Beijing Checklist

Put up hundreds of tacky photographs all over apartment: check

Note irony in color* of couch in apartment: check

Figure out washing machine after forty minutes of button banging, texting for help, and e-mailing photographs of Chinese washing machine directions: check

Receive two boxes sent from Seoul in June: check

Walk it out: check

Fail to see apartment buildings two hundred yards away due to smogginess: check

Get busted dancing quietly to myself in elevator: check

Incur diarrhea from 80% of meals consumed: check

Get drenched in torrential, unheard of downpour on first day of new teacher orientation: check

Feel extremely young and uncultured after hearing life stories of older, seasoned international school educators: check

Exchange phone numbers with cutest female staff member at school: check

Learn that cutest female staff member at school is married: check

School some Chinese basketball dudes who wore matching Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett Celtics jerseys: check

Two step: check

Finally overcome jet leg: check

Fail to communicate intended message in Chinese to cashiers and waitresses: check

Receive skeptical, confused looks and behind-the-back mockery from cashiers and waitresses: check

Get challenged to an arm wrestling contest in the subway by some high school kid: check**

Get lost on foot: check

Get lost in taxi: check

Get lost in the subway: check

Do the stanky legg: check

Locate delicious Chinese restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Korean restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Malaysian restaurant near apartment: check

Locate delicious Indian restaurant near apartment: check

Locate Paris Baguette near apartment: check

Shake fist angrily at Paris Baguette: check

Tell horror stories about corporate evil and umbrella destruction by Paris Baguette to colleagues and and passersby: check

Pop, lock, and drop it: check

Go sightseeing with Dawna just like back in the day: check

Start “Beijing Scavenger Hunt” list: check

Get saved by Dawna from being the ninth wheel at a teacher get-together: check

Find decent church: check

Get called, texted, and e-mailed, and carrier pigeon-holed by church welcoming committee members: check

Shuffle...every day: check

Maneuver through first day of school without major incident: check

Write on smart board with dry erase marker: check

Indoctrinate students about New York Yankee wickedness and Anne Hathaway goodness: check

Miss delectable faces of friends and family, sweeping cornfields of the Iowa plains, fattening mounds of choices at Pizza Ranch, and encouraging familiarity of everywhere between Sioux Falls and St. Paul: check


To Do List:

Get VPN (until then I'd like to thank my publisher, Mike Moravec, Ph.D. and demigod)

Make friends with apartment guard

Figure anything out in Chinese

Go see Mao's body

Make students like baseball more

Use iron

Harden up stomach, bowels, and other digestive system organs

Find local, non-chain provider of quick, scrumptious breakfast food

Make grocery bag mask with eye holes cut out to wear when Major League Baseball conversation comes up

Have music up loud enough to be told by neighbors to decrease volume

Get taught how to dougie


*Guess.

**You may, whilst leisurely checking out the latest Facebook feed gossip, watching the most recent song from The Lonely Island on Youtube, or talking to your cute but shallow girlfriend of two months on Skype, be wondering if I won or lost this competition of strength and endurance. Here is the answer: I let him win.