Dear Sabrina,

Listening: Drowning past regrets in tea and cigarettes, but I can't seem to forget when you came along.
What's my problem? I am mildly like Bill Murray Lost in Translation.

It's been a while, hasn't it? How have you been? How is your job? Has it started getting cold in Shanghai yet?

Can you believe that it's almost been a year since I met you in Shanghai? Sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday that you, me, Akiko and Orchid sat around your table sucking the sweet meat out of hairy crabs and drinking Shaoxing wine. I still remember how painstakingly long it took for Orchid to make it through a single crab. I have been seeing articles on http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai about those crabs, which is just another thing that serves to remind me of where I was a year ago.

To be honest, China has been on my mind a lot lately. I just finished reading a book by a guy who was a foreign correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. Before that, he taught English in Fuling, Sichuan. The book that I finished is about how China is changing every day. He illustrates this through stories that he has from people he meets either in Beijing where he lives, through stories of students that he still keeps in touch with, and through his own research of China's past. It's completely fascinating. He tells stories of his students who move from the interior of Sichuan to places like Shenzhen and Wenzhou to hopefully make enough money to return home and live a more comfortable life.

When I think of these stories, I think about the fact that you left Chengdu, where all of your family is, to work in Shanghai. You left to chase the dream. It's a thing of beauty. Since I lived in three different cities over the course of my childhood, I don't think that I really developed a true home. Although I have spent most of my life after university in Boston, I guess that makes it my home. However, I find myself looking to leave Boston. I need to chase the dream, even more than I already am.

I have started to read a second book by the same author. This book is about his two years teaching in Fuling. I have only read the first 20 or so pages, but I can already tell that I will like the book.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I feel like I'm going through another period of change. I have been at this job for 9 months, and I'm starting to get tired of it. It is kind of a turbulent restaurant that I'm working at. We're always super busy. Leadership isn't really all that organized. Communication in the restaurant is awful. I'm finding the food to be rather boring. I'm not really learning anything besides how to make it through the night. I'm not doing anything fun or interesting at work at all.

I have started looking for another job though. I had one interview this past Monday. I went in and worked for a day. Unfortunately, it wasn't a normal day. They were doing a special dinner, so the menu was very small. It was a 3 course meal. I ended up making one of the courses from start to finish and they seemed to like my work. They have already offered me a job, but we haven't talked about money yet. A friend of mine from a restaurant that I used to work at works there now, so he really wants me to take the job. I am planning on going in during a more normal day to see if I really like it and if I like the people who work there.

I also have a couple of other restaurants that I'm supposed to interview with. The restaurant industry is so small in Boston that I either know people who work at these restaurants or I know people who know the chefs. It seems like every time I think I'm going to meet someone new in the Boston restaurant scene, we already know at lease three people in common.

I have also recently moved into a new apartment. The good thing about this is that I live by myself. The bad thing is that it costs a lot more than I was paying before, and sometimes I get lonely. The fact that the new apartment costs more is making it harder for me to save up for my big move out of the United States. Actually it's the fact that my apartment costs more and the fact that for the first time in a long time, I'm living in the same city as a lot of my friends, so I'm going out to hang out with them quite often.

The loneliness usually comes late at night. See, I tend to stay up late at night not doing much of anything. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I watch television. Sometimes I'm just looking around the internet. If I try to go to sleep, I just end up staring at the ceiling. But late at night, while I'm either reading, watching television, or surfing the internet, I'll think to myself, "Man, I wish I had someone to hang out with right now." But, at that time of night, everyone else is asleep. Maybe I should start baking pies late at night. Or better yet, I could teach myself how to make noodles. It would probably be more productive than what I normally do. Maybe I'll start that next week.

Anyhow, this e-mail has probably gotten long enough. I was just writing because I was thinking about you and I wanted to see how you were. I hope everything is good with you and I hope that you are happy.

Wishing I was in Shanghai,
[ZEN!!!]