No Water for a day. Next day, Heavy Rain.

• I arrived home Sunday evening, excited at the prospect of being able to sleep in on Monday.  But my wife then read a notice telling the residents of my apartment complex that there would be no water for twenty four hours because some pipes had to be repaired.  The water would be shut off at nine a.m. they said.  So, I had to get up early take a shower and then coax my wife up so she could take a shower too before nine as well.
• I remember when I first came to Wuxi, hearing stories from older Expats of water being shut off for days on end.  None of these horror stories panned out for me through my eight years.  This water stoppage is the first I have experienced since the Great Wuxi Water Crisis of 2008.
• One of my students works in H.R. at her company.  She had been stuck with the unenviable task of having to lay people off.  The first phase of these layoffs, she told me, involved fifty workers.  She was laying them off five a day when I last talked to her.  One of the reasons she was being so slow with them, she told me, was that she was trying to determine which workers were going to leave anyway.
• I was planning to go to my wife's hometown on my three-day bereavement leave.  However, in Beixin, the water is only being drawn from wells so my in-laws don't want me to come out.  This is maybe just as well because it would be bloody muggy in the Jiangsu countryside in July.
• National Public Radio has an interesting podcast about American Expats living in China.  I doesn't encapsulate my experiences in China, but I seem to come from a different mindset than the people interviewed on the podcast.  I have always been more interested in my reactions to China than its reaction to me.  I have always felt a chasm between me and China.  But, I have also felt a chasm between me and the other laowei.  
• I have learned more about myself by coming to China than I have learned about the Chinese.  They do things different here.
• Living in British Columbia for eight years was a preparation for coming to China.  Lotusland taught me so much about the vagaries of human nature.
• After no tap water for a day, we had a day of heavy rain.
• The first ever Wuxi China Expatdom Video!   Not done by me so you might enjoy it!