So I haven’t written for a while, but I swear I have excuses!
For one, I was sick for a while there.

The enteritis came back. I’ve been sick quite a bit in China, which is terribly frustrating.
What I think happened, though, for one, is that I got some kind of bacteria in my small intestine. Since it was never treated properly, every time I ate, I would feel terrible, or at least nearly every time I ate. It was not fun, let me tell you.
Finally, in the summer, I got terribly sick and ended up spending a day at the hospital getting blood tests, ultrasounds, and an IV for several hours. Never fun, but particulary not so when you can’t understand what’s going on.
I was given some medicine and then told to eat basically only bland food for the next several months. If anyone can tell me how on earth to do that in south China without having a diet of only rice (and therefore nothing of any nutritional value), that would be great because I couldn’t pull it off.
So I felt better for a while, but then it started coming back. A little bit and first, and then slowly worse and worse….
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore! Any food or drink that went into my system was going straight through. How I managed not to loose a single pound, I’m not quite sure.

I was trying to go to the clinic or the hospital, but it just so happened that when I had free time, they were closed for the day or for lunch. Kate then brought over some meds that her doctor in the UK has prescribed to her, just in case she needed them. I called my doctor and home and it turns out that that was just what I needed!
So I went to a Chinese medicine shop, armed with the scientific name, and I managed to get myself enough pills for the recommended minimum of seven days.

I started taking it in the morning, and by the evening, I had developed a swollen, sore throat. What a coincidence, I thought!
My throat kept getting worse and worse. It hurt to swallow my own saliva, and breathing to go up the stairs was a killer! (For those of you who don’t know, I live on the 8th floor of a building with no elevator)
I continued to take the medicine, thinking I was getting a terrible cold. Finally, by the seventh day, I finished. Within 24 hours of finishing, my sore, swollen throat was gone and completely back to normal.
I have to say that I am wondering if that was some kind of allergic reaction. I don’t really know enough about health to say for sure.

Also, lately Kyle has been visiting quite a bit and I’ve been going there quite a bit and that uses up free time pretty fast. At the beginning of the month, we also had our National Day holiday where we traveled for a week. Fantastic! (except for the fact that I was sick that whole time) Kate, Kyle, and I went to Guangzhou and Macao! Had a great time. I’ve posted photos on Flickr if you’re interested.

Well, I have to head out of here and get to class in five minutes, so I should probably go and finish getting ready. Before I do that, though, just a couple more notes.

A funny story- I was walking back into my campus last week, and I happened to see a student get on his bike, start biking down the road in the campus, then bike straight into the shrubbery that boarders the road! I was a bit worried…was he okay? Was his bike broken?
He got off the crashed bike, reached into his bag, pulled out his glasses, put them on, got on the bike and headed back down the street.
Students really do hate to wear glasses. It’s a bit amusing sometimes.

The other story, I was telling some students in the library yesterday about the importance of keeping up with the news. I went online to CNN.com to see what it said about China. Right away, we found this article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/23/pip.china.pollution/index.html
It’s about a “cancer village” in south China where the river is so polluted it’s giving lots of people cancer, specifically in one village. However, the government is claiming the river is safe.
Two of the students I was talking to got shocked looks on their faces as we read it.
“That river goes through our hometowns!” One of them finally cried out.

I guess they really should keep up with the news more than they do.
They had no idea.