One month later

It's been over a month since my return to China, which is amazing to me. I feel like I've been in a time warp; in fact, I have a hard time remembering exactly when I got here, or when I left the US. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's just over a month. Isn't it? It seems like I've been back a long time, in the sense that I feel fairly well readjusted to my life here. At the same time, I feel like my summer in Minnesota just happened, and I'm in a state of mild shock that October is little more than a stone's throw away. But when I think about it, if my mind is going to construe time so relatively, I'm making out pretty well--sun-drenched summer still exists vividly in my memory, but day to day, life in smoggy old China is good. That is, day to day life in China, post-rat encounter.