canada)
Travel opportunities (China)
Career opportunities...aka steady paycheck (China)
Air quality! (Canada)
Independence (China)
Food (China)
Family (Canada)
Car availability (Canada)
Live sports (Canada...well, I can watch the games live in the mornings in China but no beer)

I've been reading more, too.

There are more. I have friends in both places so no matter what I miss people. What I need to be sure to do is not speak or act in definite terms. I may have expressed a notion that I would never return to China or never teach again. This is not accurate, and if I had expressed that it was a mistake. Who knows what the future holds? All I know for certain is that I need to constantly be changing. I cannot settle for the same routine.

I have my projects on the go...I feel good...but there's still a nagging thought that I need to run out the door and back into the wild smoggy yonder. I imagine this may become magnified after the first snowfall and I'm out shoveling for two hours. I love mowing lawns...shoveling snow is the worst thing.

Also, this will likely be the last post on this blog other than to direct you to my new location in conjunction with a bit larger project.

Thanks for reading. Go outside. Put your phone away. Read something interesting.

Pseudo-resolution: read at least 30 books in 2009.

I consider myself to be a voracious reader. I don't remember the full tally from 2007 but it was around the 25 mark. Not shabby, I thought.

Coming to the end of the year, I expect I could burn through a couple more books and I wanted to see how I did in expanding my mind through reading this year.

To my dismay, I realized I haven't read even 15 books as of today for the entire year. I have been slacking, some would say. It would be easy to blame my old job or my classes but that's hardly fair. There have been many hours of sloth-like behaviour and poker-playing online that could have been used in much better fashion.

Here's the list of what I've read:

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
It by Stephen King
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Watchmen by Alan Moore


Not a bad list. I could tentatively include The Stand by Stephen King as well as I read the second half of it this past summer. I had started it about five years ago, put it down and plum forgot about it until this summer.

Within the next day or so, The Poisonwood Bible will be complete and I'll likely move on to another to devour in the coming weeks, not sure yet what it will be.

Due to my lack of reading accomplishment -- 13 is paltry -- I am making my sole New Year's resolution. I will read at least 30 books next year. Luckily, quitting smoking does not have to be a resolution as I am two weeks into that project and have suffered no setbacks as of yet.

I am looking for suggestions of what to read in 2009. Believe me, I'll read pretty much anything. It doesn't have to be fiction, it can be politics, travel, sociology, etc. Here are a few titles I plan on reading (all for the first time...some should have been read years ago):

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

So if you have any other suggestions, please comment here or let me know in any way you can figure out.

Also, if you're looking for books to read, check out the following lists:

50 Greatest Travel Books
Books that induce a mindfuck
Time Magazine's top 100 novels

Cheers,

JCW