Haven't I learned my lesson already? Seven years on the internet, and I still don't copy-paste my stories before I submit them. Mozilla crashed and took with it a mega-post that took me 20 minutes to write. What follows is but a paltry shadow of what once existed. ##Creative Writing Frank Yu communicated to me that he prefers reading women's blogs to reading ones by men. Women tend to write about their inner thoughts, while men tend to comment on the thoughts of others. The creative process is a difficult thing to understand, but an incredible tool for those who master it. My new design was intended to look more like a book and follow certain conventions of typography. I intend to make my writing more creative, more link-sparse, and more substantial in terms of personal reflection. ##Smart Slackers in Beijing A recent feature article in That's Beijing discusses the phenomenon of smart young expats hanging out in Beijing, working English teaching jobs and living it up on their relatively high salaries while falling behind in marketable skills and intellectual growth. I was almost headed in that direction. After a year of teaching at CRIS Elementary in Tianjin I felt intellectually unstimulated and figured I could find an editing job in Beijing. China was still holding me in its grip, but I hadn't much to offer. So I'm back in the United States, working on furthering my education or building some career skills. Someday I hope to be back in China, but as something greater than a simple native speaker English teacher. Maybe a Foreign Service officer, or a business person, or (as I've often returned in my dreams) an itinerant freelance museum exhibit translator. The article referenced above appears in the September 2002 issue of That's Beijing. [ Link ] --Featured Search Request: Site #4 on Google for Toast Boy's Kiss.