Traffic accidents in China

I may have implied in previous posts that the stereotype about Chinese people being terrible drivers might, in fact, have a fairly firm grounding in reality. It does. That isn't to say that all Chinese people are terrible drivers. My wife, for example, is an excellent driver as are many of our friends. It is incontrovertibly true, however, that the general level of driving ability here is well below what would be acceptable in any western country. But that is a post for another day.

Today I want to write about an inevitable consequence of the large number of unskilled drivers on the roads in China - traffic accidents.

I am still alive

Just a quick one today to let everyone know that I'm still alive, and still writing, and still blogging.

We spent three weeks in Canada, visiting friends and family, and the past two weeks since we got back have been a whirlwind (or vortex - thanks @jtvancouver) of activity. This is why I've been absent for over a month. Bad blogger, I know.

I've been pretty tied up with finishing up the semester of classes which were put on hiatus by the trip. I've also been getting plans and materials and resources ready for the upcoming Summer English Camps which (hopefully) will take up a great deal of my time this summer.

I've been researching and applying for some freelance writing gigs - alternate sources of income are always welcome - and setting up the framework I need to do that successfully. This has been more awkward for me than it would be for most because of the whole "living in China" thing. I'll probably do a post about that once I'm further along in the process (short version: Paypal makes me very stabby).

Actually, there are a number of potentially interesting posts coming up.

• I've got some stuff about the school I want to write about
• I have a couple of rather large life-direction changes to share
• I have a bunch of China posts in the near future 
• I also have a not-insignificant number of Canada posts to write

I'm sure there's more in the pipeline that I'm forgetting, but the first thing on my to-do list currently is organize all the things on my plate, so I'll have to get back to you on what the "more" actually consists of. And whether it is a plate, or a pipe, or a pipe shaped plate, or some other combination of plumbing and porcelain.

At any rate, keep your eyes peeled, watch this space and cetera.