In Frisbeeland

中国飞盘加油 (China Frisbee let's go!)

Construction, oh construction, how you bang out your disconcern mindless to the pollution of life and seed our lungs with the soot of our discomfort.

There's construction everywhere -- China generally, Beijing locally, my quadrangle specifically, and just outside this apartment exempli gratia: almost every morning at 8 a.m., and right now. When I opened my door this afternoon to take lunch the outside greeted me thusly:


The smell of plaster in the morning invigorates the soul!

In other parts of my mind, I can't stop thinking about Frisbee. China Nationals, as previously mentioned, is coming up this weekend, and that's taken precedent over everything. This reminds me of a story from college (ah, those sort), during the end of Winter Quarter when the malicious cold of winter had just given signs of subsiding (though only slightly, since we're talking about Chicago here). I was riding in a car leaving campus for an Ultimate tournament, face resting against a backseat window, when suddenly, like a forest creature at the echo of buckshot off bark, I snapped to rapt attention.

Kinsella had just said, "So Tao, what did you think of the history test today?"

Panic. "History test?"

"Yeah, the final exam. How'd you do?"

"WHAT HISTORY TEST?"

Immediately after returning from Purdue, I rushed an email to my American history professor explaining in a tizzy, among other things -- and I'm quoting from memory here, but this is about as accurate as it gets -- that "I was so preoccupied thinking about Ultimate Frisbee that I forgot the test was this week..."

So just to clarify: I didn't miss the test because I was at a Frisbee tournament, but because I was thinking about one.

Luckily the professor -- after making fun of me in her reply by saying my mind was "in Frisbeeland" -- admired my honesty and allowed me to make up my the exam, with a letter-grade deduction. I'm pretty sure I aced it.

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Char and Jim at Chaoyang Park in the early evening, before pick-up. We were playing Frisbee golf and impressing more than one local with our awesome hucks.



Jim playing it as it lies.

At pick-up later that night:




And the dinner afterwards at a Korean BBQ joint, where we all ordered egg-and-tomato noodles (why?) and bibimbop: