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Greetings my noble lords and ladies!

  So good to see you all back again reading my newest blog post. I don't want to make you wait in anticipation anymore so I'll spill the beans and tell you that I am back home in Shanghai and I am very happy to be back in my usual surroundings. Hong Kong was a blast (a very expensive blast) but after all of my visa issues I was ready to sleep in my own bed and see my friends that I thought I would never see again. It's also really nice to hear mostly Mandarin again. It's quite amazing how much I've assimilated to the culture and I really must say that if you are in an environment where you are surrounded by a different language, it slowly but surely creeps in and starts to all make sense. If you are learning a language there is no better way to really learn it then to hear it all the time.

  I've been busy since I got back and am glad to report that Tony G is not a dull boy after this whole ordeal. Right when I landed, we were in the middle of a typhoon warning and it was said that there was supposed to be a typhoon that would hit Shanghai pretty hard but luckily it never came. I did experience some pretty intense winds as well as some downpours that made an umbrella useless and one of those instances was on a tour where the guest and I were soaked to the bone but she had a blast as did I and she left me a nice tip for being so upbeat even with the horrible weather :)

  Have I ever mentioned how much I love people? Well I do. I'm not much of an animal lover but I will be a people person til the day I die. I mention this because the other day I was leading a tour and the group I was with were a pretty fun bunch so we got off to a great start and it was really just what I needed to help me get back into the Shanghai spirit. Well during the tour, we went into an ancient garden where several different tour companies lead tour groups so there's never a dull moment in the mixing pot of nationalities. Every time I go there something cool always happens and it usually involves singing. I'm not sure why but it happens. The last time I was there this group of Koreans mobbed us to take a picture with them to which we obliged then they started singing us a song in English that is apparently some kind of international song of peace that I had never heard of.

  Well this time I was there, there was a group of Christian Chinese tourists and they were all singing a song while getting pictures taken and they were very talented. When they finished, this group of Spaniards applauded and were yelling “OTRA OTRA OTRA” (“sing another one”)! It was great because the Spanish most likely did not understand the song's lyrics but they were just there supporting their fellow human beings and boy did the Chinese belt another one. This time when they finished EVERYONE around them burst into applause and everyone started getting pictures with everyone and it was simply beautiful. For those people that have a lack of faith in humanity, come hang out with me for a few weeks. I'll show you what you've been missing.

  Ok well the rest of this post is going to cover some good stuff so don't you fret! I finally got to see my Chinese sister and her husband-to-be and had some crazy food at my Chinese mother's house, I am currently in the process of looking for new jobs and picking up some random odd jobs here and there to keep myself entertained and explore the opportunities that Shanghai has to offer, we just found a new roommate to take the place of my roomie Bo who is moving to Hong Kong in a week, I've still been keeping pretty happy minus a bit of stress at the tour company (hence the searching of jobs), I've become an English teacher for children and I am currently in the process of writing my own book-like thingy.

  So I got to see Yue, my Chinese sister and it was nice to say hi after not having seen her for about a year. We chatted a bit and she couldn't get over how good my Chinese was. I was quite flattered because usually people say it's quite good but that's because I'm usually the first or second foreigner they've ever heard speak Chinese. With my Chinese mother and sister, they are exposed to several foreigners on a monthly basis who are learning Chinese and I'm glad to know that I'm near the top of the ladder. We waited for an hour or so munching on some watermelon until Yue's husband-to-be (I won't say fiance because he never asked her to marry him, it's just kind of implied.... ya weird I know) showed up and we sat down to eat. He's a really cool guy and we had some fun chatting back and forth and Chinese mama started dishing out some good food. She served up a cold noodle dish with a weird looking sauce on it and I was pretty skeptical. I'm usually pretty open to a lot of Chinese food but this just looked strange. I smelled the sauce that she had poured over the cold noodles and it smelled a lot like peanut butter. I asked her if it was peanut butter and she said it was and showed me how to mix up the noodles and mix the sauce evenly. Then what you're supposed to do is take all of the other regular food and put that over the top of your noodles and commence eating. It was kind of weird to eat spicy veggies and meat with peanut butter noodles but the combination was quite nice to be honest.

  This time when I was over at Chinese mama's house she told me that I was looking skinnier and that she approved. I was glad to hear this because I have been exercising a bit and I'm glad results are happening. I did hear from my local Chinese friends that it's actually good when she tells me that I'm looking fat or this is wrong and that is wrong because apparently that's how they show affection. Well in that case, she must LOOOOOOOVVE me haha. So I was glad to hear that she thinks I'm a bit skinnier now but the problem that arose from this is that she wouldn't let me stop eating! I was full and she kept snatching my bowl and throwing in some onions and meat or some more noodles or radish and of course if she puts it in my bowl I have to eat it. If I don't then I'm being wasteful and the Chinese do not take kindly to that kind of behavior! I had to keep telling her that I was full and then she insisted that she was going to send me home with a bunch of food so that I could eat it later that night in case I got hungry... oh man... she's impossibly awesome.

  So I'm currently in the process of looking for other forms of making money because recently I've realized that I've spent more money than I will probably make throughout the rest of the internship on my visa situation. I love being a tour guide so I'm trying to reach an arrangement with my boss that will enable me to still lead tours and work in the office for a day or two. My boss is not too happy with my decision and I do feel a bit bad since my family is not known for being welchers in the least bit but I also feel that the visa issue was unforeseen and I don't have much of an option at this time. I've found some work as an English tutor which isn't my ideal job but it has been really great working with little kids and the pay is pretty fantastic. I teach two hour sessions and in those two hours I make 150% of what I make at the tour company in a day. It's hard to say no to making animals out of play doh while teaching a 6 year old how to pronounce the name of the animal and then watch him smash it into a pancake - not to mention I get to make my own schedule which is nice.

  When I first moved here, I didn't know many foreigners. Maybe one at the most which was my boss. Through the tour company I actually met a nice guy named Bo who was my gateway into a huge foreign student population which was absolutely great. Bo and I ended up becoming roommates in the place I currently am and he's been a great friend through and through. He's an American and he actually went to school in Laramie, WY which is only 45 minutes away from CSU where I studied. It's crazy how small the world really is. Well unfortunately, he's moving to Hong Kong which is a bummer but I'm really stoked for him. He's got a great job lined up and he's going to have a blast but it's sad to see him go. He was the type of guy that I became great friends with the moment I met him and we've become even better friends over these past 4 months. On the bright side, when I go visit Hong Kong for New Years, I'll have a place to crash and an old friend to catch up with so that's always something to look forward to! Adios Bo, you will be missed!

  To take Bo's place, we found a half Italian half English gentleman named Giuliano and he'll be moving in within 2 weeks or so. I am pretty stoked because when we were looking for potential roommates I was doing all of the emailing since I'll be the one living with them for the next several months and most of the people who wanted to move in were over 35 and didn't want to stay for longer than a month or two which is a no-go. Then when Giuliano emailed me I was happy to see someone our age wanting to move in. He speaks a myriad of languages and hopefully I can pick up a bit more Italian from him. I can foresee some good times in the future and regardless of who I'm living with, I'm in freakin' CHINA!!!@!!! (whoops how'd that @ get into all of my !?)

  So even with the stress of a new job transition and money issues, life is good. Life is always good. I've been doing lots of thinking lately and I haven't really been soul-searching but maybe more analyzing my life from an outside perspective. It's easy to get tunnel vision when you only focus on what stresses you have in your life and what forces are against you or what problems you are having. Sometimes I feel that in order to see a situation clearly, I have to look at it from an outside perspective and pretend that I'm not me but rather a random person who knows everything about me and is on the outside looking in. It's not the easiest thing to do because you have to let go of all your personal biases and really ask yourself some questions that you MUST answer honestly. Like I said, all of your personal biases have to go out the window. It's a hard thing to do because lots of times you only see what you want to see or hear what you want to hear rather than letting everything really soak in. If you manage to do this, the results can be astounding. Everyone is there own person no doubt about it but I still feel like even though you have established your own identity, sometimes you need to make adjustments or get a tuneup. I'm not saying everyone should change who they are but rather you should always be looking towards self improvement and living the best life you can while being 100% honest with yourself.

  I've been composing a bunch of random thoughts like the one you just read into a big document lately and I think that I'm eventually going to compile it all into a book which I think might be a good book for people who are looking for something to make them feel positive about life but are to lazy to read a huge 400 page book because mine will probably only end up being 50 pages or so (I'm already on page 3, woohoo!!). However, I think I said in my first post that I didn't want to write mini novels every time I posted and look at how well that went for me. The book has a title already which is credited to my good friend Scott Flanigan but I fear that I will not be releasing much more information about it until it is nearing completion because there are still too many unknowns and I don't want to hype it up and then have it be completely different. Basically: I'm writing a book, you will all be able to read it for free, it may or may not help you live a more positive life, yes you may thank me with peanut butter m&m's.

  Well it's last call over here in Shanghai and I need to get back to my friend who just arrived yesterday on his way to a southern city to teach English but all of those shenanigans will be in my next post no doubt! As always, please send me an email, facebook message or leave a comment here telling me what you think of the post(s) and whether or not I am *insert any adjective or noun you would like here* and I will respond with words of thanks (even if you call me a doo doo head). Before I go I would like to say a big thank you to all of my friends and family who have been praying for me and thinking of me in the last few weeks during my visa perils and without all of your positive reinforcement, there never would have been a blog in the first place. Much love to all of you and make sure to take a look at yourself from the outside every now and then. What's the worst that could happen?

Night night

Tony G.


By the way, sorry my picture selection is so poor this time around, I forgot to take pictures of my students and have been a slacker!