April 5th 2001

I thought that this year I'd have enough time to take care of a blog. …the problem is that now I also have more time to do other stuff I like better! So in the end, the activities you engage in have more to do with your priorities than your space-time limitations. Anyway, here goes a post to calm a little bit the guilt monster. The one that appears to haunt me me every time somebody says "you should blog more!".

For those who wonder, yes I do have a chinese name now. "夏飞" Xia Fei is meant to be a rough transliteration of my western name "Xavier". But it also has very nice connotations as it means "夏"summer (light, sun, warm…) and "飞" flight (dream, expand, move…). Thanks to Yang for the proposal and to my cute friday's teacher for choosing it among a list. 

Now it's been a little more than 3 weeks in my own apartment. Those who lived at some point with me (I can count up to 20 roommates!) know of my hermit nature and almost pathological needs of private space. So moving out of the dormitories was a natural ...move. And well, I'm also a little old to share a college room with another guy …if you know what I mean. In the end I'm really happy about how things turned out; it's incredible how well I can live in China with my modest budget :) 

I should also mention "Tinkerbell" the local girl who helped me dealing with all the apartment stuff, including signing papers, getting internet and the mandatory visit to Ikea. I met her through my little network of spanish contacts in the city. She has probably become my best friend in the city and I don't know how but here I am taking care of her fish bowl while she is out of town. 

X