Well, I lost my wallet (or it was stolen), anyways it's gone and I can't find it.  I only had a couple private students last week, so my earnings didn't add up to much money, but still it was all the money I'd made that week.   

I was going to leave Qingdao and get a position teaching at a university in Thailand where I have a friend on staff, but my landlady refused to let me out of my lease.  Not only did she refuse to return the 4000 rmb deposit I had paid her, but she demanded that I pay an additional 4,000 rmb penality if I break my lease.  So I guess I'm staying.  I had offered to find another renter in my stead (and I've got a classified running the local English magazine, the Red Star, that's coming out on May 1st.)  I also said she could keep the three month's rent that I'd paid in advance, but none of this made any difference to her.

So I went through quite an emotional maelstrom over all this yesterday.  Unfortunately, my son was visiting and bore the brunt of it, but he also got me to buck up.  My Chinese teacher, Alice, who is a university student and a good friend, as well, despite the difference in our ages, also helped me through all of this.  And then Takashi, the father of the young Japanese girl who I've been teaching as a private student, also offered to help me out.  

Frankly, I was ready to kill myself and leave blood all over the apartment for the landlady to find and clean up.  I wasn't really serious but in the emotional extravaganza of a whirlpool of negativity, the idea was quite attractive.  Okay, okay, I can be quite a drama queen at times.  But this was really scraping bottom.  I have not been in that bad a frame of mind for several hours in decades, really.

This morning, I woke up and it was like a storm that had blown over.  I guess all that cesspool of fear, anxiety, despair and frustration, rage and hate just had to be released one way or another.  I hope I got it all out because I never want to go there again.  I guess this is the descension process.

It's been crazy weather this week.  I've been freezing in my apartment and the wind has been freezing outside, too.  Then it warmed up, but the wind was still blowing like crazy.  Now it's calmed down and so have I.  The sun is warm, the birds are happy, and someone nearby is drilling and hammering, as they often have in the several months that I've lived in this apartment.

I'm hoping that people's spirits will lift up with nicer weather coming in.  The scowls and long faces are starting to get to me.