Last night saw the last class in the Chinese course I've been taking at the Centre for Lifelong Learning.

Because once you're close to finishing the old PhD you start freaking out, yesterday I speculated with a friend about going back to China to teach English once I've been branded "Dr. Jumpinggene". He's in Shanghai, and has made some suggestions re: work. I prefer not to do research but teach English. Be in charge of my own destiny, so to speak. I had unspeakably bad experiences working for an agent.

Anyway, so I watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon to warm up for some Chinese study the other day. It's interesting how Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou's styles are different. Ang Lee has a good idea of what Westerners want/expect. Anyway... CTHD is a wonderful movie. And the four movies of Zhang Yimou that I've seen are, in order of goodness: Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower. Yes, that's also a chronological series. He's gotten worse, sad to say.

And just because I can, and I feel like some martial art kick-ass pictures in my journal (wish I could kick someone's ass... ) here: