Internet Established

Late this morning a tech from the Dianxin Ju (electric letters office) in Guza and a Kangding Teacher's College collegue named Chenbo met with me in my flat to set up my ADSL connection. The speed is acceptable and reliable, and as I had planned I am establishing this thread so that interested persons like my mother can keep track of my goings-on. I envisioned this site, as well as it's title, during a recent trip to the Kham countryside with a student of mine, Dorje. After teaching for a mere two weeks, one and a half billion Chinese people and I celebrated Chinese National Day with a week off of work (a true seven days, with work on Saturday and the following Sunday, so that no student comrade can enjoy the coveted American double weekend nine-day Thanksgiving/Easter recess). In the course of enjoying Dorje's hospitality I ended a two-plus year hiatus from my love of dirt, woodstoves and mountain hail, the elementals of inspiration. I almost named this blog Twinspiration, but I feared that invoking the spirit of my facsimile might have unmasked the fact that this journal is a facsimile of his. Of course I miss him mightily, and I'd due well to be more like him, the Able to my Cain, the firstborn twin, the right-hander to my sinister left-handedness.
I hope to use the next few posts to detail, day by day, my vacation. Do not worry, I would not subject a reader to such minute tedium unless I believed it revealed something interesting, or true, about myself or the nature of my experience. On the other hand, because you cannot read as I write, at this moment I am imaginary to you, as you are imaginary to me. By my count (and my hermeunetics may be off), there is at least a threefold mediation of language from what I perceived and what you understand, discounting electronic factors:

a) events occur in conventionally assigned objective reality, in the Chinese countryside,
b) I construct them as meaningful and construct a narrative of experience to myself,
c) I type what I can remember from that primary narrative,
d) and you compare my adjectives and similes to experiences you have narrated about yourself.

This observation serves as both an introduction and a disclaimer. I wanted to get that out, and I promise I won't resort to such heady discourse for a while. I haven't written much lately, and I've been teaching grammar on a daily basis. I intend for the following recollection of adventure to be substantially more compelling.

Yours