Winter. It’s boring and cold, especially in Beijing, which turns into a giant windy freezer box for a good four months. I blame the cold for everything, including my disinterest in writing.

But I have actually been up to stuff, such as:

• Looking for an apartment. Man, what a hassle! Especially in the cold. After going, in the cold, to see a crappy apartment, you just don’t feel like looking at anymore. Instead, you feel torn about whether you want to go back out into the cold or stay in the crappy apartment, which is dirty and decorated weird, but is shielding you from the cold. Nevertheless the real estate agent, who speaks to you in a jarring voice that could only be described as soothing robot voice, drags you to see another apartment anyway, which is too expensive. And crappy.
• Finding an apartment. Wow! Boyfriend and I totally lucked out. We found a huge apartment for a great price and it’s opposite a park and not much further to the office than old current apartment! And we didn’t have to pay an annoying, unhelpful agent for it.
• Getting tired of Chinese New Year festivities. Can it be? After two years of month-long firework extravaganzas, I was growing tired of the spectacularly loud and colorful displays of exploding gunpowder? Hmm. Maybe not tired of, but not as impressed and enthralled by. Or can I chalk up my malaise to tighter government regulations?
• (Speaking of fireworks, I cannot NOT get giddy and excited when I see colorful explosions in the sky. But how come Chinese people look bored when they set them off? Is that what decades of setting off fireworks does to someone?)
• Buying pet dragons. It’s the Year of the Dragon!
• Going to the Philippines. I went to five of them, in fact. I did not detect any hostilities remaining from the hostage deaths incident of 2010. Nope, they were very friendly and servicey. Unfortunately, there were also a lot of Chinese, who I presume were also taking a break from China. Still, I nominate it for Best Holiday Ever.
• Getting tan, parasailing, bananananana boating, falling into ocean, playing badminton and beach volleyball, driving a motorbike, taking boyfriend on motorbike ride, staying in a bungalow, staying in a resort, staying at a bed and breakfast, being an extra in a movie, snorkeling, wading through shallow waters to get to a boat, climbing into one boat from another boat, getting sunburned on a boat with a 5-pound coconut.
• Watching three of my teams lose in the same week, all from last-quarter/minute/extra time comebacks. God, how depressing. (The last one was just Sunderland in a non-important match, and I only care about them because boyfriend gets upset if they lose, but man, unnecessary. The other teams shall remain unnamed.)
• Moving. I’ve never hired movers before, but they are so efficient! I hadn’t even finished packing and they had all my shit in the truck ready to go. Jesus. They make me WANT to move. Then, boyfriend and I spent the past weekend scrubbing and cleaning and unpacking and organizing and rearranging. Now that most of it is out of the way, we can go furniture shopping!

So that was the last 5.5 weeks in a nutshell.