Weekly Recap For March 18 to April14 2018

Another busy couple of weeks.

Kiddo had about five days of birthday festivities, starting with a classroom party celebrating all of the March/April birthdays in his grade, then a movie night with me (Pacific Rim 2: it delivered an acceptable level of giant robot/giant monster mayhem), a party with some friends at Global Harbor Mall, and finally dinner out with parents and birthday presents at home on his actual birthday.

Spring break started at the end of that week, and we were soon on our way to the Kiddo's hometown, Wuxi. We had a nice whirlwind of sightseeing in Wuxi and Suzhou, enjoying lovely hotel buffet breakfasts the whole time.

This week has been back to work, and getting caught up on various small projects. I've been behind on a lot of my "daily goal" kinds of things (including this blog). I did manage to watch pretty much all of the Wrestlemania weekend events, and it looks like I'll be joining a D&D campaign here.

An I had time to do a couple of new reviews:

Comic Reviews on Comic A Day

Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey. (9/10).

Babalon Babes #3 by Michele Witchipoo and Witches Brew Press. (8.5/10).

Book Reviews on Goodreads

Fire and Ice (Warriors #2) by Erin Hunter. (3*).

Dingoes At Dinnertime (Magic Tree House #20) by Mary Pope Osborne. (3*).

Supporting

I am supporting burlesque performer Morgan Fey's request for funding for medical expenses for her beloved pet rat.

Upcoming

The big news is that we just bought our tickets for our trip home for the summer! We will be arriving in Boston on June 19 and heading back to Shanghai on August 2. As of right now, our plans involve staying in the New England region for the whole visit home. We're looking forward to seeing lots of friends and family, and we're starting to look at things we want to do while we're in the area.

Other things that we are looking forward to: Possible museum expedition with Kiddo and his friend later today. My first game with the new D&D group tomorrow. Also looking forward the release of Magic: The Gathering's Dominaria expansion next weekend (not sure if I'll be able to make it to a prerelease event or not due to work scheduling stuff and the fact that the store I had been playing at in this area closed, but hoping to work something out), and then the release of Infinity War coming up soon after that.

Weekly Recap For February 4-10 2018

This was a busy week at the day-job, so I slacked off a lot of my daily goals. I did have a nice day out last weekend checking out the World Expo Museum and the West Bund with the Kiddo and his friend. Today was my school's Chinese New Year party, with a ton of delicious food. We then headed to Yuyuan Bazaar to see the Chinese New Year lanterns, We'll be doing a lot more sightseeing in Shanghai over the next two weeks, so expect to see lots of pictures on Flickr and on Instagram.

I also did a few reviews this week.

Book Reviews on Goodreads

Magic Tree House #23: Twister on Tuesday by Mary Pope Osborne. (3*).

Comic Reviews On Comic A Day

Cecil #1 by Jonathan Todd. (7.5/10).

Supporting

I am supporting Traci Marcovitz with help with student debt.

Looking Ahead

Chinese New Year is coming up this week. We get a week and a half off from work/school. We'll be hosting visitor here in Shanghai for most of that time. We have plans for a lot of local sightseeing. We were at Yuyuan Bazaar today, and I'll be taking the Kiddo to the historical district of Qibao (and the massive Vanke Mall for lunch) tomorrow. We might head back to Yuyuan to see the lanterns at night some evening this week. Our guests arrive next Sunday, and we'll be hitting many of the major Shanghai sights with them: the Bund, the Pearl Tower, the Natural History Museum, People's Square and Tianzifan are all on the list.

We've got the Kiddo's birthday in March, and then April vacation. We're planning to travel somewhere within China in April, but not sure where yet. And we'll be back in the US for parts of June and July.

Weekly Recap For January 7-13, 2018

I fell out of the habit of doing these about halfway through 2017. Trying to get back on track.

This week we were back to school following winter break. We did a "staycation" here in Shanghai, and got to see lots of sights around the city. From here we've got five and a half weeks of school to our next break, Lunar New Year, where we will be hosting friends visiting from Vietnam.

Here are my reviews for the week

Comic Reviews On Comic A Day

The Sleeplessness: 2015 Special by Jay Kennedy and Fat Cat Funnies (8.5/10)

Book Reviews On Goodreads

Magic Tree House: Civil War on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne (4*)

Supporting

I'm supporting Frank Huminski's request for help with medical expenses.

I'm also supporting my former student Antonia Liu, who just published her debut book, Hack College Like An Entrepreneur.

Looking Ahead

I'm looking forward to Mixed Match Challenge, NXT Takeover Philadelphia, and Royal Rumble from WWE in the coming weeks. Looking forward to seeing Black Panther, when it gets released here in China (we had to wait about an extra month for Star Wars: The Force Awakens). And tomorrow, I'm heading to the Magic: The Gathering: Rivals of Ixalan prerelease tournament... with cards in Chinese! That should add an extra bit of challenge to it. And, as mentioned above, Lunar New Year break in February and getting to show visitors around Shanghai.