if you're happy and u know it...

clap your hands.

clap clap.

i likey my friends. social calendar---for the most part gets filled up without angst of what am i going to do on the wkd, and who am i going to do it with. new faces are still being sprinkled into the mix. the what do you do in beijing question, has amazingly kept its freshness for me. i have even met enough greenies to try and organize beijing's first green

drinks.

i'm hoping this once monthly soiree can be a new venue where presently scattered sustainable hedonists congregate and complain about how smoggy the air is. and ponder how the hell we can play a role in creating a "harmonious" society on different fronts. fingers crossed that i might even meet a boy who recycles. or better yet, a boy who knows what offsetting his carbon footprint means. one can dream can't they? i am afterall, still an idealist at heart.

.work. despite the anticipated changes, it appears the big boss is staying. the plus side is he's trying to stop ambushing us with his second hand smoke. so things in the office at the very least, are looking less hazy in one sense.

more encouraging is the fact that i do not feel like i have been locked down by the golden handcuffs. for a while, i had thought. shiet. am i stuck in this job pretending that the private sector can and does have a virtuous role in environmental protection? that even though a major client happens to be a huge mining corporation with an agenda to alter the beautiful landscape and lives of rural tibet for a quick buck, i can allay my guilt knowing that another client truly cares whether seabuckthorn helps to alleviate poverty and combat desertfication? have i sold myself out for a thousand more kuai each month in income? need i go back to the non profit world to cleanse the conscience?

well, i have decided that i still have it in me to move on if i ever do reach a point where i can't go to sleep at night. however, right now i do see purpose of where i am, and i continue to learn and grow in my understanding of china and its nebulous relationships with society and nature. and at the end of the day, i have found a job where i get to read things sprinkled with words like " sustainable forestry management and bio-diversity protection" with the hope of transforming such phrases into action sometime in the future. private-public partnerships do have a role china, so in the time being, private is where i'll stay.

plus, i've reached a point in my life where i don't feel guilty of earning myself a sustainable income while keeping my career in focus. i won't deny the fact that i like getting weekly massages and stuffing my face at the newest restaurant in town.

so yeah, one and a half months more and it will be a year here and i'm happy to say the initial euphoria of living in china has not died down completely. and that in itself, is worth a clap clap me thinks.