NEW WEB COMIC!

Hey y'all!

I know it's been quite a while because I suck at blogging, but I want to introduce everyone to my new, awesome webcomic, Milk of Morgnesia!!! I've gotten over 600 hits so far, which makes me feel real famous and stuff, and I'm getting great feedback, mostly about peeing or spitting out liquids unexpectedly. Check it out!

Meanwhile, I go to Costa Rica in 3 days and the US in 10. I'll be bringing the Wacum tablet and the scanner with me so I can work on the go. Yay, technology! Boo, planes.

I love you.

Web comic

I am working on one. As soon as I have it up and running (and have like, at least 3 posts on it), I will let you know, my loyal 1 viewer.

Holy hell, it's been a while...

Nerds, guys! My life's all different and crud now. But instead of telling you about it in paragraph form, which I don't have the energy to do at the moment, I'ma lazily list this puppy out to make sure I convey to you a truly thorough full-on update of Ms. Moplumsy's life.

• Employment

The biggest recent change in my life is my brand spankin' new job. I'm an academic writing instructor for the new writing division of a test prep company, and currently my days are filled with sitting down a whole lot, drinking brain tumor-inducing levels of Chinese Diet Coke, and planning out a comprehensive 12-week academic writing program for fourth and fifth graders.

I'm not yet certain if I can say, for SURE, that I'm happy I made the move. There's a lot less ruckus, which is nice, but the office atmosphere is a bit stark and everyone's a real grown-up here, which harshes my doofus buzz to the max. I like that I get to work with my best friend (my current boss) and our awesome, insanely intelligent co-workers. I don't like that starting next week I'm going to have to be running all over the city doing tutorials. I also don't like that our workday starts at 9:30 and ends at 6:30, or that my weekends are now Thursdays and Fridays because we work all day every Saturday and Sunday. Then again, there ARE other perks, such as...

• It's like I live in a fucking 5-star hotel.

I moved out of the ZhongXue dorms to an amazing downtown apartment last month. The place is 200 square meters, incredibly conveniently located, and beautifully maintained. I have two roommates, both of whom are, as far as roommates go, wholly acceptable. My bedroom has a king-sized bed and a private bathroom with a big ol' bathtub. The icing on the cake, however, is that we have an ayi (maid) come 5 days a week. If you dind't catch that, let me reiterate: I HAVE A MAID CLEAN MY HOUSE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. I don't have to do SHIT as far as domestic duties are concerned. No dishes, no laundry, no sweeping, no scrubbing...When I come home, my bed is made and the kitchen is clean and the bathtub is freshly scrubbed. I realized how spoiled I'd (already) gotten when, after my first week there, I got really angry when I arrived home to find my laundry hamper still full. Then I laughed, because I have a maid cleaning my house five days a week.

• Family

My beloved older little brother has moved to Shanghai! He lives with a couple of my good friends in an even MORE lovely, MORE centrally located apartment on Huaihai Lu. He's doing well and has just found a job at an international kindergarten. Overally, it's just badass to have family here to hang out and play tennis with.

• Hot

It's summertime in Shanghers and, since I always used to go back to the States during this time, it's also my very first time experiencing day after day 95 + degree/100% humidity city weather. Overall assessment: Fuck. At least in the winter you get to put a couple of layers of clothing between you and the universe, but the challenge these days is to find clothes that walk the thin line between preventing me from drowning in a puddle of my own face sweat and being acceptable enough to please conservative parents. Stepping outside is like walking into a sauna, except the sauna is a concrete box full of garbage.

• Multimedia

This summer, I've become totally obsessed with both 30 Rock (I AM Liz Lemon, for better or worse) and C.S.I., with which I have a long-standing love affair. But the main thing I'd like to mention here is the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated. It's basically his report and opinions on a personal research project to investigate anything involving the subject of animal-based food production. Holy shit. All I can say is read it and make up your own mind on how to best go about living as an ethical omnivore (or even an ovo- and/or lacto-vegetarian) because damn, it's not easy. Wow.

• Hungry

Last, but not least, I've shrunk significantly. Since February, I've lost a total of 23-25 pounds depending on where I am on any given morning. My goal is to get it down to a consistent 25 pounds and then maintain this until about October, after which I want to lose another 15-25 pounds, depending on where I feel happiest. As I was losing the weight, I was hungry pretty much constantly, but that has changed, which is why I'm maintaining at the moment. Also, I work out on a fairly regular basis (though it's gone down from 4 days a week to 2 since Brother arrived), and the other day I walked up ELEVEN FLIGHTS OF STAIRS to get to a job when I thought the elevator was broken. Turns out it wasn't, but the point is that I didn't die.

A Video Just for Dad y la familia Costaricense!

This is a video I took for you guys in Yangshuo, China as we motored down the Li River in a "bamboo" boat made of pvc pipe. Te extrano! Te amo! Enjoy!

Happy 23rd Birthday, Tristan!

For my brother's 23rd birthday, I got my 4th grade honors English class to do a little project as a present. These kids are my babies, they might be my favorite class ever, and I'm happy I don't teach in the US right now because I think the amount of hugs I give/get on a daily basis from my munchkins might be considered inappropriate, which is really sad.

4th Grade Honors Journal Gems

...Or: 9-Year-Olds Kick the Creative Shit Out of Grown-Ups

___________________________________________

Journal Prompt:

Write about as many of these journal topics as you wish, but remember to KEEP WRITING during the journal time in class!

1. If you could be any color in a crayon box, which would you be, and why?
2. Write a list of things that make you laugh.
3. What would you do if you were principal of the school for a day?
4. Describe your perfect dream house.

___________________________________________

Charles
1. White, because if I am white, I will be the long-lifest. Do you know why? Because the owner often don't use me, and I can see my owner's life. It is fun to see my owner's life, if it is not sad.

4. I will make the library bigger than 10 dinosaurs, and when the books add together, it will higher than the moon.

Grace
3. Please try to come to school wearing your Halloween costume.

Andrea
4. My dream house is to have wings. And has chocolate-smelled water to wash my hands and my room will have lemon smells. I would tell my house to fly whenever I want to.

Jade (a boy)
2.

• A person was eating soap.
• make a zip on my stomach.
• The hericoper wings is made of knife.
• Eating the ice-cream all over the face
• A baby pup in his pants
• A man just fell down in the ice.
• A man just step on yucky pu

Holy Shit

First of all...bad Moplumsy. Very bad Moplumsy. Bad Moplumsy for never blogging ever. I suck at blogging, I know.

That said, I totally had my brains blown out today and I'd like to share.

This week is finals week, and the kids are taking exams. All in all, it's pretty boring. We sit in the classroom for two periods of about an hour and a half and watch the kids while they take their tests. No talking allowed. After they're done, they draw on the backs of their tests.

Enter Dave. Dave is a fifth grader, and an amazing artist. He is constantly decorating things with dragons, monsters, tigers, etc. Today, however, he decided to draw this:



Yep. That's a world map. Drawn from his motherfucking memory.

Kid drew this in like 10 minutes without looking at any sort of visual reference. Knowing this, check out central America. Check out Europe. Check out Africa. Check out the positioning of the equator, and relative sizes and positions of the countries. And before you say something stupid like, "But Bolivia is landlocked and the equator goes through southern Somalia," fuck you. Dave's a fifth grader who can draw a world map from his brain with 85% accuracy. You, on the other hand, are a retard. If this were my kid and I saw this, I'd immediately throw him into some kind of government super soldier spy program where he would learn to smuggle secrets out of dangerous places using only the power of his incredible photographic memory. Or enroll him in an art class (which he doesn't take).

Basically, the next time you're proud of a doodle, think of Dave and feel a little worse about yourself. I sure will.

Damn.