What's New

Here and over on the right you'll see two new graphics related to our latest endeavor: Novel Writing! Merlin, Devin and I have joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with the goal of writing seven-thousand, thirty-five-thousand, and fifty-thousand words, respectively, in the month of November. We'll start on the first and end on the 30th and most likely be insane in between. We've been planning our stories out for the past few weeks, alternating between excitement and slap-ourselves-on-the-forehead, what-have-we-done insecurity. Gulp.

We need all the good wishes we can get - that Merlin will maintain her enthusiasm, that Devin will see a project through to completion, and that I will MAKE time to do this even if it means we eat ramen for 30 straight lunches in a row.

I've also got pictures to post and things to catch up on here - Dan's sister has been visiting, so I haven't been online much this week, but I'll try to put a few posts up in the next few days.

Hey, is anyone nuts enough to join us in this November craziness? (the icons in the sidebar are links to the NaNoWriMo sites)

Recycling posts

Well, I had the thought that I actually really liked the post I put up the other day and that I could work it into a paper of some sort. I think it's got the start of some important ideas about the relationship between ethnic minorities in China and the Han-centered mentality that talks about unity. So I've decided to pull it from here (it's saved in draft form in case I want to put it back up) so I can work the ideas out in greater detail. Sorry about teasing you all with it for a few days...

Home is where the ART is

We've been having a great time with one of CUN's recently graduated art students, Cao Shuang. He's about to start grad school, but has had free time to meet with us once a week. It's so nice to have an excuse to draw and paint. The last time I did any drawing at all regularly was when we were living in Hangzhou, and then we just had crayons and watercolors. Now we're learning how to use gouache, which we all like a lot.

He's had us sketch regularly, which is nice practice.

Here are some of the things that are up in our "gallery" at home.

one really long noodle

(trying out Blogger's video function - let me know what you think, compared to the YouTube versions I've posted before)

black&white

Just some pictures of us doing regular things...