You know you've been in China too long when

... you pick a fight with the street vendor who tries to charge you 7RMB instead of the published 6RMB for your chicken/vegetables over rice dinner. That's like bargaining a 60 cent dinner to 50 cents.

Spent another fantastic weekend in Shanghai, but again the transition back has been tough. I haven't had a good night's sleep in over a month, and it's starting to get to me. I'm sort of at my wit's end with Hangzhou... being forced to speak Chinese is so frustrating especially when you can't find the words to express yourself - still - and the people you're trying to communicate to speak even less of the language... so recently I have just been keeping to myself, which is starting to take a toll. Today I read Harry Potter and took a 5 hour nap. I only just left the dorm to pick up the aforementioned food. I only come into contact with my roommate, who is glued to her chair and still stares mindlessly at her computer screen all day long. Now I feel feverish.

What I really need is to move, exercise, breathe some fresh air. But it is either too hot or too enormous of a downpour (as my dear friend Julian says, the rain in China does not fuck around, it's all or nothing) to spend any time outside. To make matters worse, we've been warned that the temperature for the rest of the week is going to reach "dangerous" highs - 107 degrees and counting.

Every night I cross off another day on my calendar. 13 days until I'm back in Hong Kong. The sick thing is that I know that the more time I spend thinking about how little time I have left here, the longer it's going to feel.