A New Begining

I'm starting up my blog again. Writing helps me process my world, allows me to see it, gives me cause to examine it. When I'm writing my blog the mundane becomes exciting; sights my mind would gloss over become fascinating vignettes. Life is more interesting when you contemplate it.

I no longer live in Shanghai, and I'm no longer traveling. I have started a job in New York City, while living a bit further outside the city in New Jersey. This can never be as foreign as Shanghai, and because of that perhaps my revival will be a bit of a boar, and certainly a blog about New York life is far, far from a new idea, but I hope this blog will be amusing, if nothing else.

When I speak of my impressions of Shanghai, I always talk about "Dan's Shanghai", which was different from everyone else's Shanghai. I went to my restaurants, my parts of the city. I did things I thought were interesting, and had a fascinating job to boot! But make no mistake, "Dan's Shanghai" and the Shanghai of my students would have likely seemed very, very different.

In that light, I hope to write about "Dan's New York". I'll confess I expect it to be riddled with information about commuting from central Jersey, eating from street carts around my office and the changing of the seasons. It may be mundane, it may be boring, but it'll be my life, and as I slow down to study it, it might become my New York.