Everybody ought to have a maid...

Well, friends and family, I've been scolded before for going too long without an update, so I'd like to clear the air.

I am still alive and well.

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Lately I've been sort of struggling with where I am and where I'm going personally. I hesitate to say that on here, because I know that I've said it before, and it makes people internationally raise their eyebrows. But to be honest, I wonder how people don't constantly fight and struggle and reevaluate. I know that part of this is the whole process of becoming a mature Brother. But part of it, I think, is what could be summed up as the human experience. There is a lot of unrest, uncertainty, and very scary progress to be made in a lifetime. In short, it might surprise you all how much I've been striving lately, but it's not always like this, and yet I don't think it's a bad thing. I'm looking at this year abroad as a time of refinement and refocusing. It would be easier to let inconsistencies go, but it is better to wrestle with these things that don't always make sense. Let us never settle for the good and give up the best.

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We hired a maid. The apartment is not filthy or anything, and for three bachelors I think that's pretty good. But there are the day-to-day cleaning things that we just don't seem to find time for, so in comes our new maid. Her first visit will be tomorrow afternoon. I basically want her to sweep and mop the floor, empty the trash (if there is some), dust, and basically tidy things up. This is not a tall order. I know that mouths around the world are agape at the idea of college students hiring a maid. But you have to realize that in China domestic help and manual labor are (monetarily) very, very cheap. We're paying this woman $1.43/hour. That's standard. So for about $6/week she will come and clean the apartment up. She works several people's houses, and I only hired her because she works for a family of friends I met here, and they recommend her highly.

Anyway, I thought that progress might interest the world at large.

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Midterms are this Thursday and Friday. I've been trying to study, though I'm afraid I've been a bit preoccupied with reading books in English. I have studied a good bit, though, and I think if I keep it up I will be prepared to a decent degree. The content of this semester has been a lot more complicated than the stuff we learned last semester. We're working on a lot of phrases composed of words which, if you just translated them, would mean absolutely nothing. English does that too, but I don't think to the same degree as Chinese.

T