Tomb Sweeping Day is my favorite holiday.

Just came back from a few days of vacation in Xi'an. Pictures to come soon. I had a really good time. Xi'an is the old imperial capital of China and is the home of the Terracotta Warriors, which were found in the 1970s by peasants digging a well. A whole army of warriors underground guarding the path to a former ruler's tomb (he was a ruthless man, said to have had the army built because he feared retribution). I don't even know how far the warriors date back to...I'll have to do some research. The old city used to also be walled in- and the four walls still stand. We cycled around the top of the wall and saw pretty much the entire city that way at sunset. Sigh, it was all love this weekend in this love-hate relationship I have with China. I'll write more about this later.

All this traveling lately has brought on some of those life epiphanies (or rushed conclusions, haha). I've decided to delay grad school for a little longer - maybe six months, maybe a year. But I'm at a crossroad right now where I'm not sure how I want to spend my time. I miss home, but I don't think I can step back into the ailing economy right now. It's expensive to live in the states and I'm pretty sure I can't support myself there unless I live at home. This leads me to rely on teaching English, which I'm happy to do, but I'm not sure how I want to do it now. Argh, this is ten times worse than senior year of college because at this point, I still don't know what I want, but I have a better idea of what I don't want (for next year, at least). I'm less inclined to hastily sign contracts and I've decided that China isn't for me (which rules out about a bazillion good teaching jobs).


I'm tempted follow my passion and volunteer somewhere that really could use the help. I'm fascinated by these small NGOs that are efficiently making differences in their own little facets in developing countries, albeit their impact may be small-scale in the global sense. When it comes down to it, I think that's where my skills will go the farthest. I recently started reading about an organization called A New Day in Cambodia that helps children who are scavengers at dump sites by teaching them English. I don't doubt that this is extremely hard work (no matter how badly we want to romanticize lending a helping hand to poverty), but sometimes I think I'd feel better taking a risk like and contributing to some type of upward economic mobility rather than offering my minimal experience teaching English at college level with only my native-accent to offer. I've grown weary of the way the system has been set up in China (along with a slew of other criticisms), so I know at least that I won't be doing my next year here. Even if it does offer me good pay and everything is really cheap (aw, how I'll miss spending no more than $3 a day, most days).

As much as I dream about volunteering, it looks like I'm about to break even this year with my travel expenses and my earnings. That's actually quite good considering everything I've been able to do this year...in any other situation, I'd definitely be in the poor house. But I'm probably just going to have to find a good paying English teaching job somewhere. I have Taiwan and Vietnam on my mind now... Another month or so and the panic will set in. I'm sure I'll make a decision by then.