I’m staying home with a sore throat. I prefer to bring in the new year quietly, anyway. This week I finally received my TESOL certificate (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from UCLA, after working toward it for 6 years. Whew. I finished my Thursday class for the Going Abroad program today; the students are all either university teachers or postgraduate students. I’d invited them to have lunch after class, and they ended up taking me to a gala lunch at a local restaurant, close to the west gate of the university. Today’s meal ranks as possibly the best I’ve had since coming to China. It would be hard to describe all the different dishes, but I’ll select a few: Beijing-style roast duck – the most tender, succulent duck I’ve ever eaten; two fish – one steamed, the other “spicy,” boiled bacon, a couple of bean dishes, beef ribs, vegetables, soup, and more that I can’t name at the moment. Next week I’ll be one of the examiners when these students take their final Going Abroad exam. The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent at home. My new copy of Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard” arrived from amazon.com today – I’d read it years ago but felt the need to have another copy. Tried to watch “Julie & Julia” again, but just couldn’t; it’s OK once, but too superficial and contrived to sit thru a second time. Ended up watching Jean Cocteau’s “La belle et

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