i've been pretty sick this week :(

i started my week pretty normally, but by tuesday afternoon my throat began to ache just a little. when i made it home i felt like i was about an hour away from a big, big cold. then within a few hours i got a fever. the medicine, o.j., and multi-vitamins came out and my temperature continued to shoot up and up. tuesday night was sleepless, and wednesday was one of those days where you experience life as if it was much slower and had a heavy fishbowl stuck over your head. wednesday night was sleepless, thursday was another obfuscated bed-ridden day. i finally lost the fever by saturday morning but the i still have really strong throat pain, and sought some crazy chinese cure. hopefully i'll feel 100% soon.
i did manage to do some book reading at home and newspaper reading online. i followed my tradition of watching fellini movies when sick, this time it was "la dolce vita" and "nights of cabiria". i also found a good article in sunday's new york times about beijing. they have a column on sunday's travel section called "36 hours" where they describe worthwhile things to do in a city if you happen to find yourself there over a weekend or something like that 36 hours in bejing here . silvia, ross, and i went xmas shopping today, which was weird to feel like the only ones here this time of year out looking for xmas presents. there are a few places to get xmas your stuff but it's all crappy and dollar store-tastic. i'll keep writing about how christmas progresses.