Shamrock 'n' Roll

Ay Y'all,
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Check out the sweet badge I wore in honor of St. Pat...today was an excellent day because I finally got my passport renewal and work visa for China...AND I got my old passport back!...which is awesome because there's a great deal of sentimental value attached to my first passport. But mostly, I was happy to get the new passport and visa because we're going to be leaving in a couple of weeks and I wasn't sure I would get it in time. I had already been rejected once on account of my photo being "too dark", so I had to get some new photos made and send them off again...so yeah...I'm breathing a sigh of relief right now. I think it's rather auspicious that I got my passport on St. Patrick's Day...I'm feeling pretty lucky now and I have a feeling our trip to China will go well. Any reservations I had about the trip just magically vanished today...I hate to think that I'm that superstitious, but I guess I am in this case. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the 22 hour-long flight, and then having to deal with jet lag and the 13-hour time change...