New Discoveries

This post is exciting to me and will probably be boring to you.  In the last 12 hours, I have made three (three!) hassle-saving discoveries for my life in China.

1)  Last night at the copy shop, I thought to ask if they could cut my copies in half.  Turns out they have a nifty machine that can slice through stacks of 60 (or more) papers in a single swipe.  When I think about all the class activities I've spent time snipping apart, I really wish I would have discovered this earlier.

2)  When using Word on Chinese computers, I always had trouble reading the characters to get the exact font size I want.  In class today, my students informed me that if you scroll down, you can see the actual numbers (12, 14, etc.).  Huh.

3)  I always thought it was almost impossible to get a round-trip train ticket in China.  Usually tickets must be physically purchased in the city you will leave from.  Just now, I was informed that the D-trains (fast trains) usually offer round trip tickets.  This is indeed a wondrous discovery.

Often in China, you find yourself thinking, "There must be an easier way to do things!"  Usually, no.  But sometimes, yes!