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This past week: WVU had an interesting presidential selection process, with some overly credulous reporting from Charleston newspapers and some academic drama. One embarrassing article quoted three students in a row favoring the BOG-favored lobbyist candidate (and new President), Garrison. It didn’t mention the connections these three have to each other or to Garrison, but it did give the impression that students were falling in behind the BOG against the faculty. In reality, I’m sure most students didn’t care. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student who would have preferred an academic to lead the University. The fix was in, though, and in spectacular fashion: 16-1. I hope it works out for everyone.

Kurt Vonnegut died. That wasn’t good.

I’ve not spent a full weekend in the HKSAR for a long time. This past weekend would not be an exception, as I joined Alex D. and a pack of tutors on a trip to Heidi’s family’s horse ranch in Dalan, Dongguan, Guangdong, Mainland. Dalan is a Y35 RMB/single coach ride, about an hour, from Luohu.

They have a pretty nice place up there, and some pretty nice horses [well, they were nice to other people at least] too. I’ll try to be brief, because I ought to be tapping out a quick essay for tomorrow morning instead of blogging. We arrived early Saturday afternoon, and spent most of that afternoon riding horses or watching. I’d never ridden a horse before (and I’m not sure I’d like to again), but it was an interesting experience. If I’m not mistaken, Alex hadn’t been bitten by a horse before, either.

In the evening, we joined the BBQ and its delicious beef, chicken, mini-sausages, lamb, ribs, sweet potatoes, corn, open flames, and local Kingway (Dongguan) beer. That sentence should explain my feelings about that part of the visit adequately. Afterward some of us tried to watch Little Miss Sunshine and ended up going to sleep about 45 minutes in.

Morning came—eventually—and we were given breakfast (my highlight for the trip). Baskets and baskets (well, two, but stacked really high) of homemade jiaozi and… uh… other good stuff. Lunch wasn’t much worse. Before lunch, we went up the hill to a local temple with very nice views of the area. Then, the more adventurous (everyone else) rode a second time before our late lunch and trip back to Shenzhen.

It was a nice weekend trip, but it didn’t help me write that essay: actually, it would have been illegal to bring my sources with me [though the Lo Wu formalities are very relaxed and I'm sure I would have gotten away with it]. Of note: this was my 15th entry into Hong Kong (and the 15th ridiculously big student stamp on my passport pages]. I could run out again in as little as two trips, if the HK Immigration officials continue their recent trend of stamping the half-page stamp across a full page.