26!

Tuesday was my birthday, the third I've celebrated in China. I have fond memories of all three. Each exemplifies a different period of my expatriate journey: When I turned 24, I'd been in Shanghai six months, I'd just finished my first cover story and my chief editor (whom I now count as a dear friend) took me out for dinner and drinks in the French Concession. It was a little triumph, I was finally being welcomed into the fold after several lonely months in the vaguely-defined and poorly-funded world of "web editing" (I was promoted to the magazine soon after). When I turned 25, my roommates threw a house party, which was big and loud, I worried the neighbors would complain. After 18 months, I was in my element. Now, at 26, I've only been in Beijing three months but I slipped into a community easily this time. Partly because this isn't my first rodeo, partly because I got lucky with cool roommates. I hadn't planned on anything special, but Brando rallied a handful of people for dinner at a hutong restaurant. We ate Yunnan food, drank Belgian beer and a bunch of architects sang "Tanti auguri a Te," which was very sweet.

It was at about 13, half my life ago now, that I decided what kind of person I would be. When I was 11 and made my first trip to Asia, for Billy's adoption, I promised myself I would one day live in this part of the world, and over the next few years the idea cemented itself and I decided writing and traveling were the most important things. I never came up with goals like "win a Pulitzer by age XX," my thinking was more along the lines of "if I can make enough money and spend this much time writing and live in such-and-such a place that would be really, really cool." My 13-year-old self would be happy with how things turned out so far.

That said, I have so much to learn. Like expats my age across industries in China, I haven't had much mentorship. Responsibility comes quickly, and there's very little guidance to go with it. Four years out of college, I'm anxious and eager to keep learning. I don't know if or when that will happen in an academic setting, but my goal for the next year is to read widely and deeply. My work commitment ends in November. Then, I'll begin traveling and I plan on instituting some sort of organized approach to working my way through the Western canon. Or parts of it. I'll pick and choose and inject a bunch of modern lit too, it won't be all dead European men. I'm looking forward to having time off to experiment with my writing outside of a work setting. Basically, I'm going to slide into my late twenties with a massive downsizing in responsibility, I'll just coast on in...