Your support and second chances.

Or maybe third seventh sixteenth chances. But who's counting? :)

First of all, I cannot thank you guys enough. Your emails, facebooks, texts, comments and phone calls have been absolutely awesome. I am truly the luckiest girl in the world to have so many supportive people in my life who want to know how I'm really doing. So thank you all for being the best friends in the world. Special thanks to T & J for the pep talk and China story exchange. And to R & TMC for agreeing to just put this train back onto it's original tracks. I'm slowly getting through all of the fab emails I received, so if I haven't written you back yet, let me tell you publicly that you're the bomb and I'll be sending you a personal email to say exactly that asap.

I'm on a bizarre schedule right now. I couldn't fall asleep until about 2 am, then I struggled to stay awake all morning. I feel like I'm neither on Shanghai nor Ontario time - I'm on mid-Pacific time, I think. So I haven't gotten a ton of stuff done yet. I'm also still battling this sinus infection (there, I said it. I have succumbed to sick. But just a little and just temporarily). The state of my suitcases (my general lack of unpacking my stuff yet) has given R some cause for concern.

Clothespolosion.

I swear I will get to it. I will also get to GO RUNNING today! I've uncovered my tights and shoes and am SO pumped to get out in the sunshine :D And after I return I may hop on the bike to continue the happiness in sort of a reverse brick. Which will allow me to use this awesomeness that I received in the mail:

Fab towel from Stacie at Impossible is Nothing!

Thanks for your awesome giveaway, girl!

I promised to tell you what comes next today. To be fair, I can't tell you exactly what comes next. But I can give you some ideas for what may follow today's run and my next few days of resetting my biological clock. But before I give you a peek at what the future might hold, perhaps a look into the past might be in order.

If you're new to my life, you might not know that my passions change more quickly than fashion. I have set off down nearly as many career paths as there are years in my life. Pioneer, farmer, jockey, musician, actor, writer, photographer, physicist, advocate, professor, psychologist, marine biologist, geneticist, journalist, neuroscientist, domestic, lifelong student, radio producer, technical editor, teacher - I've tried my hand at all these things and more. What I really love is learning new things and having new adventures - and my one other constant is that I've been a vegetarian for 18 years. I like writing about my adventures, I love the people I know, and now that I've discovered running and triathlon, I feel like I've found all the bits of that make up who I am and life's greatest treasures. Of course, in order to maintain my idea of the perfect life of training daily for destination athletic events, reading books and advanced Starbucks consumption, I need an income. So, next up potential jobs: travel agent (maybe I could help other people plan awesome vacation marathons! Win!!), signals officer (because I do really well with being told what to do and being really busy all the time and I heart paperwork), personal trainer (helping others get their sweat on = sweetness), medical writer (yes, I am revisiting the folks from the big city who are terrible with email but who still may want to hire me after my interview last summer), technical editor (despite not loving this job, it was great money and I had lots of time to do the things that I loved - so I'm investigating doing something similar in my new home), professional blogger/athlete (pipe dream alert - but oh what a dream!), dog groomer (or future dog parent) or barista (I think this time, instead of sending resumes, I will woo Starbucks. Like perhaps write them a song or get a billboard about why they should hire me even though I'm not a hipster.) 

Lots of irons in the fire, work-wise. Plus freelancing, as I can get it. And, y'know, if you have a job and want to hook me up, I'm open to that too. I'm a very hard worker and I learn quickly :)

 And I am so excited to get back on track to doing the marathons and tris that I had planned to do this year - as well as plan a run for charity in my hometown! 

The way I see it, I'm taking the scenic route on my life's journey. So glad you could join me :)