Today is the day that I am officially finished at UMASS/Boston. Today I had my Arts of China Final. We had to compare Yuan Dynasty paintings of the Imperial Court with Ming Dynasty paintings about unity in diversity. Even though my professor was absent more times than I think we had class… it was still a really good class. I knew nothing about Chinese Art and it was really really interesting. We learned about all kinds of early Chinese art and artists. One name that I remember quite well is Zhao Mengfu (pronounced Jow MungFoo). He was a widely misunderstood artist because we worked for the Yuan Dynasty officials who were Mongols and not liked very much. A lot of Chinese art historians don’t like him and we read many articles about his life and work and if he was a traitor or not. Pretty cool stuff.
This was me a while ago when I brought my camera with me to school. There is UMASS Boston in the distance.

Now I am getting ready to depart this Thursday May 20th for a trip to see some of my siblings. I will depart late Thursday evening and travel by Chinatown Bus from Boston to NYC. Then early early the next morning I will get on a train leaving from Penn Station to go to North Carolina. I will spend the weekend visiting my sister Kate and her husband Mark. Kate is a kindergarten teacher and Mark is studying for his PhD at Duke.
Here are the two of them the last time I was in North Carolina to see them… eating some grits!!

I will return to NYC on the 25th of May and stay with a friend of mine in Brooklyn. The next day I will take another train upstate to Schenectady, NY. I will arrive in time to see my neice play in a T-ball game!!! COOL!!! Upstate NY is where my other sister lives with her husband. I will be with them for a couple days hanging out and having fun with my two neices and super cool nephew.
Here is my neice Martha and my nephew Lars playing with their new Chinese fan that I brought for them from China.

Then I will return to Boston on May 30th!!! The next day I will attend a wedding in Brookline, MA!!! COOL!!! I will miss Boston but I will have a good time. and I will try and update this site while I am gone.