It's hard to believe that it's March 21 already. We're about to pick classes for the final module here at IUP, take one last week-long break at the beginning of April and then it's a sprint to the end of the year.

Things in China are still going along as well as ever. As I get in view of the end of my program I realize both how much my Chinese has improved and how far it still has to go. I certainly couldn't have understood my cabbie's rant about corrupt officials when I got here. I also have more and more frequent occasions on which I can pick up a book and just read it. This sounds ridiculous for the fifth year of a foreign language but it's been a real struggle getting to the point where a few unknown characters don't sink my entire attempt at comprehension. To quote a Michigan Political Science professor on the subject of learning Mandarin - "the first ten years are the hardest." I guess I'm doing fine for only having reached year five.

Speaking of Political Science, for anyone who I still haven't talked to I'm happy to report that I was accepted to George Washington University in Washington, DC for the PS doctoral program. So that's where I'm headed in August. Very very pleased with the result - GW is one of the foremost places in the country for people studying China and Chinese politics especially.

As far as upcoming things here, I'll be headed down to Nanjing (my favorite Chinese city!) in May with IUP and perhaps on one other trip with Mandi in June. Not sure where to yet. I realize I still haven't posted anything about our trip in January (!) but maybe you'll see that in the near future. I'm also hoping to take advantage of these last couple months and get around to some of the less-travelled stuff in Beijing that I haven't made time for to date, some of the museums, neighborhoods and so on that no one visits unless they live here.

Finally it is certainly interesting being in China at the moment. This year marks the anniversary of such events as Tiananmen Square (20th), Reform and Opening (30th), crushing of Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule (50th), establishment of the People's Republic (60th) and the May 4th student protest movement which is critical in Chinese history (90th). And the Chinese are a people who pay a lot of attention to anniversaries. Anyway, we started the year with non-stop coverage of "30 years of reform and opening" and are now on to continuous articles regarding the harmonious self-administrative region of Tibet. We'll see if anything happens in June, but since the latest person (a soldier in Tiananmen that year) to call for a government re-appraisal of the events of 1989 was chucked in jail I'm not expecting much in the way of commemoration. But these events, combined with the ongoing events of the economic crisis, Chinese prodding of the Obama administration and so forth is certainly a ripe time to hear the views of Chinese people, occasionally with less filter than usual.

Oh, and at this very moment I am being serenaded from across the courtyard by a sort of zither sound along with a guy singing what sounds like an arrhythmic cross between the Islamic call to prayer and Peking Opera. Just so you know.