Relief at Last!

By dint of staying in all day and working at it on and off I've managed to finish the piece on unemployment in China. I was intending to go to the cinema, but was put off by the relentless rain and the need to get this issue settled. I feel now that I can start the 'backpacking teachers' chapter, to be written in tandem with the almost-completed 'language issues' one. I think I can use the 'backpacking teachers' to turn into a feature for my Goldsmiths Course, a kind of 'What to Expect and Precautions to Take if you go to teach in China' article.

I finally got my unemployment piece off to a good start after a brainwave about including a suitable quotation from Mao about what he intended to do for the peasants in 1949. I'd given the biography I had away, but I found a whole lot of Mao quotations divided into categorises on the Internet. It is really useful to be able to check things on the Internet as I'm writing, too.

I received an email from Ed, a colleague who worked with me as a 'foreign editor' in China. I was really pleased to hear he is writing a play, based on an idea which I'm sure will be popular.

I feel I deserve a good tuck in at Roy's birthday celebration dinner at the Curry Club tonight, although I haven't had any exercise today. Maybe I'll pass on the poppadums !