Thank you for joining me in the latest installment of the life of me. It's a pleasure to be with you again.

I've been quiet for a few weeks because I've been processing things that have been happening in my life; particularly the ongoing saga of Zhenzhen.

It's been ongoing because her and I have been swinging back and forth in some kind of twisted pendulum fashion. I move away from her, she follows. I react accordingly and move closer to her, so she moves away. It's been weird, but finally I've gotten tired of it. There's obviously been an attraction between us that's just been unable to be realised. Various things have kept us 'distant' from each other and prevented us from getting closer.

She's in Christchurch (South Island of NZ) for a week, seeing this guy that she met in December. He wants to marry her, and she's interested in being married. I'm not. That automatically has created a barrier between us.

However, over the past few weeks, I've built up very strong feelings for her, from the times we spent together and the conversations we had. I wanted so much more with her, but was unable to get it. And still I hoped things would change.

Up until she left for Christchurch, I made myself available to her as a friend. I told her that if things went to hell with the guy there, that I'd still be someone she could turn to for support, as a good friend.

But I'm not going to be the guy she wants to be with if the other guy doesn't want her, or she finds he's unsuitable. I'm not going to settle for being someone's 'second-best' choice. I had hoped she would move past her confusion about what she wanted (eg. coming close, moving away, etc) before she left, but as soon as she left, I gave all that up. It was a hope I was holding onto, because the possibility of success was so attractive.

I've been talking with my friends about various issues I've had related to this, releasing my feelings and hopes and dreams, all in an attempt to move on. What's been frustrating for me was that for one complication or another, I never got to enjoy anything meaningful with her.

So, next...

Another ongoing thing in my life has been the 'study' of asian cultures, because of my interest in being with an asian woman. I've come to a resolution that while I'm still not limiting myself to only asian women, I'm actually going to focus on dating them more than western women.

The more I find out about them, the more I find attractive. The more I read about other western men's experiences with them, the more I find myself relating to how they feel.

Asian women have values that I like, and that I want in a woman. Please note that I'm NOT saying that they all have attractive/good values, or that all western women don't. I'm simply saying that I'm more attracted to what I've learnt about asian women's values than I am to western women's values.

Today (or yesterday, as I'm writing this) I was reading an article about learning foreign languages, and it talked about 'language exchange'. A good way of learning a foreign language is to teach your own to someone, and have them teach you in return. I was intrigued by this, and was interested in finding out more. I decided I would like to learn Japanese, so I put my name down at a language exchange website that helps bring people together to teach each other languages.

Then Wakana came online, and during our conversation I told her about my new interest. She thought it was an excellent idea, but she gave me another idea. Why not become an English teacher for asian students?

Images of meeting cute asian women flashed through my mind. :blink: It was something I hadn't considered before, and so I talked to her about it. She pointed out to me how it all worked, that 'conversational English education' was an important requirement for many foreign students and that while they might be here to learn English, the language schools teach grammar and punctuation, rather than 'conversational English' and slang.

They're willing to pay for the privilege of engaging me in conversation. Shocked

I found out from her that the pay up to NZ$30 an hour for qualified private lessons, but without qualifications I could charge $15 an hour. Just to sit down over a coffee in a cafe for an hour, and talk about world events and news, movies, etc etc.

I decided to do it. And no, NOT just to meet women. While that's definitely an attraction to it, there's also the value to me of receiving money for it, and to learn about other culture's perceptions on things, and to even learn another language as well.

So I'll be researching that a bit more over the next few days/weeks, and then involving myself into it.

Maybe I'll end up moving to Japan, or China, and teaching English for a living. *shrug* Stranger things have happened in my life.

The reason I'm writing this at 4 in the morning is because I'm working a graveyard shift this week (midnight to 8am). The person who normally is on this shift called in sick for the week, and possibly next week too (?), so they asked if I'd like to do it. Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course! The extra money is always good, that's for sure.

But damn, it really screws around with the body. I haven't trained myself to sleep properly during the day yet. I've only been able to manage about 4-5 hours sleep during the day before I wake up and find that I'm unable to get back to sleep again.

So, by the time I finish today, 72 hours will have passed before I woke up from my last decent sleep. In that time, I have only had 4 hours sleep in the first 48 hours, and 5 hours sleep yesterday. So an average of 3 hours sleep per day.

I'm so knackered right now, it's not funny. And the worst thing is, when I get home, I'm just going to sleep for about 2 hours, then get up and go on a lunch date with this Chinese chick that the dark-toothed girl introduced me to on Friday last week (see below). Once I get home from that, I'm hoping to just crash for some more hours before I head off to work again at midnight tonight. The body (and mind) resents these hours, but the money makes it worth it! Hehehe

So anyway, her name is Joanne, and she's... interesting. She's not my type, as I'm not attracted to her. However, she's intelligent, seems interesting, and I haven't reached the '2 date rule' yet, so I'm meeting her again for lunch.

The 2 date rule is one I created after having met Kylie. When I met her the first time, she was quiet, didn't seem that attractive, and we just didn't click. I told her a few days later that she wasn't my type, and we should just be friends. It obviously challenged her, because the next time we met, a week later, I was there as a friend accompanying her to a dinner date of one of her friends. However, this time she set out to prove that she COULD be my type, and I was absolutely blown away by how different she was when she was more relaxed and assertive about her wants and desires. That was the beginning of 3 months of a very sexual relationship which taught me a lot. Cheesy

So ever since then, where possible, I've had at least 2 dates with all women I've dated, just to allow them to get over any possible first-date nerves etc, and to see what they're like when they're a little more relaxed.

So while Joanne isn't initially my type, I'm willing to see if she might be.