I got to China and my boss told to just buy a bike. It was pretty sad to what extent I just listened to him, with no conception of what I was getting myself into, but I did it. And for the first several months in China, I rode that damn Bike nearly every day. It was fairly nice, all things considered. I began to enjoy the bike ride to work every day. And for the most part, I stayed on that damn bike for just about six months. I started working, everything was well, and things went fairly fucking smoothly for a while.

Which isn’t to say things were perfect. Far from it. But they were god damn bearable. I dont need things to be perfect. I can do with bearable.

Around June, a lot of things started to change. I got a new boss at work, I got a whole lot of new (annoying) coworkers. But most importantly, while trying to get to work one fine June noon I damn near got a case of heat stroke. When I got to work it took me almost an hour to catch my breath, and the Chinese, in their fucking moronic fashion, just fucking stared at me, not offering to help.

I stopped riding my bike. I told myself it would just be for the hot summer months. But come the end of August, big stupid changes were happening for the G20, and I was told I couldn’t ride my bike. Then the rainy season kicked in. Then I was just too tired.  Between the months of July and February I may have ridden the bike to work a dozen times.

I started getting really annoyed at work. I started being short with he students, and with my colleagues. I started wanting to be anywhere else. I relized things were going poorly and I blamed all the wrong things; my boss, my coworkers, whatever was around that was convinient at the time. Nope, it was just simply a lack of exercise.

I got pretty heavy and I realized I was in need of a change. My knees were starting to hurt when I did things. But I ignored all that and got my fat ass back on my bike. I rode it to work. And I rode it back. And I didn’t use being too tired as an excuse. Its starting to work. I am much more pleasant at work. I am doing more things. I am getting my shit back together. I still thoroughly dislike China, but I am back to bearing it. I have decided that 2017 is the year I am really gonna make shit better for myself, in as many ways as I can.

As a last note, I’ll say that this post is coming at you live. I only started biking to work again at the beginning of Feb, and while I started to feel the results immediately, I am really just now realizing just how fundamental that bike ride was for me.