I’ve certainly been enjoying nature’s little pleasures over the last few weeks.  In the last week, I hiked Kent’s Ledge twice with a colleagues and students, awoke in the AM to beautiful white snow, went for a family walk with the dogs in Montpelier’s Hubbard Park, can go leaf-peeping through my own windows, and had a fantatic starry evening stroll on an unseasonably warm evening.  After a year in China, I truly appreciate these little bits of nature, and, even more than that, my family and I simply so content right now.  Things are well.

And now we’re returning to China.  I’m giving a series of lectures on environmental law at Sun Yat-sen University, doing a workshop at the South China University of Technology, doing some lectures for the US Consulate in Guangzhou, helping start-up an environmental law clinic in China, and meeting with a series of NGO representative in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, among other things.  We’re starting to let our Chinese and ex-pat frineds in Guangzhou know of our upcoming trip, and everyone seems just so excited about our return.  It really creates a this overwhelming warmth from afar.  While I had been some concerned about our return to China, now that it’s happening, it really confirms how much the year in the China shaped my professional interests and personality, as well as how strong our friendships in China were.

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