As long as fiends smoke crack

Alright! Time for an update! Right now I'm chillun on my boy Lucky's couch (my adopted bed) in the New Territories Hong Kong, bumpin some Ke$ha and eating some cold day old goose. Looking back, the last time I posted on this thing was when I was in Africa. Obviously a lot has happened to me since then... well in a way nothing at all has. Lets see, I came home from Africa, abandoning my beautiful girlfriend, in order to attend some weddings (congratulations to all family and friends) and get a real job. Lets just say I did the wedding part. Well that's not completely true. After a few months of eating burritos, sleeping on my mom's couch, discovering I had giardia, and NEVER missing a CBS comedy tuesday (welcome to the family Mike & Molly) I did manage to rangle a project though my old gig as a chaperone and tour organizer for high school exchanges to China. This project was one I had done before, and loved, and invloved chaperoning a little over fifty high school girls to Shanghai for about ten days. Of all the trips this is one of my favorites because you stay put in one city so the logistical work load is lighter and I love the people at the school. Anyway, after landing that job I hatched myself a little plan. Since the job already pays for my airfare to China why not take advantage and realize a life long dream? To live and work in Hong Kong. I had about the same prospects in Asia as in the US, actually more because of the shitty American job market and my language skills, and it seemed like the kind of move to do when your young so what the hell? I asked for a duffle bag for christmas, packed it up, then hit the road on New Years Day.

The Shanghai chaperone trip went swimmingly. I really do love that job and am going to try to do more of that kind of work. I loved the kids and my fellow chaperones and had a blast. The work itself was easy and went smoothly thanks to the well behaved students and unfailingly helpful teachers. Hooray! In fact it made me seriously consider looking for some sort of work involving kids but I'll save that until the journalist dream has fizzled. The only downside, other than the giardia and the treatment which left me kind of wiped out and nutrient deficient and unable to drink, was of my own doing entirely. I had stocked my ipod with my new Christmas cds and my constant listening to of Taylor Swift and Ke$ha, the innocence of youth always swiftly followed but the squandering of that innocence, coupled with being constantly surrounded by sixteen year olds made me oddly nostalgic, sentimental and sad. Not to worry, by listening exclusively to NWA for the remainder of trip I got back some balance and regained my gangsta outlook.

Anyway, the trip ended as they always do and and after a very pleasant evening with an old friend from High School now living in Shanghai (thanks for the hospitality JJ), I hopped a plane to Hong Kong to be met by one of my best friends in the world, Lucky, the bear loving genius and Argentine shit show extraordinaire. Since then (about ten days ago) my life has fallen into a very pleasant pattern. I'm staying on a futon in Lucky's changing room sized apartment out in the New Territories. Everyday I wake up late and go out and grab a Hong Kong breakfast of egg tart and milk tea or a ham omelet or noodle soup. Then I go back home and do some work. I've started a food blog that I am trying to take seriously and I also keep up a steady stream of emails with my resume out to magazines and newspapers and random heads throughout the area. So far things are going pretty well. I'm making pretty good money editing college admissions essays for students trying to study in the U.S. from Mainland China; I've got an interview for an internship at a food magazine set up for tomorrow and other interviews set up for various magazines and newspapers next week. Then after I work I might head across the street to the tiny barber shop for an old fashioned hot towel straight razor shave, then head out to meet Lucky after work. We'll have a fat dinner feast grab some dessert then head home to watch Always Sunny in Philadelphia, practice some Cantonese then knock out. If its a weekend we'll head downtown, meet up with Lucky's savage as fuck friends: Killer, Piano and Rainbow Ryder and hit the town hard. Then as always the cycle continues.

Aside from missing my girlfriend I'm finding it very difficult to complain at the moment....