Motorcycle Stress Relief

Today's weather: High = 27 Low = 18
Sunny

May day! May Day! We get a 3-day May holiday break, thank goodness! I can sure use the break. Other schools have this holiday for 9 days, very similar to the October holiday. We don't, because we work shorter hours during the day and we get more frequent and shorter stat holidays. Such as an upcoming 5-day holiday for Dragon Boat Festival in June!! Woo-hoo, I'll take this over a longer long May holiday.

April was a rather bizarre month. It wasn't a bad month, in fact this entire school year has been the best in my overseas teaching career. It's just that a whole bunch of shit happened at the same time around the middle of this month, including both good and bad things, that all required urgent dealing with at once. I'm still dealing with one issue after another as a result, and the dust won't be settled until the end of May. Even now, I need to make a quick trip to Hong Kong and back during this holiday to deal with some business that was frustrated by virtue of being in mainland China and having arbitrary obstacles set up in my path.

When feeling frustrated and stressed in the mainland, THAT is when I really appreciate having the motorcycle. There is no better way to relieve stress than to get on the bike and go for a ride. When the weather is perfect like it has been recently, it is balmy and warm at night, and makes for a nice cruise. I didn't go anywhere in particular, just cruised all around my local district in Shanghai. The bike is running extremely well these days. The bike really likes this warm weather, and the engine is the smoothest I've experienced yet. Viscosity of the oil is at a perfect level, and the bike handles like a breeze.

I had to admit much satisfaction after seeing literally hundreds of young people and couples standing on the side of the road waving down taxis that were full and not stopping. When taxis are scarce and hard to come by, when it's late at night, and when the weather is perfect, that is the time to be riding a motorcycle.