What sabbatical?

I've spent most of the last week line editing 22 student stories. Most of them are fascinating--examples below--but take about an hour each to edit. I've also been invited to lecture at 2-3 other colleges in Nanjing, am working hard on my Chinese and helping Marcus with his Hebrew tutoring. And I'm now one of Nina's acupuncture patients. I went to her clinic yesterday where I had my chronic knee pain treated by the head doctor and half a dozen students. They stuck in lots of needles and used heat from burning cotton swabs (as the smoke was rising, I told the doctor I felt like a Nanjing kao yangguizi, a Nanjing roasted foreign devil). Four more treatments to go. The good news, I'm told, is that none of this can do any harm.
Marcus is making new friends--he's having a sleepover with a Canadian boy and his family this weekend--and enjoying the school. They brought in a former European league basketball player to coach the kids this week. They're also studying Shakespeare, Roman history, maths and Chinese. (He's getting better faster than I am but is usually too shy to speak.) We're also hanging out regularly with Ma Yan and her family--a connection from an NU Chinese prof. We went to the driving range with them Sunday and then Marcus and BangBang joined dozens of kids half their size bouncing around a giant, inflated jungle gym in Baima park. We're going to try to cook together Sunday.
Back to some student papers. I assigned them to write travel pieces during the week off and now they're rewriting them. Most of them have great story ideas although they have trouble with English, particularly our weird colloquialisms. One story was based on a student's visit to a small Hani viilage in Xishangbanna where she and her family visited a Hani home (where they butchered a pig for them) and went with them to pick tea leaves. Another student visited a museum commemorating a shipyard in Mawei that introduced European education to China in 1866, brought foreign teachers here and sent students, some of whom became prominent leaders, to study in Europe beginning at age 12. Another wrote about the freshwater springs of Jinan City through the eyes of a 70-year-old man who has lived there all his life.
"On a sunny afternoon, Cui Liangjun came to wash clothes in a spring stream, and happened to come across another old neighbor. They swung clothes lightly, and let running water wash dirt away. At the same time, they chatted charmingly together, sharing news on the price of eggs, discussing details of their shadowboxing practices, and exchanging information about their children. They both have lived here for many years and are highly familiar with each other’s family. In this traditional Chinese community, a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin. Cui said he knows the names of his neighbors’ kids, breeds of their pets, and their hobbies. “I can even know what they will eat at supper by the smell,” he said.