And then I found 5 dollars!

We knew this was coming

2009-10-14T06:48:00.002+08:00

In an awkward position now where I've come up with kind of a cool paper topic, but am not expert enough in it to get writing. What the most serious problem is that I'm having organizational issues, which are deadly. I've got a few pieces that are somehow related, but how do I relate them in the context of the paper? Which flows into which? There's still some holes in my research that I need to fill before I write certain sections, but the thing is that I'm hypothesizing that certain things will turn out to be true... like that one scientist who predicted the existence of those elements... Mendeleev? Or did he just tell the elements where to go? In columns and in rows? So there's stuff that I'm expecting to share as information, I just have no proof just yet that it's true.

As always, I'm having difficulty finding a place to has this all out. My notebook is great for brainstorming, but I'm past the time where that's efficient. I can write short sections like intros and conclusions in there, but otherwise it's easy to lose form and write things that I then have to re-imagine before actually using them in a paper. Word engenders formality, because then I'm thinking that I need to be writing things that can be easily cut and pasted into a paper. So I think I'll try to start here with my thoughts. And see where they go. At least I want to solidify a course before midnight. That is when crunch time will truly begin.

"The More Loving One"

2009-04-02T11:28:00.001+08:00

W.H. Auden, 1957

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

On aimlessness, only not really because I don't use that word at all in this post

2009-03-21T18:27:00.003+08:00

I've been thinking... it seems as though I don't actually believe in fate. This realization came to me with such clarity recently that I'm honestly surprised it never occurred to me before. I mean, I'm not really shocked, and my mind isn't blown... it's just interesting how much sense it made. I've been pouring every waking moment into the grad school decision, even stealing them away from conversations and other things I should probably have been paying attention to. I'm not any closer to a solution, it's still up between UM and NYU. The dynamics changed this morning, in I guess what you would call a big way, but astonishingly, it's still kind of a toss-up. In the end, the choice is simple: a second degree, or a life in the city. Dot dot dot.

Anyways, I was lamenting the whole issue to Steve the other day... and Selina... and Novella... and... actually anyone who would listen... but while I was talking to him, my unease finally came together in words. I don't trust myself to make the right choice (though I wouldn't trust anyone else to make it for me), because I don't trust that things will work out for the best regardless of which one I choose. Because it's so close at this point, a lot of people have suggested putting the names in a hat and crapshooting one at random. Seems like I might as well, right? Good things will happen either way, I'm sure I could succeed either way, so why not just pick one and let stuff happen?

Interlude: I've been thinking more recently about consequences, and the fact that we have to do work in order to affect all of our relationships/situations/futures. That things aren't "meant to be" until everything just before them have already happened.

Actually I have nothing to follow that interlude with. My brain got lasered by the insanity club this afternoon. But I guess I already said what I was thinking about saying. Just that I'm feeling now that there is no fate, just cause and effect.

where's your mom?

2009-03-17T18:18:00.003+08:00

i got off the subway this afternoon hankering for some starch, so took a detour on the way home to buy some chestnuts. having climbed the short stretch of stone steps, i noticed a baby toddling around on its own, and had a little "awww" moment. usually, if the parents aren't immediately visible, they're at least within sight of the child, but i instinctively look around anyways. i figured they were sitting or working in the chengdu xiaochi restaurant, but when i peeked in, i realized... no one was paying particular attention to this baby. so i stared at it a bit... thought about walking away... and then it started trying to go down the stairs. well, the baby was not actually capable of going down stairs, so at the first step, it toppled and ended up stuck on its back like a turtle. i almost flipped out, but fortunately it didn't fall down more than one step, and it was wearing enough clothes that it apparently sustained no injuries to the body or head. nor was it particularly shocked... it just... lay there... staring. i waited for a moment for one of the invisible parents to react, but after no one did, i went and picked the baby up... and put it back on its feet at the top of the stairs. and then i just watched it... i mean, i tried asking, "ni de mama zai na li?" but uh... it was a baby and could not answer me. so hung around a bit. then i heard someone shout from inside the restaurant. the mom came rushing out, so i picked the baby up and handed it to her. on my way to the chestnut stand, i was a biiit disturbed at how easily that baby could have been injured or kidnapped. i mean, i picked it up. i talked to it. it didn't cry. some kids are just really easy to kidnap. man, it was cute though!

Impressive

2009-03-07T09:54:00.002+08:00

Apple trees must be really strong. And I mean, really strong. I had to tote 9 fuji apples home with me last night, and it was a pain. I guess it's not really that heavy, and if I could have carried them in my arms it wouldn't have been so bad. But it was a situation where they were all in the same plastic bags and the handles mutilated my hand.

2009-03-07T09:17:00.002+08:00

From the International Women's Day sports thingy I went to yesterday morning:

So, as you can see, I did not end up "just sitting around cheering," like originally planned.
Instead, they gave me a vest and I participated in the figure-8 jump-roping race, which was terrifying, the happy home-maker relay (think martial arts flower arranging, just lamer), and tug-o-war. When I say that the jump-rope was terrifying... I loved jumping rope when I was a kid. We used to get huge groups going in the playground at recess, doing double rope, double dutch, and all those random precognitive games that predict something like upwards of 20 children for each jumper. And the most fun was when you jumped into the rope, so I used to be pretty good at that too. I really should have made a video of the other teams doing this, but I was mesmerized by them and just stared. In a limited amount of time, you have to get as many people in and out of the rope as possible, everyone jumping once, then running off to the other side to start over again. They had judges counting. To give you an idea of just how much we don't play this game outside of China, some teams managed over 200 jumps, and my team had 44. Also, they looked like they'd practiced, and our team certainly had not. Even the other half of the team, which was all Chinese, got fewer jumps than us, I'm thinking cuz they didn't practice. But it was really fun and I'd like to get the hang of it.

The relay was one of the least gender-neutral events they could have come up with. When I saw them pulling out the aprons and handkerchiefs for this relay I started getting all self-righteous about it and was glad that I didn't have to do it. The costume accents were completely extraneous to anything that had to be done, but everyone had to wear them anyway. The actual race involved one person setting up 6 baskets, the next person filling the baskets with bouquets, the third person removing the bouquets, and the last person cleaning up the baskets. If anything fell over you had to run back and fix it, and everyone had to start by skipping through a set of rings. We were doing pretty well, but our last teammate forgot to jump through the rings, had a lot of trouble with the baskets (honestly, the baskets sucked), and even wound up bleeding profusely at the end of it all. Also a fun game. Just demeaning. International Men's Day would have looked nothing like this.

Then for some reason I was put on the tug-o-war team. This was fun, actually, and we did win our first match handily. But it was tournament style, and the next team was a bit more hardcore. It felt good to use those muscles, but now they're all sore. Also, I learned that one of my automatic reactions in a tug-o-war situation is to randomly emit high-pitched screams. Even at the time I could hear myself doing it, and wondered why. And then I'd do it again and wonder why again.

At the end, I got a scarf.

Deep breaths

2009-03-05T21:00:00.003+08:00

I was told today that the kids did enjoy class last Sunday, and some exceptional child even went as far as to ask his/her parents whether or not there was a class they could attend every day. Uh… I can’t even imagine which one that could be. But anyways, it was quite an exhilarating afternoon… long, and insanely tiring. I’d meant to go over it much sooner after, but pretty much needed to go straight to bed. The next afternoon I started my half-life in Beijing, and since then have just really had a hard time to revisit this thing. Which is bad, because I was reminded tonight of a sporting event happening early tomorrow that I should go to, which is bad because I was planning on doing all this work then. Why put it off so long? Well, I didn’t want to open up that can of stress when what happened for like two weeks prior to the first session was me staring at my books for hours and then writing out my schedule and handouts just a few days before anyways. That was a small part. The other was that after dinner in Beijing, I pretty much just needed to unwind and immediately start getting ready for bed. I’m committed to getting up by 6:30 every day so that I can get into the office by 8. But more on that later.

Saturday, I headed towards the office before 1:30. I needed to drop my things off there and then run to the supermarket to snap up some last-minute snacks and bottles of water. I thought there were some last-minute prep things I might want to take care of, and I did somehow manage to busy myself with… something. Cutting up pieces of paper, putting colored numbers on them, replacing them with paper clips (which I will not do again), taking things out of one bag and putting them in another bag, then taking them out again for some purpose, then putting them back again. All the things I wound up dragging over to the library and up to the 5^th floor wound up being, um, really heavy.

This was around 2:30. Some of the volunteers were already popping up. Like I said, I'd picked 5 main helpers and corralled all the other names into a back-up list for emergencies. I wasn't really clear, I guess, in my e-mail to the teacher about this, and so she told all the students to show up at the library during the time I'd scheduled to meet with my 5 ONLY. She had some other activity lined up for the rest of them, but I ended feeling pretty terrible because they all showed up thinking that they'd be doing something for me. One of my former students falls under that category. She was one of the first to show, and when I didn't have a handout for her, it was awkward.

I tried to give them as thorough a rundown as possible of my expectations, which were sort of ambiguous at the time, given that I didn't know how much English these kids would be capable of. We didn't have quite enough time to run through the activities, but it seemed like they understood. Well...

When the doors opened, we went in to rearrange the classroom. The desks in there are unnaturally heavy. The kids showed up and there was great confusion as they all took seats and we tried to get everyone registered and paid up. I decided that I might as well get delegating, so I snagged one of my volunteers, handed her the sheet, and sent her around to check the names off for me. She did a great job, and turned out to be extremely competent. She's also much more confident in speaking out than the other girls, so I ended up going to her a lot for various tasks for the rest of the afternoon. We were running a bit late because of all this stuff and I was confused about how to proceed language-wise for the first class. All of the students had English names, and I could hear some of them using English as they saw one another come in. But then there was at least one girl at the front who I knew couldn't understand anything. She's kind of a special case though.

I wanted to get introductions out of the way as soon as possible, especially with the delay. Just wanted to get my name and the volunteers' names out really quick and then get started. Uuuuh, what happened was, though, that when I asked them each to give their names, they took the chance to give a little speech, all running along the lines of, "Nice to meet you, I hope we can be friends, I am here to help you and I hope that if you ever need help, you will come to me. I am also here to help Katharine, etc etc," and well-intentioned and sweet as they were, they ran kind of long. So that's something you don't encounter in volunteers back home. But it was nice, it showed their enthusiasm.

My icebreaker was a game we played as OLs my sophomore year. I sort of remember it dragging, but I pictured this group as being much smaller than my OL group and it was also kinda engaging. It's the one where everyone stands in a circle and you say your name and an activity you enjoy, then pair it with a physical action. Then each successive person very quickly goes around and says all the names and repeats all the actions again (a la the picnic game). I demonstrated this in the cheesiest, most obvious ways possible. I also thought I'd trained my assts in this beforehand, so I started in the back of the room with them. A couple of mistakes. If I'd wanted to get them into this, I would have marched everyone out into the hallway and actually gotten them into a circle. Because I'd wanted to keep them in the room, and because with the addition of a couple students (and a freaking LOT of parents) we ended up not having as much open space in the back, I decided to ask the kids whether or not they'd rather just stay at the desks. And they did. And, well, I'm not really sure what happened with my assts, but I ended up having to spend like 10 minutes re-teaching them the game while the kids sat around and waited. I was hoping they'd get the ball rolling and help me by setting an example, but either they didn't do the action or they didn't tell us about the other person, or they told us about the other person and not themselves, and it was awkward, and at this point I lost my cool for about the next hour.

What really didn't help me was that every parent was sitting in this tribunal ring around the back of the room like they were at an outdoor concert. It took me a while before I could truly ignore them, but before that I found myself getting profoundly disturbed by how inscrutable their facial expressions were. Also, every time one mother leaned over to whisper to another, I had the real/imagined sense that they were passing some sort of negative judgement on my organizational skills.

This was mostly a problem during the first half of the game. I say first half because I'm counting the number of people we got to during this period of time. In reality, it took an eon compared to the second half. Some of the girls at the front were having a completely unexpected stress attack about having to produce information on every child behind them, and were trying to write everything down. But it was iiiinnnnteeerrmiiinnaaablllle. And I was really feeling the effects of my poor decision making when I realized just how much of that time was going back over our volunteers' hobbies. Sigh. So about 9 kids in, when I was sick of the chatter arising from left half of the room, who must have been bored out of their minds (it's grammatical if you're british, I think), I told them that they could just do themselves and the one person who went before them. Then immediately realized that that idea sucked because it takes away any incentive to pay attention the rest of the time. Fortunately, the kids were all still a bit stunned, so it made it pretty easy for me to jump in and change things up again. After asking one girl her info and then really making her act it out, I randomly selected someone from the recent past and had her do them. The rest of the game went quickly and was much more interesting for all involved. I learned that on the spot, basketball, dancing, and playing PSP can all be represented by a generic shaking motion accompanied by laser sound effects.

That little (crap the word i'm looking for is somewhere between "incentive" and "innuendo" but I just can't think of it... also my internet's currently down so i can't thesaurus it) left us nearly at the hour mark. We were supposed to have accomplished so much more by then. So I just went ahead and completely forgot to hand out schedules and talk rules and expectations. HA. When I realized this in my meeting with the volunteers at the end of class, as a result of wondering why I still had a full folder of schedules in my possession, I could have kicked myself. But I guess that's ok. We'll have more time next time. Famous last words. Other things I forgot... juice at snack time, and water. So at least we have water this week. And also juice.

What was really good about the game was that it told me a lot about each kid's personality and started familiarizing me with their language abilities. For example, and this was such a shoot-me moment at first, the first actual child to say anything in the game claimed that he didn't like anything today. "My name is John and I don't like anything today." Oddly enough it was pretty easy to roll with it and it ended up being a good talking point with this kid (who I'm sorry I totally thought was a girl for... a while... he just had such nice eyelashes). The volunteers clearly bonded with him. He's not REALLY a misanthrope (though kinda), but I imagine there was just someplace else he'd rather have been on a Saturday afternoon.

Then... passed out paper tents, markers, crayons, and colored pencils so they could make name cards. When I asked the volunteers to start collecting the drawing materials so that we could move on, they ended up collecting the name cards too, and so then we had to pass them out again, but then they got collected again by volunteers who didn't get the memo the first time. So then we passed them out again.

I decided I wanted to get out from under the parents' noses and that there was no way that snack was going to go the way I'd planned in this room in the remaining time. So I threw the volunteers into the fire. I started passing out paper clips and had kids with the same color go out into the hall with this or that volunteer. UNFORTUNATELY, my quick thinking was SO quick that I didn't think about the fact that there were too many of too many colors of paper clips for this to work out mathematically in any situation short of an actual miracle of probability. I did some freestyling, and planned to just send remaining kids out to join the other groups, but this did not sit well with them, since they did not identify with any paperclip colors other than their own.

Snack activity was supposed to be... describe, using every sense, the mini-banana in your hand. Originally, every kid would randomly be assigned a sense, at which point they say whatever came to mind, and once that had happened for everyone, they could eat. I'd explained the concept to my volunteers, and when I realized that I'd have to give this task to them to perform in groups, I immediately called one of them over (vivian, the one with the initiative), and told her to pass that along to the other girls. I dunno if they got it, but I guess it doesn't matter. I went to each of the 3 groups and gave them the assignment again before walking away. When I got to the last group, Vivians, I realized that it was just better if I led them with some questions. After that worked out well, I went back to the other two and did the same thing. I have no idea what they were doing while I was gone. Then I called them all back to the room. When I went over to get Vivian's group, the kids were everywhere and I was told that one or more of the kids had thrown their tissues over the balcony... into the study area on the 1st floor. I would have lost it if I'd had my wits about me, and actually disciplined someone, but then again, I didn't so I didn't. I planned on saying something back in the room about how we needed to be respectful of the library so they'd let us keep using the room for free and not ban us from the hallways, but then I forgot that too.

The second half was better-structured, and went more or less according to plan. I turned out half of the lights (because I didn't know where the other half of the light switches were), and gathered everyone on the floor in the back of the room (totally making all of this blocking up in my head, btw) for the book. Oh, fyi, these kids are all 9-13. As far as I know. Then I remembered the vocab sheets. Then I remembered to pass out pens. Vocab time was fun. They all pretty much knew a lot of the words... of which there were only 9 or 12... some multiple of 3 that fits in a grid on A4 paper... and the drawing aspect was a stroke of genius on my part. One of the girls, who sort of wound up being one of my favorites purely on the basis of her tendency to overanalyze and take everything I said seriously and at face value (reminded me a little of me, minus the crazy part, which, oddly was embodied in a totally separate girl who ran completely amok on me and had to go to the bathroom SO many times).... anyways, that girl got really worked up over the somewhat conceptual ones like "experiment" and was like "do we have to DRAW that?" I told her no, she could just write the definition, but most of the others were cool with digging into odd references that they probably wouldn't have gotten later.

The book was The Dot, which I fell in love with at the bookstore. It's about art. When I asked the kids how they felt about art, they were all pretty eh about it. I was like... hm. That's a major component of this class. My wrist hurts and is making some pretty ridiculous noises.

After the reading and a short discussion,we moved on to the painting part. It was like... insanity given physical form. I have some watercolors that I was hoping to maintain for the entirety of the 12-class cycle, but... do kids this age not understand the concept of water colors? How a little goes a long way? I think one problem was the sponge brushes that came with the brush assortments I bought... those are coming out next time. So it was like a nightmare you have after reading Oliver Twist. "More green please! We need more red! Blue! More blue, please!" Then, when I'd obliged them, a great swarm of brushes would descend, and leave the palette bleach-white yet again. So the chorus was constant and my volunteers looked a bit harassed. I don't think we ever stopped moving during this activity. I had about 4 "last calls" on paint, and finally ended up speeding the "get out of here" process by passing out markers and having the kids sign their works of art.

I know I use some negative imagery here, but overall I thought the kids were great and we all ended up having a pretty good whirlwind of a time.

Some of the boys made a holy mess of the desks and all I could think of was "thank GOD this is water color." Cleanup took ages, and then I had to chat with one of the parents about something. Finally I got to meet with my assts and get their input... it was also just a really helpful way for me to get thinking out loud. What we decided to do was divide the kids into 3 permanent groups, though fluidity of membership was ok to allow for naughty/nice transfers and other movements. The idea was that one set of students is really an English-speaking class. Most of these kids go to an international school, and it turned out that at least one of the girls didn't really understand one of my vols when she spoke to her in Chinese. Also, this particular volunteer got really uncomfortable with her English, which is decent, but gets worse when she's nervous. Another set of students is ok with English, but still need slightly more assistance. The last set is kids whose English really is not at the same level as the rest. The volunteers were key in helping me to make this list right then and there (SO glad I didn't decide to "do it later" on my own... because I'd be doing it now, and struggling to remember which kid was which). They requested their assignments too, which, fortunately, were exactly what I was hoping for-- I had pictured one of them with the lower-level group, looking after the girl who spoke no English, and doing a lot of Chinese language guidance, since that's something she's pretty good at. I also wanted Vivian alone with the high-level kids because I think she can handle them on her own as I make my rounds (the others were all grouped in twos... the mid-level kids also include some high-level kids who are disciplinary concerns), though in time I'd like to be spending more time with these students too. It's only partially favoritism, and I know that's true because I like all of the kids (except the really quiet ones I can't quite remember... and I like that they're quiet).

So... what now? Now I need to decide what's going down on Saturday. I can only print this stuff in the office tomorrow afternoon, so what would be great is if I have something started before then. I'm not concerned about anything for the kids. I'm actually thinking about writing out the directions for any activity or permutation of activity that we might end up doing on Saturday so that they can be prepared for the unexpected. I'm really really tired now though.

Though I am thinking about Do you like your friends, the Mirror game, and using the 5 W's as a theme. BTW, a lot of my ideas/inspiration are coming from a book called Kids Take The Stage, and it's too far away for me to feel like getting up to see who the authors are, but I figured I should credit it anyways. It's a really nice little resource, a quick read, and an activity goldmine.

The book scheduled for tomorrow is Ish. I meant to accompany it with a drawing activity. Or series of drawing activities. I guess we can still do that. No need for a snack activity. We can have a civilized, hydrated, snack at the desks. I'm thinking half of an apple and some crackers for everyone? I feel so unqualified to be giving kids snack. I remember in my daycare we'd get a lot of graham crackers and peanut butter... cheese... i think even sometimes graham crackers and frosting... ants on a log... but yeah, something starchy and something fruity. It might be too late for tangerines. Yeah, apple slices will just have to do. I wish peanut butter was more widely available. Maybe it is? I'll check on the way home tomorrow. I know they sell it, but is it in my budget? Well, I guess since we now have more kids=more money, it could be...

It turns out now that I will NEED all 5 volunteers every week. So now I wish I had a runner that I could like, send out to cut apples and then pass out papers etc. I'm sure I can get someone who will do that. Maybe a parent?

Ok, made my vocab sheet... so easy. No more than 12 words each time if I can help it. Hopefully none of these are too conceptual because I don't like explaining those sometimes.

Remember: SERIES of drawing activities. NO free-for-all this time, just some quick impressionist art and a follow up group activity. Gah I have to sleep. We have to be at this thing at 8 am :(

I went into this season ready to be dead tired though, so yeah, you can bring it.

@#$&@(!)@##&

2009-03-05T20:26:00.002+08:00

Ugh, I hate Free Cell. I waste more of my life on that than anything else I can think of right now. And it's better that I don't think too much about that because a) that would waste more time and b) I don't want to think about all the time I may have lost in various other inane activities.

Anyways, I was supposed to be here, writing for an hour. Somehow over 3/4 of that hour are now gone. Uh oh... feeling the anger now. I feel the urge to cuss. Like, a lot. Fighting this urge is hard.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Back up, now

2009-02-26T22:41:00.003+08:00

Had the bright idea just now of putting copies of my picture files onto my little hard drive, even though they already get backed up through the little program... just in case I wanted to access them directly... aaand ended up deciding to delete most of the originals anyways. So basically if I ever lose this thing, years of my life will be going with it.

As I was doing this though, I discovered that I'm missing... all of my pre-Shanghai pictures from my '05 China trip, and Kim & Teddy's wedding pictures. And probably other random things along the way. I have no idea why I'd be missing those China pictures, but I'm assuming they're on my other external drive somewhere back home. The wedding pictures are a bit trickier since I don't think I had time to back any of those up before I left for Baotou. They should exist on a CD in my box of China stuff, so hopefully I can pull them off of that when I get home. The problem is, a lot of these things were entrusted to my desktop, which my mother proceeded to run into the ground for her own nefarious ends. That computer's a swamp now and anything that was on it is long gone. I'd thought that everything had been duplicated onto the other drive, but... yeah, guess there wasn't much depth to my thinking.

Meanwhile, my little drive gets more and more cluttered, but I managed to free up a lot of space just now by deleting all those photos. Actually, most of them are just chilling out in my recycle bin right now. All I permanently deleted was a bunch of fireworks videos that I just HAD to take at Disneyland (yeah...) and gave myself 2 gigs more of space, which is nice because I've been downloading music like the craziest person ever.

Train Schedule

2009-02-25T11:46:00.003+08:00

Hey, I swiped a service guide from the high speed train last time I rode, so... For future reference of myself and any random others who may have use of this information:

The train leaves Tanggu at... (hits Tianjin at...) and arrives at BJNan at...
C2274- 12:14pm (12:36) 1:10pm
C2276- 1:44pm (2:06) 2:40pm
C2278- 5:04pm (5:26) 6:00pm
C2280- 7:59pm (8:21) 8:55pm

The train leaves BJNan at... (hits Tianjin at...) and arrives in Tanggu at...
C2273- 10:45am (11:15) 11:39am
C2275- 12:35pm (1:05) 1:29pm
C2277- 3:55pm (4:25) 4:49pm
C2279- 6:50pm (7:20) 7:44pm

Wow... I cut it kinda close a couple of times...
Besides those, there are a butt-ton of rides between BJN and TJ starting around 6:30 am and going to 10:45/11pm.

Other useful information:
Cars 1 and 8 are 1st/2nd class cars
Car 5 is a 1st class car
Cars 2, 3, 6, and 7 are 2nd class cars
Car 4 is the bar car

Not THAT useful... but maybe you could use it.

Where are we going with this

2009-02-25T08:58:00.003+08:00

Having difficulty working this out through other mediums, so I figured I might as well try blogging about it. Haha. Blogging.

Anyways, my first little activities camp session is this Saturday. I screened through potential volunteers yesterday at the Polytech school. When they told me there would be "many" students who'd be interested in helping me, I thought "ok... like... 7?" But I ended up talking to 25 students yesterday, which wasn't everyone who showed up, since we had a few drift away as the interviews went on. Then were was like... a reserve classroom of another 40 standing by in case I didn't find anyone I liked in the first group.

I didn't have many questions for them, but just really tried to coax them into English monologues about anything. I need assistants who would be able to react to things in English and really encourage the students to be using English during our sessions. There weren't very many of those in the group, actually, which was sad, because a lot of these girls (and one guy) would be great for programs like this. They were all so willing to give up 12 consecutive Saturday afternoons (not that I've been able to determine that there's much to do out where the school is, but still... Saturdays were always precious) that I didn't want to turn them down.

Mostly I was impressed by the ones who kind of... were very convincing despite not having the level of English I was looking for. The girls who were like... "I may not be perfect for this, but if you give me the opportunity, I'd really try my best." Or, "No, I don't have any volunteer experience, or experience with anything like this, but this would be my chance to start."

Anyways, there were 3 sophomores that I picked out for their English ability and general demeanor, before some of my old students came in and blew me away. First, there was one girl who I'd forgotten pretty much played the assistant role in my class anyway-- translating back and forth and pumping everyone up for like skits and stuff. Then there was the girl who made me sing back in December (uuuugh) who blew me away by reading my mind during the interview. So that's a total of 5 ladies I'd like to take on, for 3 positions that I had in mind.

Then, what did I do? I thought, well that's too bad. I'd love to let as many of these kids help out as possible. Maybe we can just add more students! So I made a call and said that we could increase the class size... but since then I've sort of been thinking about it and... I kinda wish I hadn't done that. Haha. We'll see how many we're at at this point, but I think I'll cut it off this afternoon at whatever number it's at. I'll take all 5 volunteers and just... figure out a use for them.

I guess if this weren't starting THIS SATURDAY, I'd be a lot less anxious.

Anyways, the volunteers aren't a huge deal. I am having a hard time picturing everyone sitting comfortably in this classroom anymore. What I'm having issues with right now is the agenda for the first session, as well as like... the vocabulary worksheet that I'm not even really able to visualize right now. And the eternal question: Introductions first? Or icebreaker first?

Currently I'm thinking... sound-off names for me and the volunteers, and then play some introductions/name-game kinda icebreaker. Reconvene to go over rules and expectations and make little name plates. Then break up again and do rotating groups of name-centric games. At half-time, we'll all get together for snack and pass out vocab sheets for the book we're reading. Do any pre-reading activities. Then all gather on the floor to read this book out loud. Follow it up with Q&A and then move into the arts & crafts segment. Ah. At this point, would it be ok to break for skits again? There might not be a ton of time for that. It might be better to just play a big round of "Do you like your friends?" and save thematic skits for the next session. So we can review the story that way too.

That seeeeems like a plan, but there's that big hole in the first half where I say "name-centric games." What the freak are those supposed to be?

I guess I have until Saturday afternoon to figure that out. Before that though, I need to get this worksheet or whatever it's going to be banged out, since I actually need to get it printed... and probably a volunteer info sheet would be good to have.

Ok. I decided that instead of just defining all these vocab words, most of them can be illustrated. So we shall be illustrating them in-class.

Word.

what might have been

2009-02-17T16:33:00.004+08:00

well. i am really embarrassed right now. i've been in the process of archiving all my old e-mails, and as a result, a lot of older correspondence has come floating to the surface of my inbox. one unread piece has been bugging me for a couple weeks now, so i went ahead and clicked on it, with the intention of glancing through and then archiving it once and for all. it turns out that this e-mail was NOT what i've been thinking it was.

i guess last year i started filling out an americorps vista application, but i THOUGHT that i decided to hold off on finishing it. i guess... that was not actually the case? this e-mail, just over a year old, was an offer of a job interview with an organization that i probably would have been thrilled to work for. craaaaaaap! i feel terrible now, but the reason i never opened it is because i assumed it was a random americorps update that i wasn't interested in reading at the time.

last february... i was seriously looking for a job. if i'd managed to get this position, i would still be in san francisco now, just finishing up the year-long commitment. what on earth would the past 12 months have been like if that were the case? it's enough to make a girl wonder if she's really better off the way things are now.

oh well, there's a lesson for me: READ ALL YOUR FRIGGIN E-MAILS.

ok, correction: i would have been in concord, NH, not san fran, but that just makes it even crazier. i think i feel bad mostly because i never responded. like, i'm sure they contacted lots of people besides me, but it seems so impolite. and now that i look at the details, yeah, i would have enjoyed this immensely. alas!

Ok, I looked it up

2009-02-17T09:34:00.000+08:00

Wikipedia's explanation is actually pretty cool:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuanfen

re: yuanfen

2009-02-17T08:34:00.003+08:00

I'm sure I've spoken about yuanfen before, but since I can't verify that [because I am too lazy to go through the archives], here's the "definition." Yuan is a Chinese concept, and when they tell you that there's no English equivalent to the word, they're probably correct. I haven't been able to find one yet. You come close with ideas like serendipity, fate, destiny, "meant to be," but all those are considerably inadequate. For one thing-- the way I understand it-- they're a bit too grandiose. And more importantly, yuan is more of a subcategory dealing with relationships, so these words actually have too many applications to be accurate.

Yuanfen is something that is possessed by two people whose meeting was meant to be. A lot of people mention it when they've met someone, compared notes, and found some element in the relationship suggesting that a higher power was somehow involved. In the same situation, I might say, "what are the odds," or "clearly we have some connection." Whether there is yuanfen associated with all of our relationships is not clear to me. I have just opened the wikipedia page and intend to read it, but after writing what I was ACTUALLY planning to write when I opened this window...

RE: yuanfen

Last Friday, I hopped a train to Beijing to start my search for housing in the spring. I'd been reviewing ads for the past week and trying to set up viewings for the cheaper, more conveniently located apartments even while they were being snapped up. I'd scheduled my trip for that weekend so that I could also pay a visit to Julie, but as apartments came and went, there was a point where I was afraid there wouldn't be anything to look at by the time I got there. Just before leaving though, I confirmed two apartment visits, and this is the story of those.

Friday the subways were uncharacteristically crowded for the early afternoon. I mean all 3 lines I rode from Liujiayao all the way to the Ag Exhibition Ctr. Even the bus from the train station was crowded. My train came in probably around 1, and I was rushing to meet this guy at 3. As I stood on the crowded subway and realized that I was just barely going to make it in time, it occurred to me that I probably wouldn't want to make this same trip twice a week every week until May. Anyways, I jumped off the subway at the exhibition center and checked my watch. And started the rush out.

I wasn't all that clear on where I was going. It was a 10 minute walk, and I plotted out what I'd probably have to do on the google maps satellite image of the area (the map image is... outdated? completely not what the area looks like at this point in time?) and checked it against the map in the subway, but I was positive I'd have to call him for directions at some point.

On the escalator out of the station, I ended up behind this guy. He turned around at one point and gave me the awkward "I'm on the escalator, you're on the escalator" glare, and I glared back until he turned around again. Uuh, maybe you know this look I'm talking about. If not, pay attention next time you're on the escalator and you mistakenly make eye contact with someone.

That would have been the end of that, but something about the way he was dressed sort of jogged my imagination. Striped button up, green t-shirt, old-Chinese-man cloth shoes... His face looked Chinese, but it was entirely possible that he was from somewhere else. I saw him check the face of his cell phone, which is what I had been doing, and thought, "Hm. Wouldn't it be funny if this is the guy I'm supposed to meet at 3." I mean, because he was supposed to be coming in from work or something. Anyways, we got off the escalator and he turned right. Well, I was supposed to turn right. So I started walking after him. Then he took the next right I was supposed to take as well. I thought, "So be it. I am going to tail this guy until he a) deviates or b) leads me to the Korean restaurant where I'm supposed to wait for the apartment dude."

Well, this wouldn't be a story that I associated with yuanfen if it was (a). Ok, no, I take that back, I'm sure it still could be, it'd just have to be a lot longer. He landed me at the restaurant, but then kept walking into the xiaoqu next door, which I thought could well have been where the apartment was located. After a few moments, I got in touch with the guy and let him know I was outside. You are only given one guess as to who came out to collect me.

So that was fun. The next day I had a little bit of a public transportation snafu trying to get from Julie's to the subway, but it was minor... (nothing a Y10 3-minute cab ride couldn't solve). When I found out that the second apartment was at Liujiayao, I got pretty excited. Turns out it's right by that northwest exit, immediately next to the bus that goes to the train station. As I walked up with the girl, I found out that she and her roommate are actually Baotou ren! I met her boyfriend too, and he went to college at the school by the Baotou train station-- I'm pretty sure that's where Linda was teaching. And then it came out that she and her roommate went to college in Yantai. She was born in '83, so that essentially means that we might have been there around the same time. Speaking of age though, I (born, if you recall, in '84) tell people that I am 24. Due to the Chinese way of doing things, she tells people that she's 27. Go figure.

Anyways, we had a good time sort of talking about Baotou, even though she's from the eastern half and I lived in the western half (they're practically 2 different cities), I decided I liked the place, and I put down my deposit for the room! I'm moving in at the end of the month... well sort of.

On closed doors

2009-02-09T08:55:00.002+08:00

Apparently I don't exert enough force when trying out doorknobs on strange doors, and tend to conclude that they're locked when they really aren't. Recent manifestation: the door that stood between me and heat/hot water. It wasn't locked today and it wasn't locked two days ago. Sigh.

(and... it's not the first time)

Ha, Facebook meme

2009-02-08T23:39:00.003+08:00

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You also have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

Twenty-five random things about me.

1. As crappy as I am at it now, Chinese was my first language. When I first entered daycare at the age of 3, I (allegedly) spent all my time crying in the arms of one of the ladies there because I had no idea what was going on. I learned English by watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty on continuous repeat and singing along (I remember asking my parents what "familiar" meant, and coming away thinking that it meant "evil."). Then, when Arthur started using words like "dad" at home, I started doing it too.

2. When I was younger, my mom and I would watch cooking shows together CONSTANTLY. There was a lot of Julia Child, Yan Can Cook (love him, love him), and that skinny man with the beard. The Frugal Gourmet? We'd also go to the Union Twp Library and borrow videos on garnishing and cake decorating. These we would watch while I drank Crystal Light lemonade.

3. I got a bowl cut in the 1st grade, then started growing my hair out as long as I could. This lasted until, like, 6th grade? Anyways, back then, and then also in junior high, strangers would come up to me and demand that I never cut my hair. In the lunch line, waiting for the next roller coaster car, these girls would literally say, "You have such pretty hair! Please don't ever cut it, please!" Meanwhile, my dad was convinced that the weight of my hair was dragging down the right side of my head and resented it.

4. All right, I have a comic book collection. It is in the basement in a cabinet under the bookshelf. It is still being refreshed from time to time. Mostly it's X-men and its ilk. This is rounded out by the 4-player arcade game from the early '90s, original arcade cabinet. But if you're reading this, you knew I was a dork already, so whatevs.

5. I don't really enjoy shopping anymore. I am less and less a fan of the mall. That said, I still love perusing for trinkets and gifts in small shops, and sometimes a purchase can release some much-needed endorphins (just as making a return the next day allows me to feel like a responsible adult). None of this applies to food shopping, which I still approach with passion.

6. At birth (mine), the doctor apparently used pincers... wait... he was not a lobster. The doctor apparently used calipers to, uh, pull me out. My mom would look at my face sometimes while I was growing up and blame him for putting my eyebrows off-kilter.

7. You know the red Triaminic? I hated that stuff. I probably still hate it. You know when your doc told your mom that it's time for Triaminic and you went with her to the medicine aisle and prayed that you were getting the orange kind (for sinus trouble) but she always crushed your hopes by picking the red kind (for coughs)? That always happened to me! Anyways, as a result, I cannot enjoy cosmopolitans especially, and most drinks made with clear grain alcohol in general.

8. The single most-played song in my itunes right now, according to the program, is "Elevator Love Letter" by the Stars, by a surprisingly wide margin. My best explanation for this, other than that I do like that song, is that it topped one of my playlists for a while, so whenever I started it, that song would play first. But it's a good song.

9. I adore spicy food. The more tears and snot running down my face, the better. In fact, food like that feels like a gift from the universe directly to me. I date this back at least to mapo dofu when I was 7 or younger, though my most vibrant memory is of a PHENOMENAL bowl of beef noodle soup in some random little Taiwanese shop. Nothing compares, though these days a bowl of Lanzhou noodles with several hefty spoons of the available spices hits the spot. BTW, the best treatment for a sore throat is spicy food.

10. One summer, after spending most of one night awake in my dad's study finishing a history paper, I moved masses of blankets and pillows into the family room and set up a pretty comfortable bed for myself. I started brushing my teeth in the downstairs bathroom. My parents humored me, even though a) i was blocking the tv, and b) there was a giant bed in their family room. Then I came home one day at the end of the summer and it was gone. It was time. But I continued to brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom until we moved some years later.

11. My parents played oldies in the car, always (ok, not counting long car trips that necessitated those friggin Chinese music tapes), and so this is the music I listened to until just before high school. I couldn't tell you song titles, and would have a hard time naming any artists, but if it was popular in the '50s or '60s, I probably know all the words to it.

12. At a company picnic once, when I was young and oh-so-precocious, I found myself standing next to this woman who was lighting up a cigarette. I tapped her on the arm and said, "Girls don't smoke." She looked at me a moment, then said, "You know, you're right." And she put it out.

13. I used to treat dishwashing as a privilege, spending maybe an hour on a stool in front of a sudsy sink pouring heady "beers" into dirty cups, but that was an extremely long time ago. It is now something that I do not enjoy doing, but in the end I'm the person I trust most to get things satisfactorily clean.

14. Once I got out of the cartoon phase (i.e. when they cancelled She-Ra), my favorite show as a child was totally Get Smart. It's tough to watch now, but I'd stay up until 9 or whenever to catch it so I was always the most tired child in the mornings at daycare.

15. I'll wave to people as I say goodbye to them over the phone. It's not conscious, and I wouldn't know about it if someone hadn't pointed it out to me.

16. The first thing I learned to cook was scrambled eggs, followed quickly by egg fried rice. I also took advantage of the after-school cooking classes in elementary school. I don't remember any of those recipes, but during an illness that kept me home for two days, my mom taught me basic soy-marinated chicken and pork chops. That's come in handy.

17. It's great to have large gatherings of friends, but more than that I like hanging out with people one-on-one or in really small groups. The exception is groups of 3-- too often I'll just check out of those conversations.

18. Why are there so many pictures of you on my hard drive? Well, I'm a very nostalgic person, so even though my short-term memory is godawful, I put a lot of value into the things I can carry with me long-term. Sometimes one of my favorite activities is to just sit down with a friend and go over fond memories. Bonus points if there's a related video in which someone is singing. (This is also why things rarely get thrown away unless they've somehow proven perishable.)

19. If you ask me a question, I will answer it truthfully. I can't ever bring myself to lie. I'm sure I could be pretty good at it, but I don't like to let myself. The exception to this, of course, is if you are one of my parents and I think the answer is going to really tip the boat over. But even that has rarely rarely ever happened (like, twice in recent memory, and I can't even remember one of the times). This also means that I can't take being lied to, which i's one thing that will make me truly angry. Caveat: this doesn't mean that I don't get a kick out of bullshitting, which I do with vigor. It's fun, isn't it?

20. I am uncomfortable in situations in which I have to bargain or fight someone over the price of an object or service. I mean, I hate getting ripped off in any case, but most of the time, it seems like I'm not the one getting ripped off.

21. Traffic sucks ass, but I love to drive. Given a reasonably open back road or highway and enough juice in my music player, I don't even care where I'm going. My dream excursion is a long road trip.

22. Around 3rd grade I entered a non-fiction reading phase, and one week I'd read everything in the library about dolphins, and the next week it was volcanoes, then killer bees, ants, poisonous plants, snakes, and so on. At one point I read every synopsis of old-school horror flicks on the shelves. That's how I know the plots of the various Draculas, Phantoms, Frankensteins, and so on, even though I'm still too chickenshit to watch them myself.

23. I really can't stand the smell of pollen or any flower that smells heavily of pollen (lilies, if you need an example). This smell was everywhere right after my grandpa died, I'm assuming from all the funeral flowers, and I thought I could smell it on all my mom's clothes. I associate it with headaches and dizziness, which I was probably experiencing at the time.

24. Meanwhile, I can't tell you how many buses I've missed in Berkeley because I got distracted by all the gorgeous flowers in people's gardens. It really is nice to stop and smell the flowers, photos optional. And yes, I have TONS of photos. And yes, this also applies to rocks, cool bark, metalwork, found notes and tickets, glass, parked cars, clouds, the moon, and most things that are shiny. My attention span is what it is.

25. Anything that makes me laugh wins. Not to be confused with an ironic chuckle or snort-- I mean laughter that makes me throw my head back, fall out of a chair, or pee a little bit. I can forgo sleep (and GOD I love sleep) but I can't forgo this.

Please prepare to get off

2009-02-07T21:11:00.002+08:00

It's 9:10pm over here, as far as I can tell, and I'm going to bed soon without a shower. Yes, that does suck a whole lot, but there's nothing for it. I had a sense that this might happen, this being that my hosts are on their own vacation and turned off the heat for their absence-- it's happened before. This was back when I had to be over here to work on my essays every day, so I just wore lots of clothes during the day and froze my butt off during the night. This time, however, they turned the hot water off as well, which leaves me cold *and* dirty. Ah well. Technically there is another place that I live here, and there's plenty of hot water and heat there... but... I might as well admit that I don't like it there. I mean, the bed's comfy, I share the room with a nice girl but there's enough space, BUT the bathroom sketches me out. It's too bad that I have bathroom issues, but I have serious bathroom issues. Bathrooms are game-changers for me in just about every situation I can imagine. So the Baotou bathroom was grimy, but it was spacious. This too is grimy, but that's what sandals are for. What honestly kills it for me here is that to flush, the toilet fills with water almost to the rim before emptying. I'll leave the implications to subtlety. Oh it just freaks me out so much that I like to avoid it whenever possible. Ah well. Since I suspect that the key to the heating controls is sailing somewhere in the vicinity of South America right now, I'll clearly have to just let this one go.

Anyways, that's not anything like what I was planning to talk about, which was my return trip. Wednesday night, Sam stayed the night at my place and the two of us hightailed it to the airport at 5:30 Thursday morning. Roads were clear, weather was clear. Continental baggage policy is a little confusing, so I arrived thinking that I had 70 lbs clearance for my just-over-50 lbs suitcase. After being redirected to Delta to check in for my connection flight, I was informed that 50 was the limit. In the past, United and Continental agents have weighed a slightly overweight bag and just thrown the stickers on it, no questions asked. This gentleman suggested that I remove 4 lbs of stuff from my suitcase and carry it on my person. So... In addition to the load of books and laptop gear already in my carry-ons, were now even more books and also a pair of flip-flops. I don't think this backpack was meant to distribute that kind of weight that well (not to mention the satchel on my shoulder), so I actually felt, throughout this whole thing, that I was carrying something heavy. My back does sort of ache now, but that's also probably the whole awkward sleeping positions thing too.

We were a tiny bit late boarding the aircraft in CVG because of the security check, but since it was a small jet with few passengers, it didn't take long once they opened the door. They gave the security spiel and we started taxiing, when suddenly the plane stopped... and sat there. The captain came on to tell us that there was a maintenance issue, and we needed to return to the gate in order to fix it. They were expecting it to take about 10-15 minutes, then 10-15 for de-icing, and then we'd be on our way. I was a bit nervous at this point because I'd booked the flight with a decent window of layover time, but it was by no means very long. 10-15 minutes would have been ok though. Well, two hours later, we finally started taxiing out again. During those two hours, we lost several businessmen who needed to be in important meetings (at least one of them was going off to call in), we lost our first officer who timed out (whatever that means), we lost one of our attendants I think for the same reason, and our captain left the plane to bring coffee from Peet's for everyone. When the coffee came around, I declined, and this was because I was in the middle of what might have been a slight anxiety attack. It was being fueled by my recent paranoia for flight, and given that there was this mysterious "maintenance issue" that was "taking them longer than they thought to fix," there was a bit to keep me going there. Also was the fact that as time went on, the window for me to make my connection was narrowing, and I didn't know what sorts of randomness finding my gate would entail. Also, I just wasn't comfortable. I hadn't had much sleep the night before, and my morning was just very emotional-- leaving the house, the comforts of home. There was also never a moment that I just stepped back and felt, "Yes, I'm packed," or "Yes, I feel ready to go." So sitting in that cold airplane, staring at a collection of bleached dead insects trapped IN the panes of the window, wondering how the hell they got in there and whether or not the fact that they did was in any way a safety hazard, I just started losing my cool. There was a moment that I knew that I would never make my flight, and I started asking the attendant what I should do. One thought was that I could get right off the plane and deal with the agents at CVG and possibly just go home and delay until my folks got back... but she never really had a response for me. Just always "hmmm, I'll let them know" or something equally ineffectual. I asked her again at the hour and 45 minute mark, but was interrupted when they announced the completion of the maintenance work. She was just like "Well, enough said!" I'd been having this internal battle about whether or not to get off the plane, since I knew the other option was to end up having to deal with a missed flight in Newark, where I do not live. But then I figured, what the hell. Better to just see what happens this way. Well, maybe not. But whatever.

In Newark, I went straight to a gate agent to explain the deal, and a man came up behind me saying he had the exact same issue. One solution would have been to cancel and try racing over to JFK to catch a flight that we probably would never have made either. I... opted no for that one. The lady sent us over to Delta ticketing, which, in Newark, is... weird. Anyways, after standing there a long time while they tried to work things out with Continental, I walked off with a ticket for the next day, a hotel voucher, and two meal vouchers, and went looking for my bag. Lucky for me, a guy was JUST pulling it off the carousel as we got there. Unlucky for the other guy, his bag was nowhere to be seen. Also, Continental was giving some bullshit about his ticket. We ended up separating there, and I found out later that he was at the airport for a couple more hours. I got some lunch, which then became my dinner, and then went looking for the hotel shuttle.

The Wyndham Hotel by the airport is actually not too shabby. I was very impressed by their bath products, which were Bath & Body Works True Blue Spa. [Oh MAN I'm getting cold. Still can't see my breath though, which is all right]. Also, most of the people working there were really nice. I got in, got situated, and passed out until nightfall. It did me a lot of good, I think. At some point after I woke up, I realized I was sitting in a king-sized bed. I turned on all the lights, but still things seemed dim. I went for a spin, to get some ice and buy something to drink. I got some guava juice, ate the rest of my corned beef sandwich, and watched Family Guy and CNN. After a bit more time, I went to use my dinner voucher in the hotel restaurant. It was only $7, but after my sandwich, I really just wanted some soup. The split pea was pretty good. I then decided to follow it up with fruit, but the fruit salad didn't sound that great. The other option was melon, which, at this time of year, is cantaloupe. I ordered cantaloupe. I was presented with half of a cantaloupe and a steak knife. This was beyond my wildest dreams. I got it wrapped up and took it back upstairs. Back in the room, I watched a little bit of American Gladiators, and listened to my ipod through the alarm clock, read, wrote, figured out why the internet hadn't been working for me. I showered too, which was nice. Then... more sleep.

Everything went smoothly the next day, if you don't count me carrying way too much stuff everywhere. The passengers were sparse, so there was an empty seat between me and my rowmate. It was actually cramped though because the seat in front of me reclined to the point that if I sat up straight, it would have been on my forehead. So eating was ridiculous. The guy I was sitting with was nice, and before the flight ended he offered me a couple Reese's cups for the road. I finally got to see The Secret Life of Bees, which played on one of my SFO flights, but which I didn't watch then because you have to pay for Delta's headsets. It was good. I teared up.

So, obviously the multi-entry visa worked just as described. I'm presumably all set for the next 120 days. I'm going to be here less than 120 days. That somehow just made me feel a bit better. At baggage claim, I moved most of the books back into my suitcase. Then...

I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to get back to TEDA from the airport. I'd been told in the past that there was a bus, and I was hoping to just... ask a bunch of people and figure out where I could find it. FYI, girls working information at PEK don't really speak English. But one of them directed me out exit 11 to where the shuttle buses were waiting. I went to the end of the line to find the Tianjin stop and ask if there was anything anywhere going to where I was going. I am stating for the record right now, for anyone who googles "Beijing airport bus to TEDA," there is, as of February 7th, 2009, NO BUS from the airport to TEDA, or even Tanggu station. I asked what they suggested, but even if I took the bus to Tianjin, taxiing around there to get either to the light rail or just back to TEDA would have been way more than I was willing to spend. Also, I don't know Tianjin at all. Also, no way was I dragging my suitcase around any place I didn't know.

So... I turned around, and headed down to the Express Train to the subway. I figured I'd be able to make a train to Tanggu and maybe still avoid a population crush. For reference, our plane landed at about 2:45pm.

Took the express to Sanyuanqiao, and decided to just get off there. It seemed like it might be easier to navigate than Dongzhimen (where I got lost and annoyed last time) and would drop off higher up on the 5, and I wanted to get on that as soon as possible. This was not a bad idea, as it turned out, except some random girl cut in front of me to buy a subway ticket (and I HATE that shit) and I had to put all my bags through the x-ray (but one of the attendants helped me) and then one of the girls at the x-ray machine really wanted to see if she could lift my suitcase but never actually asked me-- she just took it from the guy and started carrying it away and I had to walk after her with this look on my face like "do you realize that I'm here to catch a train" and even when I finally got it back from her she didn't say a single word to me, just stared off into space with this vacuous smile on her face. Also, no down escalator in that station.

It was a bit weird on the train, this guy who'd been standing near me on the platform decided to strike up a conversation. He asked if I was coming from abroad, where I'd been, did I spend new years there, was it fun... I was like... this is not information that I feel comfortable divulging on the subway when I have so much stuff to deal with. Then came the typical "are you from the south" and I ended up just telling him that I was from the US. He complimented my Chinese, at which point I noticed a girl laughing. I have no idea either way, but I just had the feeling that she was laughing at this conversation. THEN he went and said that he felt comfortable talking to me? Like... you know when you first see someone...something something something, did I know what he meant? I said I didn't know. Cuz I only caught part of it anyways, and it just didn't seem like something I wanted to agree to. He said that I had a nice smile. And something about teeth showing. I said thanks and just... tried to avoid making eye contact again. I was really not feeling whatever this was that was going on. Anyways, as I was about to exit he started going through his wallet for his card, but, too bad, he didn't have any on him. Oh well! I rushed to transfer. No down escalator here either, but some guy behind me took pity and helped me get my bag down the steps. The train here was packed. It was on this train that I realized that I hate the general pushiness of the population here. Like... the people I'm ok with (for the most part... there have been a few so-called "customer service" agents I've wanted to slap), people you talk to are generally nice. But lordy the population, the pushing, shoving, cutting, yelling, and general disregard for others that you get at ticket counters, on subways, at crosswalks, pisses me off to no end. This is what I typically find myself complaining about at the end of a long day.

The whole subway trip from Sanyuanqiao took maybe an hour? I was so relieved to finally make it to Liujiayao, but was slightly apprehensive because I didn't know which exit to take. Last time I tried this, I took a couple different exits, and by the time I figured out which was the right one, I was completely muddled. The problem this time was that I was only giving myself one shot to get the right one. If it was wrong, the trouble it would take to either get my bags back downstairs, or across the street, or, heaven forbid, up the stairs to a skybridge, across the street, and down back to street level, would be more than it was worth to just take a taxi from any of the incorrect exits. But... man, I'm cheap here. I went with the Northwest exit. For future reference, THIS IS THE CORRECT EXIT. I chose it because it ran completely opposite to what my guess would have been. I figured I must have tried Southeast last time, and it turns out that was true. Turns out there's a part of the ascent from the station that involves stairs. There's a wheelchair lift, evidently, but I'm guessing I would have had a lot of trouble getting that operating anyways. But a girl coming up behind me offered to help. Again, awesome. Especially awesome because by this point my body had really almost had it.

When I got above-ground, my first thought was "CRAP." Then I realized that I was in the right place. Confirmed when I saw the big Suning building. Started making my way to the bus stop, and the 652 bus came right as I approached. I still had to bang on the door to get them to let me on, and at that point dragged my suitcase on like it was a piece of carrion, first heaving it onto its side, dragging it a few inches, then pulling it upright. Paid for 2 tickets-- one for me and one for my suitcase. It occurred to me that I would have thrown a tantrum if, say, the AC Transit driver demanded a second fare for a suitcase. But this did not faze me when it happened multiple times on my way through Beijing in December, and I didn't give a whit this time either.

The 652 made quick time to Beijing Nan, I got my ass up the escalator, through security, and over to an automatic ticketing machine. Hell if I was going to deal with an actual ticketing agent. It was 5:10. The only ticket available to me (or so it seemed... the machine wasn't very sensitive and I was really unfocused so I couldn't really tell what was going on) was 18:50, which I originally interpreted, incorrectly of course, as 5:50. I figured it out though. I sat around for an hour and a half, reading, kind of comfy, but slowly needing to pee more and more.

I discovered, upon boarding the train, that there was actually enough room for my suitcase in the seat with me. There was no legroom, but at least I could keep it within my sight and not have to drag it any further. So I grabbed the window seat, caused some confusion for the other two fellas in my row when they finally showed up, but no biggie. Stacked my things on top of one another. My ipod has now chosen not to play yet another one of my favorite songs. SIGH. After receiving my free bottle of Tibetan spring water, I just collapsed over my things-- basically wrapped my body around them-- and fell asleep for the ride. I woke up for a few things: the arrival in Tianjin, and several moments when the guy in front of me tried to recline his seat. Usually, whatever, but with my suitcase, he couldn't really get his seat back as far as... he would have liked it? I couldn't tell if he was just a flopper or if he was actively trying to push his seat back farther than I was letting him go. But every time he did whatever he was doing, my suitcase tilted, and world got rocked.

I was in a total daze upon exiting at Tanggu. I was also freezing. I just wanted to get in a taxi and get back to TEDA. The swarm of people grabbing taxis at the exit, though, was insane. In the past, I've either had the mobility to wander farther afield for a taxi, or have had to purchase tickets for another trip and so missed the mass exodus that I was at that moment being swept into. I'm actually not sure what happened. A man asked where I was going. I told him, and assumed that I'd be going with him. But then he asked another group of people where they were going. Then they asked him how much he was charging, and I was like, wait, I can't handle that right now. So I started walking the line, looking for the point where the number of people jumping taxis petered out. Then suddenly another man was in front of me, asking if I was going to TEDA. I'm still not sure how he knew. But he said what sounded like 10 yuan to go, and motioned me into his cab where two other women were sitting. He'd already whisked away my suitcase and I was trying to figure out in my head if I was getting ripped off or not. Well, not, I was saving at least Y1.40. I got in. Was slightly unsure if he knew exactly where he was taking me. We dropped one woman off first, then I got into the front seat and then remembered my thing about sitting in the front seat of Chinese vehicles with no seatbelts. I think I did not fasten my seatbelt. He drove me in to the complex as far as he could, I gave him a 20 just to see if he'd really said 10, and he had. I clambered upstairs, and about 5 and a half hours after touching down in Beijing, I was "home."

From the rental car

2009-01-28T07:22:00.003+08:00

I'm sorry but I'm just thinking of the right words to say
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be
But if you wait around a while I'll make you fall for me
I promise you
I promise you
I will

Making a difference

2009-01-18T11:02:00.001+08:00

Actually, it really helps to have a visual aid like this.

more music charts

What does work, however...

2009-01-09T15:35:00.003+08:00

... is pouring the cool, damp coffee grounds from the last cup you made into a paper towel, rolling it up, and using it to massage the eye area when it seems like your lids weigh like a thousand pounds. I admit this was the result of a sudden wild urge as opposed to anything that was thought out at all, but I figured that if the Body Shop makes products with this theme, then home experimentation shouldn't be too dangerous. In any case, I feel tons better now... lights are somehow brighter... placebo effect? Perhaps. But I guess it was worth it.

FYI: coffee and you

2009-01-09T11:21:00.003+08:00

In case you were wondering, no, introducing caffeine through the surface of the eye (a la the first episode of cowboy bebop) is not an effective method of making the eyelids any lighter. At least not if you're doing it the way I accidentally just done it, and not at this point in the game.

Lots of jagged edges

2009-01-09T11:12:00.003+08:00

Here's a recommendation: when cleaning a home coffee grinder, do NOT blow into it. Doing so will scatter the grounds onto your face. The debris will cling--stealthily-- to your eyelashes until such a time as individual bits will drop onto the surface of your eyeball. The pain comes over and over again, even after you thought you cleared the offending particles away last time.

i have no $*$&%^ing idea

2009-01-02T10:12:00.003+08:00

i dislike what is happening right now. i think i may have just wasted the whole day. i just looked up cornell bhangra, base, and absolute zero on youtube... and did not write anything during that period of time. this is because i finally got up enough energy to start typing and realized that everything was crap crap crap. what has my "journey" been? how did i get to this point where i am trapped indoors all the time applying to grad school? well, the most honest and straightforward answer is the answer i gave when they asked more or less the same question for the statement of purpose. what came to mind and which i failed at articulating over the past 24 hours is that a) i am applying for grad school because i know what i want to do, but b) i don't know enough about it to just go out and do it without first attending grad school. c) i figured out what i want to do thanks to college ntres classes and a lot of community service + helping out at all these random npos over the years. d) that only ended up happening because i was raised to be the kind of optimistic/idealistic/community-loving person that i am. and this is where i lose the thought... because i couldn't just pinpoint for you where exactly that came from. the prompt suggests examples like, "you grew up in an area with an abundance or lack of educational opportunities" or some shit like that. and i'm like... is that really what this is supposed to be about? if you want to know about a student's socie-economic background, just... put a stupid multiple choice question in the application. why make people jump through these kinds of hoops? what about that makes a person more or less attractive as a candidate? why do i need to write a paean to the lakota public school system? maybe i'm reading this whole thing wrong (like last time) but it just makes me a little ill. i don't think i'm going to say a word about any of that because i honestly don't think the admissions committee is at all entitled to make me qualify that information. i think instead i'll write about how i got so involved in community service and how the desire to continue serving and be both environmentally conscious and effective about it has led me through all sorts of reinforcing experiences to the point where i'm on the verge of tears most days at the mercy of all these admissions deadlines. of course now the challenge is to do that while being as un-trite as possible. it's difficult. if you don't try, you write an essay like millions of others before yours. if you try too hard you sound like an affected moron. ok i think part of my brain is phasing out because i've been dropping "o's" from "too" pretty consistently for months. ok and my laptop insides just started howling. what is going on? anyways i've mostly given up my battle against cliches, because there's no way that in a pool of thousands of other essays, that mine's going to be particularly "original." no. we all got the same prompt, our goals are pretty similar (we all want to go to grad school), and we're not the first nor the last to have to deal with this crap.

ARGH. ok i think i need to turn my computer off right now. and then shower. and then turn it back on again. today SUCKED. though... i guess i did get a chance to watch before sunrise again. good movie! and also got to sear some scallops and roast fingerling potatoes (which i'm pretty sure were leftover from when i bought them in AUGUST). my mom will be upset when she gets home and sees the mess :)

The destination, not the journey

2009-01-01T11:32:00.003+08:00

Trying to write about "the journey that has led" me to grad school. It was long, rambly, twisty, and nonsensical even to me even at the best of times... not sure how to go about condensing it into 500 words. And anyways, it's hard to think when I've got this song stuck in my head:

When I Get to the Border

Dirty people take what's mine
I can leave them all behind
They can never cross that line
When I get to the border

Sawbones standing at the door
Waiting 'till I hit the floor
He won't find me anymore
When I get to the border

Monday morning, Monday morning
Closing in on me
I'm packing up and I'm running away
To where nobody picks on me

If you see a box of pine
With a name that looks like mine.
Just say I drowned in a barrel of wine.
When I got to the border
When I got to the border

A one way ticket's in my hand
Heading for the chosen land
My troubles will all turn to sand
When I get to the border

Salty girl with yellow hair
Waiting in that rocking chair
And if I'm weary I won't care
When I get to the border

Monday morning, Monday morning
Closing in on me
I'm packing up and I'm running away
To where nobody picks on me

The dusty road will smell so sweet
Paved with gold beneath my feet
And I'll be dancing down the street
When I get to the border
When I get to the border

It's resonating right now, and I'm sure you can count several reasons why that would be.
Meanwhile, there are some loud guests at my parents' new years party downstairs. Good thing I have my pinot up here.

The stones get bigger and bigger

2008-12-25T15:29:00.002+08:00

A piece of fatherly advice that my uncle offered to one of my cousins at dinner tonight, as initially inscrutable as it was unsolicited, and repeated several times. We were picking on my cousin's "dating history" and had begun to move away from the topic when this gem was placed before us. I think what he was getting at is that by not picking the first stone you see on the beach, you have a chance to examine and choose from the bounty that remains, and that each time you pick up a stone, you will have picked a better stone. This did not come across right away, and we had a good long wtf moment to savor with one another. This was by far the most interactive Christmas dinner in history, maybe because there were fewer people so us kids could line up all along one side of the table. Also, I cooked the majority of it. I started by making cioppino stock last night, then this afternoon put together mashed potatoes, stuffed peppers (a la mrs. L), macaroni and cheese, and completed cioppino. Janice and Arthur got in around 3, rousing me from my nap, and we piled into the kitchen together. Janice made some nice bruschetta for everyone to snack on while waiting for the rest of the family to arrive, and Arthur heated up the ham and made the glaze for it.

So, a note on the peppers. These turned out very well, but I have to put a warning here to my future self: wear gloves next time, for heaven's sake. The peppers themselves looked pretty mild, and having eaten them before, I was under the impression that the heat level was fairly low. Well, it is, but that doesn't actually matter when it comes to using your bare hands to tear out the seeds. After a while, I found myself staring at my hands, wondering why I felt like they were covered in tiny little cuts. Could I have been that careless with the knife? Probably like an hour later (ok, maybe half an hour), I realized that, oh, the acid or capsaicin or whatever was burning invisibly through my flesh. So I dunked them in milk. Then rinsed them with beer. Now, nearly 12 hours, several hand-washings and a long shower later, my right hand is most definitely still on fire. It's like having my fingers on a hot range. Ooooooow.

Ok, speaking of, I just had to go flush my hand under cold water. And now I shall continue. Food was pretty good. Got a little paranoid with the cioppino, so the fish was a bit overcooked maybe. Dinner didn't last long. Afterwards, some of us sat down to watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, while others started going through old medical supplies. Eventually, I ended up downstairs with Arthur, Janice, and Alex, watching the Top Chef Christmas special.

Afterwards, Janice was really into the idea of dessert. I... wasn't hungry, but I did really have a hankering for whipped cream, and you can generally get me on board to cook around midnight as long as someone else will be doing the dishes. Also, this was the first time post- late nite cooking show that I had enough ingredients/eaters on-hand to fulfill any culinary cravings. Janice thought crepes sounded like a good idea (possibly inspired by the sudden death-round offering of one of the remaining chefs), so we ventured back upstairs to search out the recipe and rustle up interest. Turns out one of my uncles had eaten 5 slices of raisin bread because he'd really wanted dessert. So I whipped up a chocolate sauce, very easy, just by heating up some milk, stirring in some cocoa powder, adding half a large bar of dark chocolate, removing from heat, whisking up, and tossing in some cinnamon and powdered sugar. It had a slightly liquid-chalk appearance before serving since some of the stuff was thrown in after the mixture had cooled, but it was still smooth, drizzly, and tasty. Arthur was de facto in charge of crepe batter and, never having made crepes before, did a really good job and keeping them thin, spongy, and moist, though the shapes ended up being rather non-traditional. Janice raided the fridge, peeling and cutting several apples, then threw them in a skillet with some butter, brown sugar (why do I keep wanting to spell that "shugar?"), vanilla, and spices. She then cut up some bananas, and also put them in butter. I added brown sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg to that. We tried mixing up some whipped cream, but the hand mixer doesn't get enough air in to actually make this work. I pulled the whisk from chocolate duty and started on the cream that way, and it was successful. I set Daniel up with the heavy arm-work, and once he got the hang of it, he whipped up some pretty nice cream. When everything finished, we set up an assembly line, and everyone came to get dessert!

Very fun. Afterwards, Arthur and Janice left with the dog, and I went for my shower. On a completely separate note: I LOVE my new hairstyle. I don't know if this can ever be replicated or not, but I hope so! Maybe I can find some reason to take pictures of myself before it starts doing its own thing again... On another separate note: I'm screwed with these apps. Haven't worked on them in earnest in a week or possibly more. Eek!

Ok, fingers still searing hot. I'm assuming I'll be able to sleep with this going on, and that it'll have burned itself out by morning.

See you on the other side

2008-12-21T10:04:00.002+08:00

Ok, so not to be negative or anything, but it's been really windy outside for the past 12 hours straight and it's gotten me to thinking about whether or not I'll be making it home on time/in one piece for the holidays. I've been a little edgy about flying since last January, and all this winter storm advisory stuff hanging over the places I'm flying through on my dates of travel makes me uneasy. Continental has a re-accomodation option right now for both Newark and CVG through the 22nd, and I'm like... better safe than sorry? That's a huge pain though, I just really really really want to go home!

Ok, article at weather.com makes it sound as though the worst of the storm should be past by the time I land in Newark on Monday... so... yeah, let's hope that's the case. I think I just am not that comfortable with the idea of most of our flight coming over the Arctic and the Canadian northeast.

Anyways, it's probably not the best idea tempting-fate-wise to go posting this on the internet, but in case I ever go down in a plane (which, I realized last night, the probability gets higher as I fly more) my loved ones (you know who you are) are welcome to search out my passwords and read all my diaries and tell the relevant people what I've always thought about them. Just don't be too embarrassed for me, please.

Maybe I'm addicted to caffeine again?

2008-12-17T23:19:00.004+08:00

I should actually be working on my plan for my project in the spring, but I just spent a few hours editing something for the cardiovascular hospital (and i do mean a few hours), so I'd like to take a breather. I'm surprisingly not into being awake right now, even though it's not yet 11:30 (though, ideally, I'd be in bed within half an hour from now), and I also took the opportunity to pass out for about 3 hours after lunch. I can explain that part though. I got a bit of a headache this morning that I exacerbated by making the 20-25 minute walk home for lunch. I thought it would be nice to get some fresh air and sun and exercise since I'd likely be spending the rest of the day cooped up with various tasks, but did not account for very cold wind. By the time I got up to the apartment, I was feeling all kinds of unpleasant sensations.

I have been wondering a bit about the state of my body recently. As far as I know, I'm eating well, sleeping all right (certainly not as much as I'd like... usually about 5-7 hours a night, 8 on the weekends). But sometimes I'll be walking and... I go out of phase with my body for a moment. It's unsettling, like I lose signal from my limbs for a second or so and just have to wait to get it back again. At those times my arms and legs go all wobbly and my head takes on a gelatinous quality while my vision loses a bit of distinction. Totally weird. I don't think I'm sick. Besides, the illness I had a couple weeks ago was all sinuses and didn't even give me a headache. I'd guess maybe it's stress, but I'm kind of in a state of denial about all my work right now. Not that I don't know that I should be doing it, and not that I'm not doing it (though slowly for lack of looming deadlines) but just... I'm unnaturally cheerful and inexplicably willing to play hours of Free Cell.

Couple other things to talk about. What were they...?

They made me do it

2008-12-11T16:34:00.002+08:00

I hope whoever's reading gets a good laugh out of this.

I went, bitterly, to the school yesterday afternoon to give my "speech." I'd just made a series of notes of things to touch on, and assumed that my rambling ways would fill at least 45 minutes, and that the students would be sufficiently curious to ask a few questions that would let me ramble a further 15 minutes. I went and started talking... the room was actually pretty full, and a lot of my students were there. I chose to gauge myself based on the face of a particular student, who was smiling and nodding most of the time, but about 10 minutes in, I realized that I'd lost most of the room. Soooo I just kept going. I finished with 10 minutes for questions, but there were none. The student who was chairing the lecture got up and said "due to the time, we should bring the lecture to a close..." and THEN suggested that I perform in some way for their entertainment. They wanted song or dance. Obviously I was not going to dance. And sing? Moi? You may not know this about me, but I love singing. But I love singing so that you do not know about it. I'm happy to do it in the shower, in my car, in an empty house, at drunken karaoke... yeah, that's fine. And I'd hazard that, in the absence of anyone to critique my ability, I ain't bad. But I'm sorry, put me on the spot and expect me to serenade you out of my ass, and you're in for an unpleasant experience. Anyways, there was more than 100 of them, and one of me, and this boy very humbly came up and expressed profound interest in it, and I couldn't think of any way to escape... I thought actually how much I wished I was a dude. Dudes I think can really respond to a song request however they want. Girls have some bizarre reputation to uphold with their tinking voices and such. So... I cleared my throat... a lot... reminded them that I was sick (I don't think they understood me) and after a long awkward silence...like... worst performance of "Another Day" EVER. OH MY GOD I haven't been so embarrassed in a long time. Long long time. I did not like how I felt at the end of that ordeal. I made the insistent student come up and sing also, and he came up bashfully, then like... broke into a rolicking rendition of some Chinese song about a pretty girl (I was implicated here), and it was fun. Then we were all dismissed. I spent like the next hour trying to figure out what I could have done differently to make that any less of a traumatic experience. Sigh.

Other things of note: I was recently trapped in the revolving door at the front of the Archives building. Not like I was spinning around infinitely. Like I must have dodged the sensor somehow, so the door didn't speed up once I entered it, instead rotating at what I'm assuming is its energy conserving velocity. It very clearly printed (in Chinese) at face-level (for me) on the glass not to push the door. But not quite understanding the mechanism behind the door's movement, I figured it was a 50-50 chance that pushing on it would get me out sooner, as opposed to like... setting off an alarm or something. I nudged it slightly, found that it was unforgiving, and decided just to wait and walk very slowly until I reached open air. Then I heard the guard behind me yelling. It seemed like he was saying "[something something] push it!" Well, since I wasn't pushing it, it seemed unlikely that he was telling me to stop. So after a few moments and still not quite getting what he was saying to me, I gave the door a hearty shove. Aaaand it stopped moving altogether, positioned just so I had no hope of escape either forward or backward, like a bug in a jar. A group of workers standing just outside burst into laughter. I... also laughed. The guard behind me laughed and came to my rescue. My first such experience.

Blathering about culture speech

2008-12-09T21:13:00.002+08:00

What that whole thing was supposed to segue into was a scratch sheet for this dumb speech I have to give tomorrow. Like I said, I remembered it last night right as I was settling in to watch some Dex before bed. I cussed a bunch, regretted the whole situation, and groaned both inwardly and outwardly, but actually I think I just felt really guilty for having forgotten and not worked on it at all. So what's going down is that tomorrow afternoon I'm going to be set loose in an auditorium of up to 100 students (likely less) to give a speech for culture month. I've been asked to talk about "college life in America." Apparently, there's a teacher from New Zealand (blogger insists that this is spelled wrong. why must it make me doubt myself?) who will be giving a simultaneous talk on Western lit. Um, ok dude. So... what on earth am I going to say to them?

I suppose I'd like to talk about the whole getting-into-college process. I plan on going somewhat into the "infinite possibilities" spiel, but also want to be... sensitive about it because this is a vocational college and they sort of don't have those there, or at least that's what I've been getting. I'm obviously going to talk a bit about my own experiences, but I don't really want this to turn into one big "well, when I was in college" tale, because there is no random discovery of money at the end of it to make it of particular interest. Also, isn't that a bit pedantic? I guess I could talk a bit about the pluralization of college. Pluralization? Popularization? Populization? That last one doesn't make it through spell-check. But then neither do any contractions or, for that matter "New Zealand." What makes college culture in the US? It's the freedom of exploration right? We're safe to go just about as far out there as we want in terms of research and expression. It's like being in a biosphere on another planet. OH SHIT THAT'S WHAT MY DREAM WAS ABOUT THIS AFTERNOON. Man, that was suuuch a weird dream. You're so far away from the things that troubled you before you went, and you're not quite into the things that will trouble you once you leave. It's about discovering the world and yourself. And to do that, you need your professors, your libraries, your quiet places, and your fellow students. What dominated my college experience? Late nights. God, how many nights weren't late nights? I had late nights enjoying company, laughing and playing and whatever. And lots of really intense nights working like a mofo. I had so much more energy in college to devote to stuff like that, and a lot of enthusiasm (well, and also plain old-fashioned fear). Yeah, late nights working. I just... recall so many. But few specifics. Also dominating-- extracurricular... stuff. Getting involved in lots of stuff. Getting to know what I liked and didn't like about being in groups. Meeting tons of new people and working with them on... stuff. Haha.

Oh wait I can shower now. Brb.

It seems to me all of a sudden that maybe this is best continued not on blogger. Not that it would necessarily be any more productive in any other medium, but I want more ease of mobility.

I want futuristic touch screens!

Inner tickings

2008-12-09T20:17:00.002+08:00

What I'd really like to do now is shower (like, I'd really really like to shower), but as there are reporters here interviewing Mrs. L, I guess I should be prudent and hold off on that.

My mind hasn't really recovered yet from last week. I'm no longer sick, I don't think. In any case, I'm not snotting up as much anymore, and when I do have to blow my nose, the product is no longer neon enough to grab my attention. Sunday night I took Tylenol cold nighttime medication and basically had to come home yesterday afternoon to sleep the rest of it out of my system for about 4 hours. Or 5? Funny I can't recall. What's troublesome of course is that I can't seem to get things in order. It's like some sort of bizarre manifestation of ptsd. I keep making lists of things I have to do, and it's gotten longer within the past hour or so just while I was at dinner. Write an article about the TCSVA and donate it to Nov's blog. Write two new statements of purpose for UM, preferably before I board my flight on the 22nd. Write a speech for the college's cultural festival to be given tomorrow afternoon (obviously I've gotta get on that one). Ponder the menu for this year's Christmas feast. Shop and purchase gifts online (based on their website Express really doesn't seem like it wants my money at all). Pick a topic for Harvard's silly analysis essay. Draw out a plan for a weekly kid's activity day for the springtime, to be presented to the secretary before I leave next Friday. File Berk's DCRP supplemental form before the 15th. Start thinking about what I'm going to tell the SD people when my interview eventually rolls around. Write a "why you should extend my visa" essay for the authorities. Respond to e-mails.

You know, those kinds of things. Without an applications deadline looming close, it's hard for me to apportion my time. I was doing pretty well before the great brain sewage backup of 3/4/5 weeks ago... whenever it was that I started working on the SD application. What I have now is the illusion of respite, and I really need to fight this. It's just sad because I haven't had much of a chance to get to know this town, and there's some new friends here that I should really be spending more time with, and honestly there's some volunteer stuff that I haven't been able to commit myself to, because I've been hunkered down with these apps. Because I want to dual degree at UM, I think I need to specialize my SPs some more, and that's going to take time if not a fresh start. And both are due at the same time. But between now and then is the stress of travel and then the holidays. And I can't really work up to the deadline this time, because not a week after comes Harvard, who wants customized everything, then not a week after that, several other schools on the same day. Daaaaang my adrenaline just went up.

Oh, another thing: pay my cell phone bill!

Last night I suddenly remembered that I had this speech thing tomorrow and I flipped. At the time I was also just being generally upset about the fact that I'd have to teach this morning. Like I told someone earlier today, it's my least favorite part of the week. I don't mean the actual teaching part. I don't think I really mind being in the classroom, hanging out with the students, talking and so on... but everything leading up to that is just torture for me. When that occurred to me last night, vividly, I changed my gchat status to "I don't think I'm a very good person." The point was not to fish for responses like "oh no you're not," of which, thanks, I got a few. The point was that I really just felt like a shitty person. Why don't I like teaching anymore? I... can't explain really, because the explanation doesn't match like... the fury of the emotion that I actually feel when I think about it. It's just a matter of, I didn't want to do that anymore. I expected that I'd have to a little bit while I was here, because oddly that's my area of expertise, but that wasn't what I wanted to spend all my time doing. And yet somehow I've been forced by etiquette into a situation where most of my volunteer commitment is teaching. It's also not as though I spend much time in lesson preparation. Then I'd really be annoyed and probably for a better reason. No, I decided that I don't mind doing this for peanuts if no one expected more than an organized chat session from me. I got very irate a couple months ago during a coversation with Nov about the inclusion/execution of English language education in the system here, and I realized that it's not something that I want any formal part of anymore. I don't mind tutoring. Despite having turned down several tutoring requests (I could possibly be rolling in the dough right now, but then I wouldn't have been able to complete my applications or maintain a real semblance of mental stability), I enjoy it, because it gives me a chance to really focus on someone. You know, I've always sort of functioned better one-on-one. If I'm going to put any amount of effort into helping someone, I want that person to be putting at least as much into helping themselves. And I feel like a jerk for saying this, but I don't get that kind of cooperation as the kind of teacher I am. It's not that I don't feel like teachers have a responsibility to cultivate that, but for a casual oral English teacher? Good freakin luck. Don't get me wrong either. I've had some really great students and some very successful classes. But it's just not that time of my life right now, where I have that sort of patience to devote to classes and classes of people who may or may not care. I did it for a year, and I may very well do it again, but now? Now's me-time.

Which is a problem. I've been getting to know me-time pretty well over the past two years, and while it's very empowering sometimes, I look back on it and feel just plain selfish, and in a bad way. I feel lazy or withholding or overly demanding. I realize a lot of times when I ask to be left alone or elect to stay indoors working while other people go out to shop or eat, I'm doing myself a huge favor. That's how I've been able to stay on schedule so far for these apps. But that's easy to forget. I mean, if you recall, the weekend before last I never left the building. When I finally did, the construction site outside had made so much progress that I might have been Rip Van Winkle. That's only a minor exaggeration.

Today I was listening to Mrs. L tell more of her stories. And every day you hear people telling stories about her and her generosity or whatever. And I think, man, I am not like that at all right now. I wish I could give more freely of my time. After all, that's the very reason I'm even here. But after rationalizing everything into pros and cons, I find that I'm still conserving a lot for myself. I'm sure my friends would come to my defense and say that it's all for good reason. But... the truth is that things are very lame right now. And add on top of that how I want so very badly to back out of all my teaching obligations. I am so not a good person right now.

I'll be glad when January is up. I mean, assuming that everything goes according to plan and I don't screw up my essays too badly. As disappointing as the fall was (and, let's face it, it always is), I'm looking forward to the spring and can't wait for the summer. Assuming that at least one school says "yeah, ok, why not" I'll be good to go. There's some things in the works and I had them listed then reneged at the last second because I didn't want to jinx myself. I don't mind talking about it in person though, so I can do that with anyone that I haven't already told.

I've been watching the second season of Dexter. I was doing it as sort of a calming-down ritual before I moved to the dorm, but picked it up again this weekend to feel like I had some free time to throw around. The simple idea of being able to actually sit down and watch an hour-long show over the internet is very therapeutic. This afternoon though I found myself identifying with him a little bit. Like... when I think too much about myself and what I want, things tend to get a little rough. Haha, that's as far as the comparison really goes. Beyond that, it's just me thinking how it's easier when I don't explicitly have to worry about myself. I used to do it instinctively and use more of the active part of my brain to deal with other stuff (totally made it up just now). Recently though, I've just been focusing on myself so much that it makes me very uncomfortable. So I'll be glad when I don't have to do that anymore. I feel like right now though, I'd better keep doing it until all the more urgent priorities are taken care of. Surprisingly, I owe it to a lot of people right now to do a good job on these apps. I feel like I've sort of been letting them down with the first few, but we'll see.

This post is getting too long.

Funny, I don't feel like I have my life back...

2008-12-06T15:37:00.002+08:00

Three down! I was so excited to be able to take a break after this one, but it occurs to me that that's a really bad idea. I'm feeling a little depressed now because I don't think my application materials were the best. Well, I've got a month until the next two... Did I have more to say besides this? Probably I got sidetracked though and I'm not really fully functioning right now either...

Ok I take it back

2008-12-05T16:54:00.002+08:00

I have decided to quit being so crotchety and admit that I'm not as annoyed now with the essay prompt as I was last night. Ok fine, also it's because I read it a few more times, closely. Also because the department's characterization of the essay is slightly different from the graduate division's. I'm sort of almost done with it, but it's coming slowly. I'm finding that I'm easily distracted at this point. Also though, I think what I'm writing is somehow missing the point, so I'll need to do a bunch of tweaking to make sure I get it in 750 words or less...

It's late again wtf

2008-12-05T00:23:00.002+08:00

I'm working on this essay now, but I just wanted to state for the record that I kind of resent the phrasing of the prompt. And no, this isn't just be complaining because I don't want to write anymore (though to be totally honest, I would be very happy sleeping right now). Way to be really specific about the type of story you obviously want to hear while still managing to use the word "might."

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

Touch me

2008-12-04T12:53:00.002+08:00

Monday night I wound up doing some random interpretations for an acquaintance, then afterwards collapsing in a heap on the couch. Rather than do any work, which would have required energy that I didn't quite have at that point, I caught up on something like a week's worth of episodes from the Daily Show, which I haven't seen since before the election. In one of the episodes, John the correspondent went to investigate CNN's giant touchscreen and interviewed its developer. I got really excited at this point... something stimulated the Jetson-envy part of my brain. First of all, that screen is exactly what I need right now to rearrange all my essays and stuff. Second... oh my goodness, it's meant to be touched! And when it is touched it does what you want! What a wonderful piece of technology.

Chalk up another

2008-12-01T11:58:00.002+08:00

Well now that's over-with. What an interesting weekend that will be embarrassing to recount for weeks to come. I quite literally haven't left the apartment since Friday afternoon (it is now Monday afternoon). I showered once and subsisted mainly on a diet of coffee and chesnuts. The evidence was scattered on all the tables up until this morning, damp bags of coffee grounds by the pot on the stove, and jagged nut casings on plates, in bags, on tissues, and on paper towels. Pretty disgraceful. At mealtime I'd treat myself to rice and a fried egg... sometimes two fried eggs. The little trash bin is a tower of tissues (I was allergic to something on Saturday) and eggshells. This afternoon I'll have to buy eggs to replace the ones I ate, and bread to replace the bread I ate. Otherwise I'd feel like a jerk. But there are no chesnuts left, I have no soap left, and no facewash left. Good thing today was the last day. Well... sort of...

Last night I was reading an article in New York Magazine (ok this one: http://nymag.com/news/features/52450/) and thinking... wow, I'm so at risk right now. Looking forward to venturing outdoors today. Human interaction's gonna be awesome.

I went to bed sometime between 3:30 and 4 am, got back up between 7-7:30. I stayed up late to get everything to a place where I could feel comfortable about leaving it... had heartburn for a while, one assumes from all the coffee I've been imbibing. Surprisingly alert right now. I guess it's just the rush of freedom, sweet freedom. Only not really...

I wound up being "that guy" this morning when I decided to take a strategic day off library translating in order to finish my application and spruce up the apartment for when the owners return with their guests on Wednesday. Turns out that they were hoping I could judge a skit-reading this morning... something I'd been prepared to do the week before my trip, but since I had no way of knowing ahead of time no one's really to blame, right?

My intention is to sleep in "my" bed tonight, back in the dorm. I haven't stayed there in almost 2 weeks. I've been wearing the same combination of clothes since then, though that might just be a function of my only packing 3 long-sleeve shirts in my entire suitcase. Do some life maintenance. Tomorrow... crap, tomorrow's Tuesday. I guess that means that I should be doing some work tonight too. Berkeley's deadline is up this Friday. I just re-examined the application and realize that I need to produce some sort of statement of purpose fission. That should be... no fun. Hahaha.

Ok, back to life!

Valley

2008-11-30T15:45:00.002+08:00

I've hit a low. It's kinda weird. Got up early today, feels like hours ago, accomplished things to the degree that I wanted them to be accomplished by a given time, then suddenly... it was like the key in my back stopped turning. I decided to take a nap and clear my head of stuff, and that sort of worked. I woke up slightly disoriented as always though with Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" jaunting around my head, refreshed but somehow sadder than before.

I'm actually pretty sure that it's a function of afternoon light. I realize now that I don't really like afternoon light. It's a little depressing and, counter-intuitively, just doesn't have the same quality as morning light. It seems like once 12 noon rolls around, the rest of the solar cycle should just be a rewinded version of what took place that morning. But no.

I'm really such a morning person, assuming I can ever get my ass out of bed in time. I like the dark before the sun rises, and I like the sparse white light that you get before 8am, and I like how bright the world seems until 11:59. The morning moves more slowly than the afternoon. It's easier to focus in the morning and there's nothing to be afraid of in the morning (well... unless something really horrible is about to happen... usually late morning or the afternoon). If shit does go down in the morning, you have the rest of the day to recover.

It's harder to light a room in the afternoon. Right now, the setting sun is kinda making things dark, making shadows longer and so on, and so I've turned on a lot of lights. You kind of can't tell, and everything's still got that rusty tint to it.

Don't even get me started on evenings.

It's also right about now that everyone's going to sleep back home, so I can look forward to a whole lotta isolation over the next several hours.

Thanks to my deadline, I haven't exactly left the apartment since I got back on Friday afternoon. I've only been able to communicate with a few people, via the internet mostly, since then. I guess that's depressing too. Can't wait until the 6th, when I get a slight reprieve from all this. I mean, I could really only afford to take like a weekend off, but how good is that going to feel? I'm looking forward to the New Year with like every fiber of my being... with the exception of the ones now dedicated to the task at hand. Those cry: "NO! MORE TIME MORE TIME"

Back to work! The afternoon's short (another reason it depresses me), but it's gonna be a much longer night ahead than I'd thought.

Save me!

2008-11-14T21:05:00.004+08:00

oh WOW this is a DISASTER! I can't write anything but the most useless drivel for this absurd essay. There's no obvious reason why this shouldn't have been done 5 hours after I started it LAST FRIDAY. And I'm now behind and running out of steam on this whole project. I may... sleep very little tonight. Anyways, I'm just going to complain a little bit about this to blow off some, um, more steam, and then I'll go back to whatever it was I was doing (sobbing inwardly in front of a defaced word processor screen). So, as I was saying earlier, I'm having a hard time talking about my good points without sounding like either a douchebag or a department store mannequin. So the irony here is that I come off looking way worse at the end of it all, which, I'm thinkin, isn't quite the point. There's something... something I'm doing wrong. I know it. I still haven't figured out what yet, well, outside of "everything," but nothing specific/helpful in the the slightest yet. All I know is that this is the incorrect approach. The research team that I've deployed to look into this matter has returned absolutely nothing of substance quite yet, but their desperate voices have suggested that I look into writing the weaknesses essay instead. At least that way I get to defame myself to my heart's content and that's easily upwards of 500 words at this point. Honestly, this whole "describe your strengths thing" was never my bag anyways. Sure, we can converse about it off the record or we can hang out for a bit and you can figure them out for yourself, but who honestly wants to offer up their insides on a silver platter just so a group of higher up hoo-has can compare it against other people's silver platters and then somehow make a value judgement based on its contents? And just how important is the platter? Does it matter whether it's like the "chills in the curio until the queen of france comes to visit" type of platter or the "i found a box of forks on the roadside and recycled them with the blowtorch in my garage" type of platter? You know which I'd prefer. Ok my left hand is wigging out again. Best I save it for the real battle.

Recidivism

2008-11-14T12:31:00.002+08:00

Does anyone remember Amazin' Fruit gummy bears and how they were such a big deal when they first came out? I just thought of them because every time something is "amazing" a peal of "amaaaaazin'" sounds in my head.

Anyways, I've taken to doodling again, something I haven't really done so much since maybe junior high, and the margins of my notebook are getting kind of crowded and a little awkward. Also recurring: impulsive snacking and ceaseless whining. Also looking to others for comforting words when the true keeper of my salvation is someone I don't really want to have anything to do with at this point (that'd be me). Falling back into the old habits of distress. I think if I'd been a smoker at any time in my life and quit, I'd probably be lighting up right about now too.

Bleeeeeh. Bleeeeeeeh.

What obviously upsets me is the simplicity of this particular essay prompt. How injurious.

Well now I'm just angry thinking about it. I oughta go knock some teeth out of this thing. BRB.

Not one of them

2008-11-09T21:30:00.003+08:00

Struggling here. In my quest for a satisfactory intro to this essay, I came up with this:

I have gone skiing a few times. My performance on each occasion could be fairly summarized as gleefully riding a chairlift up a big hill, skidding to the edge of the plateau, then commencing a sustained roll down the side of the hill, flinging equipment hither and yon, acting as a moving obstacle for teams of graceful 5-year-olds, and perhaps maintaining an upright position for a few fleeting moments before wiping out at last in front of the lodge. Skiing is not one of my strengths.

Neither, as has been painfully evident over the years, is writing introductory paragraphs.

Naming conventions

2008-11-09T18:22:00.006+08:00

Currently trying to put together an essay for UC San Diego. It's the classic problem though of just how to begin. I spent all afternoon brainstorming and harassing people for their opinions, and I think I know where I'm bound with this topic, but... that first paragraph? Elusive as ever. But in the interest of writing something somewhere, I'm going to put down something I've been giggling about to myself for weeks now.

It's always fun to contemplate the origins of the English names you encounter among friends and students in this country. Generally it's as one would expect, middle school classes where Bobs and James' predominate thanks to a hasty scan of the textbook, and your requisite Lily's and Linas thanks to their resemblance to the pinyin of the person's actual name. Among certain high schoolers you get names like "Killer" and "Wolf King" as either defiant self expression or an in-your-face to the teacher that one rationalizes with "well, at least he's using English." Among others, you meet Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. Then, though, you find surprisingly high concentrations of Irises and Fionas, which leads me to my favorite aspect of all this. I know I'm guilty of this too in the name lists that I've drawn up, but you can always tell a little bit about the foreigners who have preceded you in any given place by the trail of English names that they've left in their wake. I remember naming students with Russ one day and hearing a number of suggestions that might have been more en vogue in byegone days. So I was thinking, how would you feel if you walked into a room of Chinese people and discovere that their names were all...

1) a series of preppy names like "blake" and "aspen"
2) post-prep androgyny, like "bryce" and "avery"
3) of the tradition that brought us "k'neisha" and "deshawn"
4) familiars like "jim bob" and "emmylou"
5) the entire cast of the star wars films
6) disney characters
7) characters from prime time TV
8) Arthurian legends
9) from the old testament
10)brought to you by the letter "G"
11) not English

I'd be so happy.

What do I do now?

2008-11-09T18:16:00.002+08:00

I just got a tremendous urge to buy something. You know, just to boost the endorphins a bit. I probably would not have actually made a purchase, but I wanted to alleviate this feeling by doing a little online window shopping. It always makes me feel a bit better and it seems like as good a time as any to get a little bit distracted.

Imagine my distress then when I realized that THERE'S NOTHING I WANT TO BUY. I can't even think of anywhere to shop! An odd sensation, I assure you. I honestly can't even remember where all the things I currently own came from. All right that's figurative, but like... the shorts I'm wearing was a Dick's purchase, my t-shirt was from a concert, my sweatshirt Bear Necessities, the bra was the result of a fun morning at Victoria's Secret, and I can't remember what underwear I have on but I'm sure it's really old anyways.

So... what now?

I count!

2008-11-05T09:19:00.004+08:00

After weeks of hand-wringing and nervous ranting:

So it's not too crazy to believe that my vote was in there somewhere today!

kind of grossed out

2008-10-20T02:31:00.004+08:00

in the course of my stalking, i have discovered two dead mosquitoes in this room. one was... long gone and kind of white, and that one was under the cabinet. then was another fresher one by the closet. i would like to believe that that's this evening's nemesis, but... that might be wishful thinking. meanwhile i'm extremely sleepy. functioning tomorrow will likely be an issue.

trying to lure it out with my laptop. if no response soon i'm probably just going to pass out.

vengeance will be mine

2008-10-20T01:50:00.002+08:00

there are two things in the world i wish i had. ok, while we're at it, there are 3. one is my absentee ballot. come on warren county board of elections! wake up you bastards!

not long ago, i knew the joys of peaceful slumber. i fell asleep some time after 12, and again, not long after awoke having been supped on. i was PISSED. i now have turned on all the lights in my room and have been mounting an all-out offensive on the biggest ugliest flying blood-sucking piece of shit. it will not survive this night, and, granted how tired i am, neither might i. also, it's only big because it's full of my blood and i will not rest until its insides are smeared on the walls.

so, back to those things i wish i had. 1) a citronella candle. i have what is apparently a mosquito repeller, but what i want is one of those things that draws them in and then kills them. i recall the picnic table at our campout back when, and what i waaant is a killing field of mosquitoes. 2) one of those electrified badminton rackets that they've developed over here expressly for frying these little fuckers. I did used to have one of those in Beijing and I am going out tomorrow and buying another one and keeping it by my bed like a shotgun.

if you can't tell i'm really angry and itchy and sleep-deprived. i am doing the latimes crossword.

2008-10-19T11:32:00.002+08:00

Pfffft. I started the morning by being productive and then spent it all looking at old stuff and reading poems online. None of the other ones I wrote that year are any good, so I shall instead share this one that I just read on the Poetry 180 website.

After Years
Ted Kooser

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.

More relevant things to come, I promise! I'll get down to work after lunch :)

Nostalgia

2008-10-19T11:10:00.002+08:00

The google search turned up one or two things of interest, but also revealed that one can no longer find the pastel plant still-life I did in 11th grade or the crappy poem I submitted to Sam's website so that she'd have participants just by typing my name into a search engine. That may be for the best. And I went to flip through the crappy poetry I wrote as a sophomore for a creative writing class and discovered that none of it is on this computer. After a search through the piles of old webmail that I had forwarded to my new address before the Cornell system locked us out, I found it. And it's embarrassing, but you know... why the heck not? Oh GEEZ.

Hitchhiker

On the way from point A to point B
I discovered a bashful little stowaway,
A miracle and a chance meeting,
A grasshopper on my dashboard.
I discovered the bashful little stowaway,
Sitting demurely on top of my stereo,
A grasshopper on my dashboard,
Politely enduring my taste in loud music.
Sitting demurely atop the stereo,
He eyed the messy passenger seat with obvious indifference,
Politely enduring my exceptionally loud music,
As a vortex billowed outside the open windows.
He eyed the messy passenger seat with indifference,
And I wondered if he was as worried as I was
About the vortex billowing beyond the open windows,
If he were the daredevil type.
I wondered if he was as worried as I was,
I’d never want a guest to go flying out the window,
Even if he were the daredevil type,
Especially one so accepting of the hectic state of my car.
I’d never want my guest to go flying out the window
Before we reached our destination,
And he modestly accepts me with my hectic car.
I marveled at the bonds between strangers.

Before we’d reached a destination,
On the way from point A to point B,
I marveled at the random bond between strangers,
A miracle, and a chance meeting.

Refugee from another blog

2008-10-19T10:37:00.002+08:00

Felt inclined to google myself today... and came across this blog entry on imeem. I decided to move it over here, but deleted the original just because.

The Downfall of my Junior Year

For anyone who's interested, I'm file sharing my art history 395 paper for a limited time. This is the paper that nearly killed me this semester... the one for which I'd had all the info and research for for weeks but which still ended up a tortuous week and a half late. This is funny for a few reasons...

1) I'm only posting it because I saw that there's a section for file sharing but it's the only thing I could think of to share off of my laptop. On the other hand, my sharing it actually makes a lot of sense.

2) Alice is currently my only friend, therefore, the only person who would even have the opportunity to read it if she wanted to.

3) I still don't think it's a very good paper.

Oooh well.

BTW, the picture is from a pattern called "Ladder of Clouds" found a book by Traude Gavin called Iban Textiles. I thought it was appropriate. I honestly loved my topic and my professor, obviously so much that my blood curdled before it could reach my brain, which suffered immensely from the diversion.

Thank goodness that's in the past now. I really do owe a lot to every single person that was supportive of me during my meltdown even though I'm pretty sure it didn't make any sense to anyone.

So.. Onwards and upwards!

Just don't ask me what grade I got. I won't tell!

As for lunch today...

2008-10-13T22:44:00.003+08:00

The first task... ok, wait, the second task that was ever assigned to me here was to assist the TEDA Public Library with their English website. What that currently means is that I'm translating the Recent News section of it, which is a lot like pouring acid onto my brain. Directly. It's certainly cool, and it's great for my Chinese, but after about 2 arduous translations I'm pretty much unable to continue. But that's just setting the stage.

Today was my second day at the library, and I had to leave about an hour and a half after I got there. As I learned, a hot pot (actually more like shabu shabu) restaurant had invited the folks from the nursing home for lunch at 11. We were invited too. I feel a little weird taking part in events with the nursing home because they typically involve my getting fed somehow despite not having actually ever volunteered for them. Yeah right, I feel really weird. But I went this time determined to be really nice. The restaurant was at the Shimin Guangchang, which is... well I wanna say it's usually a term given to a public square. In TEDA it refers to a mall, which was more or less deserted at this time of day. When the seniors arrived, I went down with Sunny to collect them. I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing, but in the end wound up having to chase some of the speedier old men into the building and show them up the escalator. The man I specifically had to follow started the walk with a cigarette and tried to throw it into a trashcan. Fortunately he couldn't get it open. I told him that we could wait until we got up to the restaurant and they would probably have ash trays there. But by the time we got on the escalator, the cigarette was gone. I looked around but saw no trace of it. Turns out we were in a non-smoking establishment anyways.

The hot pot was all right. Lots of veggies. I really can't eat lamb at all anymore though I realize now. The man I was sitting next to kept taking my dipping sauces. Which was fine, obviously, since they weren't MY dipping sauces, but I just thought it was really funny. The seniors took up most of the restaurant, all in their matching long-sleeved polos. It was really nice to see them enjoying their lunch!

Afterwards, well... after an obligatory photo-session that I again questioned my part in, we all got up and walked around the mall. During much of this time I was trying to remove a chopstick splinter from my hand. Speaking of, I noticed that one of the men had torn one of his chopsticks into bits to fashion a toothpick. I eventually ended up by one of the more lively and much older men, who was being helped along by a really sweet volunteer. She attempted to indicate to him that I'm an American. I'm not really sure what she said, but since she said it in English it set him off. He turned to me and was very excited about speaking to me. I'm not 100% sure of everything that was said and what I agreed to or not, but he was awesome and made me laugh. While waiting for the elevator, he sought me out again and proceeded to give the cutest old man rant of all time. He insisted that the China Construction Bank had done everyone a disservice by translating its own name wrong. He felt that it should be Construction Bank of China. Which... makes sense. He set down a number of other examples and rationale, but alas, I had no idea what he was saying to me. Mostly I just nodded and the other girls laughed at me.

We saw them off then rode back in a sweet rickety van. Then I went to finish the translation from hell and when I did I was happy.

I need to say something about Shine home and probably last week, but... I'm starting to feel unbalanced in my typing again and it's making me really anxious and uncomfortable. I don't think I'll ever be able to type in peace again actually. That's kinda sad...

Thanks, eh?

2008-10-13T21:57:00.003+08:00

I almost don't know how to begin. I haven't had any time in the past week to just sit down by myself and write anything here. I tried sorting out my finances just now and was simply unable to account for any of my activities the past few days. But of course, any good elementary school math student learns how to work backwards...

Tonight I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. Well, sort of. I celebrated it in the sense that I went to a place that was celebrating it and proceeded to eat a lot. An expat-run restaurant and bar called Parrot hosts Thanksgiving buffets (2) every year, and I didn't know anything about it until after I walked through the door. Last week Mrs. L introduced me to a woman who was looking to rent out a room. She's nice and her apartment's great, but totally out of my price range. Also she has two cats that are really crafty and like... mind-control you into petting them, regardless of how allergic you are. Anyways, she'd reserved a table at this event and invited me to come along.

I'd like to say that if you're in TEDA and really into Thanksgiving, this restaurant is where you want to be on this day of the year. I thought we would just be sitting in a big group, ordering off the menu, and running up your typical slightly-more-than-chinese-food-but-still-not-gut-wrenching bill. But yeah, actually, all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet. I met her friends, mostly teachers at an international school, and then the owner came by to let us know that we could get our turkeys whenever we wanted. He's a suuuper-nice oldish gent with a southern drawl, and I asked him later where he's originally from. North Carolina! Anyways, I was like wow, turkey, what? But he directed us to the buffet while they brought out the birds. At the buffet: green beans, corn & red peppers, salad, sweet potatoes, cheesy broccoli, aaaaand STUFFING and MASHED POTATOES.

I really hadn't planned on eating any western-style foods for the next few months, for a number of reasons. But MAN I was happy to smell that stuffing. It was real quality stuff, and the potatoes were nice too. Gravy and cranberry sauce were also more than satisfactory. The owner came by and ladled a bunch of it into bowls for us to keep at our tables. At the tables were two honest to goodnest huo ji. I have no idea where they came from.

I really don't know how to stop eating Thanksgiving food. So I had a lot. And then went for pie and chocolate... torte? Should have skipped the chocolate. It was not what I wanted. But there was sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie. And lots of real whipped cream.

How much was it? Y150. Luckily I happened to have that amount in my purse, otherwise I might have been embarrassed. Ok, I would definitely have been embarrassed. I would pretty much venture that I would usually never disburse such an amount for a meal. Oh, and by today's exchange rate, that's about $21.9535... but that's a lot of money kind of.

It was really tasty food though and fun company. Glad I went!

Just remembered: severely apocalyptic dream last night. Like... I'm pretty sure the world was honestly ending. The moon crashed down anyways. And other stuff happened. Scary stuff.

Don't tread on me

2008-10-06T23:43:00.003+08:00

I heard this story after dinner today. A better version, obviously, and in Chinese, so forgive me. I'm a little unclear as to how the scene was set up, but let's say it takes place at Tiantan (the temple of heaven).

At the Temple of Heaven, the grass was full of ducks, and it was very difficult to navigate around them. God declared that anyone who stepped on one would be sorry. There were three women in the park, and the first started to walk through the grass. However, she accidentally stepped on a duck. God then paired her with an ugly husband. The second woman started walking through the grass and tried to be as careful as possible to avoid stepping on a duck. Unfortunately she also accidentally stepped on one and was paired with an even uglier husband than the first woman. The third woman was terrified, and started walking through the grass. She managed to make it through without stepping on a single duck! She was paired with a strong, tall, handsome husband. A catch, if you will. She couldn't believe her luck! Wondering how she could ever have been so fortunate, she turned to him and said, "Wow, what did I ever do to deserve a man as wonderful as you?" He replied, "I don't know, but I stepped on one of those ducks back there."

Nomenclature

2008-10-06T21:58:00.006+08:00

This is what my name means.

Before we were born, my grandfather drew up a list of names for our parents to snatch up on our behalf on a first-come-first-served basis. As the story has it, by being the second-born girl in our generation, I managed to get the second-best name on the list, beating out Selina by two years and also slightly annoying her parents.

Here it is in traditional characters: 潘絢愷 (pan1 xuan4 kai3)

Today as we went from office to office meeting various managers and higher-up sorts, I ended up in front of a man who asked what the last character in my name means. Now that you know where this is headed, I'm going to veer off a bit.

The first character, of course, is Pan, the family name. That's what's engraved on the giant headstone in the graveyard in Springdale where we all have plots.

Once, back in either junior high or high school, Selina brought up the topic of Chinese dictionaries during a phone conversation. At that point I'd already dropped out of Chinese school and was mostly uninterested in the topic, but when we started wondering what our names meant, I asked my mom to pull one out and show me how to use it. This was, of course, before the internet and looong before zhongwen.com or any of those other fancy online dictionaries. Dictionaries for the traditional system are really fascinating things, and definitions are itemized by radical and stroke count. So you really kind of have to know what you're doing in order to navigate one. Anyways, we looked up the character pan, and discovered that it refers to the water in which one washes rice. It's not one of those words that ever comes up in conversation, at least not as far as I can tell, having been relegated to the status of a popular surname instead.

Xuan is the generational name for girls in our family, so Christine, Selina, and I all have 2 out of 3 characters in common. I looked this up with my mom too, and she returned that it meant "bright." After I got into college and was regularly looking up words on the internet, I double-checked all of these, and got basically the same definitions. The MDBG dictionary corroborates the meaning as "brilliant," but also adds "adorned," "swift," "gorgeous," and, uh, "variegated." Whenever I hear Chinese people describing my name to other Chinese people, they describe this word by using the phrase "xuan li," which means gorgeous or magnificent. But usually people can guess which one of the various xuans we're dealing with, and I'm guessing that it's common enough in girls' names. For example, no one's ever mistaken the xuan in my name for the one which apparently means "lathe/thread in screw."

I remember back when I first started attending Chinese school, we were in a dark ornate part of the church, seated around a big table, and since we were most of us too young to have any clue how to go about writing our names on our papers (in traditional, no less), the teachers were doing it for us. It went swiftly for the most part, but then they got to me and the process stalled. There was some confusion as to which kai served as the last third of my name. They discussed briefly, then wrote down two characters, showing them to me and asking if either seemed familiar. I didn't even really know what I was looking at. After some more deliberation, they decided it was more likely to be one than the other, and wrote it down and moved on. It was SO COOL to have my name written down on my stuff, right? When class ended, I went to show my mom right away and she was nonplussed. She told me that that... wasn't my name. I was stricken. We went up to the teachers and they said that they had been confused and showed her the other option that they'd come up with. She said, "oh no, it's not that one either." Eh? said the teachers.

So, this is the character that everyone invariably assumes it to be. 凱, as in 凱旋 (kai xuan). It means triumphant, and the phrase means to return triumphant (according to MDBG).

When I started Chinese 109 my freshman year at Cornell, there was one morning that the teacher went around the room and commented on everyone's name. I was told that my name was a boy's name.

While hanging around the copy shop in Baotou waiting for one thing or another, the owner and his daughter(?) asked me if I had a Chinese name. I gladly told them, and the girl-- who I'd liked pretty well up until that point-- turned to the owner and said that it didn't sound good.

When I told the fruit seller what my name was, he said he liked it. I had to write it out so that he could see the character. He said it was unusual, but that it made more sense once knowing the character, and that it was fitting.

In Muping, they just called me 小潘 (xiao pan) which means, literally, Little Pan. It's a common enough nickname though, since according to my host here, that's what they used to call my dad in college.

In Baotou, no one would call me by my Chinese name. Instead I was Kai se lin, to go with the official name on my documents, or, for some reason, Cathy/kai xi/combination of both. The one time in my life I've ever let the name Cathy happen to me, and I still shudder a bit.

I understand the necessity of going with a Chinese version of the name on my passport since the name by which I've been known in my family all my life is devoid of any officiality, existing nowhere outside of my family, our friends, certain classrooms, and my Chinese homework. How weird is that?

So, today, I was sitting with my host at the desk of one of the important people with whom I ought to be acquainted and he asked me what my name was. After hearing it, and saying it, he asked me about the meaning. What does the "kai" mean? From our dictionary, my mom had come up with "victory," and that's the meaning I've held to throughout the years. Mrs. L didn't know, so I told her what I thought it might be, and she translated for me. They discussed it a bit more and she decided to have one of the girls in her office look it up when we got back.

In the office, the Chinese Literature major was assigned the task of checking online for the definitive answer. I expected her to eventually just come up with a few synonyms and phrases and have that be the end of it. Instead, she very sweetly gave me a great explanation.

Back to the character: 愷. It's made up of two parts. The first, the line and two dots on the left, is the radical and it's actually a variant of 心, which means heart. The other part means happiness or joy. According to zhongwen.com, it also means celebrate. So one meaning is happiness or joyfulness. She went further to say that it describes someone who is good and can bring that joy to others. Another dictionary definition is "kind." There's a second meaning, which basically translates as "easy-going." I was surprised to not hear the meaning that I believed it to have all this time. Then she found one more. It also refers to the type of song played by a party, I picture an army of some sort, after a victory. Her favorite was the second, easy-going.

Ok sorry, this ended up being far longer and more involved than what I'd initially intended, which was a paragraph-- maybe two-- just about today's encounters. But anyways, this morning I loved my name, but I had no idea that it was so... cool. It's funny to me a lot of times that I was given an English name that people appear destined to be misspell for eternity, and a Chinese name that's so easily misunderstood.

I felt really happy while she was explaining it to me, like a shade was being lifted or like a massive spit-shine was taking place. Aside from actually being able to share this information with others from now on, I discovered that my name is something that's really worth living up to. I remember when I cornered Prof. Zimbardo after his lecture at the WAC and asked him to write one of his favorite inspirational quotes in my book, he sort of misunderstood and instead wrote an inspirational message directed at me. Basically, it's the hope that whoever I meet, I manage to make them feel special and glad to have known me. That's what popped into my head during this conversation today.

Hopefully I'll be able to do justice to these three words that are such a special part of who I am. I've got my fingers crossed, anyways. Remember: be optimistic and kind, joyful and at ease, and smile until people start smiling back.

Visa clarification

2008-10-06T21:41:00.002+08:00

This one's for future reference.

We went to the PSB today so that I could register my presence. We didn't have all (ok, why is spell check telling me that "didn't" is spelled wrong?) the necessary materials, but the officer went ahead and looked over my passport anyways to take a look at my visa. In the process, she answered a question that had been plaguing me for most of August but which no one unofficial could answer.

For the record, my visa's an (F) type multiple entry, valid from September 19, 2008 until the same date in 2009. The duration of each stay is 120 days after entry. What this translates into is permission to enter initially at any point between the valid dates. However, once I've entered once, the 120 day countdown begins. I can exit and re-enter as many times as I want, but only until the 120 days pass. At that point, my visa is considered expired and I would need to either extend it here or otherwise apply for a new one.

The question I'd been asking before was: If one gets a double-or-more entry visa with, say, a 90-day duration, is that 90 days per entry or 90 days total? Well, it's 90 days total, which makes just slightly more sense considering that we are in fact dealing with a system, but just in case there was room to wiggle around in, I wanted to know that it was there.

Anyways, this means that my visa's only really valid until I go home for Christmas, at which point I'll have some more paperwork to muss with. Luckily it looks like things might go more smoothly now that I'm here.

This is dedicated...

2008-10-03T12:57:00.002+08:00

Mainly to Steph Glass because this is our poem, but also to anyone who is/has been/will be anything. The words popped into my head earlier today and I felt like it was about time to share them again, because I do still love this poem.

Litany

by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine . . .
Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,

the crystal goblet and the wine.

You are the dew on the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun.

You are the white apron of the baker

and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,

the plums on the counter,

or the house of cards.

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.

There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,

maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,

but you are not even close

to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show

that you are neither the boots in the corner

nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,

speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,

that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,

the evening paper blowing down an alley,

and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees

and the blind woman's tea cup.

But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.

You will always be the bread and the knife,

not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Twice Shy

2008-10-01T22:30:00.003+08:00

Last night I went to bed at some point after 12:30.

I dreamt, possibly of momentous things, but then in my dream I started feeling itchy. Oh crap I remember now. I was dreaming about Sarah Palin... I was watching her on TV and was convinced that she was somehow making me itch. Then I started waking up, and was in a semi-delirious state, scratching at various parts of my arms and trying to get back to sleep. Then I realized that I was honestly very itchy and scratching at swollen bumps and freaked out. I thought it must be like 6 or 7 in the morning, but when I turned the light on, I discovered it was only 2:50. I decided to go to the bathroom mirror to check myself out, and there I found 4 large fresh white-hot welts on my arms and index finger. I continued cussing in amazement. I was still pretty out of it and my mind raced to explain the situation. Usually I'm very sensitive to the sound of mosquitos, so I wasn't sure if that was it. But they didn't look like spider bites, and I ruled out hives and other allergies. For a fleeting moment I feared bedbugs (OK, I always fear bedbugs), but having thrown the sheets around in search of any insectoid culprit and come up clean, it seemed like it had to have been a mosquito after all. Still couldn't find any sign of one in the room though, and I thought that any single mosquito only bit like once or something before going off to lay eggs... or something.

Anyways, in the course of 2 hours, I acquired my 2nd-5th mosquito bites all year. There's another reason San Francisco rules. They have since swollen pink to the standard size of an inch or two in diameter. I'm lucky though... even if I somehow drew my attacker in with my smooth skin and comely ways, it seems my exposed face wasn't quite attractive enough to be ravished the way the rest of me was. It came away unscathed.

I have arrived

2008-09-30T21:40:00.003+08:00

Turns out that my flight from Newark was only 13 hours.

The embraer, though small, was comfortable enough for me, and I liked not having to sit next to anyone. It wasn't a very full plane though, and the other passengers were mostly jovial suited men. I slept, obviously, and upon arrival at Newark was so dazed that I could barely follow the trail, which bent oddly, that they had set up on the tarmac. There was a man with a few pieces of paper stapled together and so I thought I had better see if he had an opinion about where I should be heading, considering I had no idea. He directed me to a small shuttle bus sitting off to the side. In it, there was a fellow passenger also on the trek to my terminal, so I decided that I must follow her wherever she went, because she was alert and I was not. I assumed she was alert because she was able to ask questions of the driver. The bus took us to another bus, which I also boarded, ever behind this other woman. That bus did arrive at terminal C.

Terminal C at Newark has to have some of the worst airport bathrooms I've encountered. Concourse C at Dayton wasn't that great either, by the way. Earlier this month I had planned on writing an entry exclusively rating the airport bathrooms I've visited recently, but never got around to it. It's on the table though.

Somehow managed to pass 3 hours there. I think a lot of it happened when I leaned over my backpack for a moment and then promptly fell asleep. I woke up just in time for them to announce that everyone needed to form a single-file line to check in again-- so that they could examine our passports.

I'd thought I'd be seated in 40E (smack center of the plane), but somehow last night I guess I managed to change my seat to 24D, which is an aisle seat in the center row. It was bizarre because when choosing seats after booking, nearly all seats were shown as occupied except for a few non-window-non-aisle seats in the back of the plane. When I unsuccessfully attempted online check-in, though, nearly all of the seats at the front of the plane were available, so I tried to switch. After my attempt failed though (they need to check your passport in person, I guess) I went to view my itinerary again and my seat hadn't changed. And then when I went to look at the seating chart again, I got the original mostly-booked chart with my original seat. So I just ignored it and moved on.

Anyways, it wasn't a very full flight so while boarding, some people got spread out a bit so that people could have more room. The center seat in my row was unoccupied, so not only did I get a second blanket, but I also got to take advantage of the tray table. This excited me.

The 777 had personal TVs on all of the seats, and while they were a pain to navigate, there were some interesting things going on. I watched two movies during the flight: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and How to Eat Fried Worms. The first one was all right... I probably would have enjoyed it a lot less if Lee Pace hadn't been in it. However, I would like to recommend right now that everyone go watch How to Eat Fried Worms. I very very vaguely remember this book from either the 3rd or 4th grade... I think it was well-recieved. The movie though is adorably funny. A lot of those "pffffft" laughter (originally typed lafter... hm) moments, and a lot of those snorkly back of the throat chuckles too.

Did a ton of sleeping. Well, not a ton, but I tried to spend most of my time in a sleeping position with the though that it wouldn't hurt to actually fall asleep. I also spent a lot of time staring at the flight show, at the little airplane making its way along our route and all the info about tail wind speeds, altitudes, and outside temperatures.

A few hours in, we started hitting a lot of turbulence. It's probably not something I would have thought too hard about before this past January, but since the wind-shear/Fresno experience, I've become really paranoid about rocking turbulence. I was wondering what on earth was bouncing such a big plane around so much, and, seeing that we were off the northeastern coast of Canada, concluded that it must have something to do with Kyle, maybe. Maybe that was not the case, but it's all I really had in terms of an explanation. Eventually it subsided, but no one else really seemed that bothered. I was getting rolled around in my seat and folks were still standing up for a leisurely stroll to the bathroom, and only one of them got reprimanded at all.

Yes we were off the northeastern coast of Canada. Our route did not take us over North America and the Pacific like I had for some reason envisioned, nor did we go by way of the Atlantic and Europe as a friend had guessed. Instead, we went straight up over the Artctic and came down through Siberia. Somewhere between 6 and 7 hours in, I got up for a bathroom break and took some pictures of the north pole (or somewhere near it) through the window in the emergency exit. Surprisingly, no one had their windows open. A few of us gawked out for a couple minutes, commenting on the sunlight, then I did my business and went to sit down again.

Meals were eh. I don't think I'll be having the salmon again, though it's partly because of a bad cilantro experience. Dinner came with Milanos though, which I saved, as well as a salad topped with smoked salmon that tasted all right. Later there was a beef and swiss sandwich (more like an oblong sparse swiss burger or LaRosas style hoagie) and a little thing of vanilla haagen daaz. Not bad (kind of a weird combination and if you're lactose intolerant you're screwed), butI don't think I will be eating a whole little thing of ice cream in the future either, because I definitely got like heartburn or something from one or both of those things. Dairy? Lastly came breakfast, which was eggs or "dim sum" and caused a lot of confusion among a lot of passengers. Eventually the attendants started asking "eggs or noodles" by way of clarification. I didn't really know which way to go this time, but ended up going with the thing less likely to make me sick later, meaning not-eggs. The noodles did in fact come with some dim sum items: a pork bun that might have been a bbq pork bun though the filling was odd, a piece of shiu mai that had a large chunk of inedible animal part within, and a leaf of baby bok choi. The accompanying fruit tasted kinda like dish detergent. I haven't had sub-par airline melon in years though, so that was a surprise.

Anyways, that was the obligatory critique of the food, though I should probably follow it by stating that I still appreciate having had the opportunity to enjoy it or not during this flight. I love being served food on the airplane.

Landed in Beijing, just as I remembered it. Entry forms are currently the most straightforward and simple iteration that I've experienced and I wasn't made to fret over an irrelevant customs form this time either.

Got my things and came to the realization that not only could anyone there have just picked them up and walked off with them, but that there's even less safeguard against that in domestic baggage claims in the US. In fact, in Dayton or CVG, anyone could really wander in through the front doors, stand by baggage claim, take however much they wanted, and walk back out through the door. Awesome, right?

Found the driver no problem. Initially I thought I'd have the task of getting on a bus to get on another bus to get on a train to get to where I was going. But my host was really cool and sent a driver to collect me. He took my suitcase and my bag and we made our way into the garage, which is also how I remembered it. I got really nostalgic in there actually. Then we sped through a pedestrian walkway and then nearly ended the life of a sprinting child. He really wasn't paying any attention, though perhaps he wasn't planning on actually running into the path of oncoming traffic in the garage. Even though he stopped in time (he was trying to get some people's attention) he gave me, the driver, and probably his whole family a good pump of adrenaline.

We chatted for a bit and then I was told to get some rest. I tried to say something along the lines of how I'd been resting for the past 13 hours, and I think it worked, but lapsed into silence anyway. I watched traffic patterns and roadside foliage and read the street signs. But then I inevitably fell asleep. I woke up once I think while we were going through Tianjin (or did we go straight to TEDA?) and thought that I should remain conscious to see the city, but fell asleep again until right at the end. The area looks nothing like I expected it might, and the place I'm staying is way nicer than I expected it to be. Mrs. L came down to get me and the two of us moved my things into her apartment.

I got a tour of the rooms and then set up my computer to let my parents know that I'd made it. And there's wireless internet. I also took the opportunity to brush my teeth. My dad was really excited that I'd get to eat his friend's food, so obviously I was excited to. Mrs. L boiled up some squash and chicken dumplings for dinner and they were delicious. Doubly delicious because there was also vinegar involved. God I was so happy when I saw that.

Afterwards, Mrs. L insisted on taking me out to get my feet massaged so that I'd be able to sleep tonight. I'm pretty sure that sleep was always on the docket, but I'll admit that I was enticed by this prospect. Well, enticed and extremely wary because I have a very low tolerance for tickling and that's all I hear when someone says "foot massage."

We walked TEDA's long blocks and she pointed out the landmarks to me. I'd forgotten how positively terrifying it is to cross multi-lane roads here. Maybe I was still in a daze, but there were a couple times that I was confident that the way was clear to walk when a car would advance from the least obvious direction with no intention of sparing anyone in its path. Fortunately Mrs. L saw them all coming.

The massage parlor I guess is run by a friend of hers? We sat down in a room in two comfy chairs and took our shoes and socks off. Two girls came in with buckets of very very hot water that I splashed around in until it was cool enough to just submerge my feet. That felt pretty good. Then the girls came back in and gave us hand and arm massages. Not being a massage person really, I liked this part a lot. My arms have been all out of sorts for months and while this probably didn't do anything to help, it did feel good. Um, it was a bit awkward though because at this point I could look my masseuse in the face and just couldn't think of anything to say to her. So I looked at the ceiling or watched the floor and a little cockroach that was traversing it. At intervals, I'd look up and see it on the wall or on the flat screen TV and wasn't as repulsed as I could have been.

Next I was moved onto a stool so that she could do my back. Ah, ok, I did not like this part. Some of it was appealing, yes, but a lot of it was just pain and her beating the crap out of my lower back. I have no doubt that most of my other friends would have enjoyed this segment of the massage, but it wasn't really for me. At one point the other girl turned around and saw me making the gritted-teeth-wide-eyed cringe and I had to turn it into a smile real fast. She asked me if I was ticklish and so I said yes. I didn't want them to know that I'm a wimp.

Last up came the feet. At first I didn't know if I could make it through without an outburst, but it actually went pretty well. For the feet-- not too ticklish though she kept hitting like a pressure point or something on my instep that was uncomfortable. Also included was a leg massage up to the thigh. I'd closed my eyes at some point and it's possible that I dozed off for a while or something.

And then it was over and we caught a taxi back. I showered, checked the blogs, and then wrote this. Sure, not a masterpiece or anything (unfortunately it looks like it's not entertaining enough to double as an e-mail), but at least now I have all the details accrued thus far.

FAQ

2008-09-29T17:58:00.001+08:00

I’m currently about an hour away from boarding my 6:30am flight out of Dayton airport… I’m feeling good. Also, did you know that if you carry several dollars worth of spare change in your purse, it will get searched by TSA? According to the nice man who had to hand-examine my book, notebook, camera, wallet, ipod, cell phones, and various other paraphernalia, a large cluster of coins creates a dark spot that the x-ray can’t read through. WOW.

Anyways, since I’ve got all this time, I think I shall use it to answer a few Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, about this trip.

Q: You’re going to China again?

A: Yes.

Q: How long will you be gone this time?

A: Starting with 3 months. I’m coming back on December 22 (missed too many family holidays the last couple years) and sticking around for the beginning of January. Unless something absolutely ridiculous happens to preclude my return, I’ll then be going back until next summer, June-ish.

Q: Where in China are you going?

A: Tianjin, specifically TEDA, the Tianjin Economic Development Area. Actually I’m only guessing on what that stands for, but if I’m wrong I’m at least very close. And no, I’ve never been there before, so this should be interesting.

Q: Ok, wait… where is that?

A: Haha good question! I thought I knew, but yesterday my parents told me I was wrong. It’s a port city southeast of Beijing, and there’s a high-speed train that connects the two cities with something like a 30 minute ride.

Q: Are you going to be teaching English again?

A: That is not my primary directive, no. Honestly I think I’m more or less past that now, although I do expect that at some point over the next few months I will be helping someone with their English in some capacity. Yeah, ok, now that I think of it, there’s a very good likelihood that they’ll make me teach at the local college.

Q: So what exactly are you going to be doing while you’re there?

A: Uh, as of right now, it’s not entirely… clear. The back-story is that there’s a friend of the family who works with the TEDA Community Service Volunteer Association (they have a website in English!) who thought that I might be able to help her out. So she’s willing to take me on and keep me busy and show me how the organization operates. I expect to be volunteering with some of their projects in the city, but also hopefully getting a little administrative experience too. Most importantly though, I’m going to have a chance to observe and learn and I also get to work my Chinese more than I have before, hopefully picking up a lot more technical vocab.

Q: Hold on, does this mean you STILL don’t have a paying job?

A: That is correct!

Q: You’re not going to get robbed again are you?

A: I’m not really sure why this is so frequently-asked. I’m certainly not planning on it.

Q: What are you taking with you?

A: One medium-large suitcase of random crap that evidently weighs 53 lbs., a frame backpack full of clothes, and old faithful, my trusty backpack.

Q: Can I come visit you?

A: Absolutely! I expect to get an apartment relatively soon, at which point anyone is welcome to crash with me for any period of time. I’m an enthusiastic hostess and will stuff you with delicious foods and take you wherever you want, um, within reason. I recommend coming anytime between March and June.

Q: Are you excited?

A: Yeah, sure. I’m definitely glad to be doing something again and I can’t wait to explore more of China.

I’m flying Continental for this trip and I’m actually looking forward to a nice series of flights. First of all, since I don’t have to switch airlines, my bags are checked all the way through to Beijing. After LAX last time, and DEFINITELY after friggin JFK, I’m glad not to have to drag everything between terminals and wait through check-in a second time. Second, I get to fly in an A seat on an Embraer between Dayton and Newark. This has to be the most comfortable small plane I’ve flown so far, and A is a single-seat row. Bwahahahaha. From Newark, it’s an 18 or so hour non-stop flight to Beijing, middle seat in the middle row on a 777. Oh well, at least I’ll have options?

Is this too much information yet? Well, you can look forward to more. I arrive in China right as they kick into their national holiday! So I guess I’ll just get to hang out for a couple days and get acquainted with the city since there will be absolutely nothing for me to do since everything official shuts down for the week.

I think I'm packed...

2008-09-29T09:33:00.002+08:00

So... that was almost too easy. I know I'm forgetting something monstrously important. But honestly, as long as I have underwear and face wash I'm probably OK right? All of my clothes are piled on top of each other in my large backpack. I'm assuming that will be enough to get me through. The suitcase is honestly just full of random things like tampons and shoes, packed more or less inefficiently. A lot of it will be gone when I make the return trip. I did some quick searches and I think I might be able to climb a bit while I'm gone, so at the last minute I went ahead and stuffed my gear in on top of everything else. Worse comes to worse I can shop there (everyone know how much I LOVE shopping in China... PSYYYYCHE), and if it gets worse than that, I'm coming home in December.

Looking forward to that, by the way!

OK, I feel feverish... I think I should shower and have some frozen yogurt while watching one of the movies I rented when I thought I would have time to watch them. I don't think I shall be sleeping tonight, since I have to get up at 3 to leave for the airport anyway.

Blargle

2008-08-21T03:17:00.002+08:00

My brain is all a-scrambles.

I like writing. It helps me get all the clutter out of my head so that I can get my thoughts organized. When I really go at it, you can pretty much see the dust pluming out of my ears along with a stream of migrating spiders and a few tiny post-it notes. It's a personal meditation and clarifying process.

When I was younger, I loved essay tests and writing prompts because I felt like I had some kind of advantage. With hindsight, I now realize that that was a bit delusional, but in any case I enjoyed myself and my grades were good enough to get me into Cornell, so whatever, but still.

In the present day, however, just the thought of the GRE issue prompt makes my armpits all sweaty. My body hunches over and I tend to begin staring very hard at a single point in front of my face. It's weird. I have such strong opinions on nearly all 243 of these topics, but the simple act of beginning sees my brainwaves fade to snow. I responded to a question yesterday afternoon that called for evidence that I can rattle on about for hours (proven case). But when I realized that I needed a new introductory paragraph and went to sort it out, I just could not. I BSOD'd and crashed and then had to leave the room.

It's very hard for me to achieve a state in which my mind is totally clear. But in thinking through my approach to a lot of these topics, I often find that I've been sitting for whole minutes not thinking anything at all. In my meantime my breathing has grown shallow and quick and my mouth is hanging open.

I'm familiar with this psychological block-- it's been one of my most steady companions through 4 years of undergrad. Seriously, I wonder what it is I'm so afraid of.

This time next year

2008-05-30T08:13:00.004+08:00

Insane. So this thought has been slowly digging at me for the past few days, and every time I acknowledged it I'd sort of be in awe, and then get distracted by something else enough that the thought lost its relevance, only to stew around a little longer, getting more relevant as time wore on. Ok, I know I said just a "few" days, but it's been a weird week for time, what with the long weekend.

Anyways, one of the tasks I have set for myself at the library is to catalogue, label, and store a box-load of CDs that was left in my possession back at the beginning of my tenure here, as well as all the new ones that get recorded as we continue to have programs. At first it seemed like a pretty daunting order, because someone's really been neglecting these things for a while now, but with a trusty (or as trusty as it gets) mail merge set up in Word, it's going way faster than I'd ever anticipated. In fact, I have already completed pretty much every program that I have been present for, and am now moving on into the territory they usually call "before my time."

It's eerie, really, and I'm having trouble articulating why, to now be faced with all of these program names and speakers to which I have absolutely no emotional attachment. Trying to come up with a proper comparison has only led me to remember what I read about the Capgras delusion on wikipedia. Documenting these CDs hasn't exactly been a pleasant stroll down memory lane, or nostalgic at all for that matter, but I was getting used to expecting familiar titles and flier layouts, and such. First of all, to have rushed through that whole time span in a matter of hours was jarring, and I admit I'm a little confused when I look at some of these old program fliers, since information that I now expect to find in certain places is now hidden elsewhere.

It's been like going through a geological sample, watching the devolution of style (not to say that it gets worse, or to say that it doesn't) as the dates go farther back. It's just weird to suddenly be among such unfamiliar objects, and also a little weird to think that while these were being recorded by people I may or may not know, I was somewhere else entirely doing something else entirely.

Which actually leads to the thought I referenced at the start of this whole thing. I have been here almost a year. While it's unlikely that I'll continue loitering here until September (I'm not planning on it at least), that would mark a year of being *here* and that's hard for me to grasp. In less than three months I will have been back on home turf (as it were) for a full year.

A year ago today, this whole situation was as distant from me as the moon. Actually, no... more distant, because I can see the moon pretty clearly. What was I doing? May 29, 2007 (ok, technically May 30). I guess I would still have been teaching as if it weren't no thang. Riding the bus to China Care a few days a week. Breaking out the tank tops for summer. Buying those shorts and capris probably happened at some point around here. Stopping by the fruit stand, drinking lots of water, getting tofu after classes with Russ & Dave, perhaps watching YooHee with Alice and Tara, interviewing teachers, stopping by the French restaurant, reading Lolita, listening to the Stars, shopping at the new grocery store, eating modified ma la chuan and squid and diao zha bing and popsicles, sitting by my window, dreaming about coming home. The entire month of June is missing from my blog, so I have no record of it except for the dates embedded in my digital photos, but I'm assuming that I was busy enough that I didn't waste much time reflecting on it. I wonder if I knew already at the end of May that I'd be spending the rest of my summer in Beijing? I mean, a quick gmail search could answer that question for me, but I'd rather just pose it. I'm wondering if I ever mentioned the frisbee game that we struck up one afternoon, or our various attempts at badminton, or that one housewarming party I went to with Alice.

So it's weird, to be removed from all that by the length of a year. And a strange year. I've been in San Francisco for about 9 months, and I'm still of the mindset that it's temporary. The result is, of course, that I'm even more disconnected from the people around me than even new transplants. It's awkward, but I get the feeling that I don't want to invest myself too much in my surroundings because I *should* pick up and go.

Ok, that was personal. But anyways, should I pick up and go? I'm committed until the end of July, at which point, I ought to have a next step. I don't really remember how to set that up, nor do I really know what I would count as a valid "next step" anyways. What am I going to do in August that will eventually lead me through the course of another year, back to yet another today? That is a very good question.

Part of me says very much that I should just go back to China, no matter what it takes, because something interesting is just bound to happen there. What a bizarre rationale. But...

2008-03-18T08:32:00.003+08:00

A very brief entry today, since a WAC program is about to start... I'm just still feeling a lot of anxiety right now, and rather than obsess about it to someone else AGAIN, I'll just unload here.

Basically I just want to angst about the job I've been trying to get. During this whole process, it just seemed very clear to me that this opportunity was somehow tied in to all the random decisions and detours I've been taking since I missed that flight in Shanghai in 2005. People have been telling me not to worry, but it's really hard for me not to. As I explained to a co-worker last week, I want this job so bad that I can't even imagine applying for any other positions right now. I don't think I could be convincing about having a passion for whatever field, or the necessary level of experience for any other job. It's like... now I know exactly what it should feel like to know that you're perfect for something or that something is perfect for you. It would be quite the emotional blow to be rejected for something I was so ready for, and I am having trouble picturing myself getting it all together to start applying and interviewing for random office jobs again.

More importantly, not getting this job might quite literally shatter my entire worldview. The whole basis of my relentless optimism and goodwill... my patience... the very nature of my cosmos... that's what's at stake here.

And that's why I'm so concerned.

I'm really trying to scrape together a psychological contingency plan here, but it doesn't seem like it's really working... though I suppose this is one of those parachutes that you really can't test until the ground really starts coming up at your face.

Mondays can be like this

2008-02-12T13:40:00.000+08:00

Ah, today... was a good day that didn't seem at first like it was going to be very good. As I was packing my things this morning, my mom called, rather unexpectedly, to tell me that some company was denied a charge on my credit card and sent a collection notice complete with a $15 fine, also unexpected. The charge was related to the membership fee for the climbing gym, and we did have issues with that last week, but I assumed that they had been resolved. What I was really peeved over was the $15 fee, especially since I'm positive that I wasn't at fault in this situation in any way-- I'd just paid the balance on my card a few days prior, and it was nowhere near topped out to begin with. So my mom said she'd scan the letter to me, and I resolved to take care of it when I got to work.

I left at 8:30 this morning because I just needed to do something other than sleep in from now on. Last week was nice... nowhere to be until 1pm so I remained stubbornly in bed until perhaps 11 every day. But as cozy as that is, it gets old when you're already feeling pretty useless, and so today I went ahead and started volunteering my free time to do random office tasks for Transfair, an organization that I would have liked to had interned for, but whatever. My feeling is that volunteering is similar to interning, if less focused and intensive, but equally unpaid. Also, I've been dying to get to know this org a little better because fair trade is one of those interests that I'd consider pursuing academically and then professionally, out there in future-land. Anyways, the environment there was really nice-- their office space is huge and everyone on the staff was very friendly. I got a fairly menial task, though it was one I could appreciate. But also I got a nice cup of coffee, which had me buzzed etc. for most of the day. I'm headed back in tomorrow and really looking forward to it.

Then, on my way to work, I gave away an 85 cent BART ticket I've had sitting around in my pocket for months, and then made it just in time for the train. I listened to music I enjoyed. The weather was nice.

Once I got up to the library, I tackled the whole creditor issue with every ounce of self-righteousness I could muster. The thing is though, no matter how worked up I get, I can never bring myself to be rude to customer service agents over the phone. This is probably a good thing though. Anyways, I called the company, and the rep said that the charge eventually went through and they already took the fee, which is non-refundable. I was slightly indignant. I mean, if I wrote my card number down correctly and it was copied wrong by others, or if I paid my credit card bill and they denied it anyway, or if someone input the expiration date wrong or whatever, then... the fact that something went wrong has a lot less to do with me than it does with points elsewhere in the system, is that correct? That they arbitrarily charge a fee to the first person they see just seems sort of unfair.

Anyways, I followed that call with one to my card company, who directed me to call customer service at my credit union. Both parties insisted that they saw no attempted charge for the alleged day and made suggestions as to how I should approach the fee-takers. I called back and explained the way I saw the situation, and after two awkwardly long and silent transfers, I got put through to a supervisor who very straightforwardly told me that I had a right to see my money refunded THIS TIME. It was very reliant on the fact that it was the first time anything like this had happened, but I'm assuming it helped that it was probably not my fault in the first place. I'd been sitting in the stairwell at work while this all took place just to avoid making any scenes in front of lunching co-workers, but every once in a while, someone would have to use the stairs, and I just felt awkward having this petty financial dispute on my cell phone in there. But in any case, I fought the Man and won, so what up.

When I picked up the library mail this morning, I was delighted to find my arms just full of stuff. But also, among all that stuff, was a list of labels that I ordered last week, meaning that I could finally complete an odyssey of book-cataloging that I had begun and left incomplete my first day on the job (because I had to wait for the labels). Also, I had two other jobs to keep me busy. So I was fairly busy all day, wrapping and labeling books and other time-consuming things. When the day was almost out, I decided to take a look at the steps in cataloging that involved importing and whatnot with this outrageously stand-offish system that we utilize, and ended up in a battle of wills against that until after the library officially closed. I left about half an hour later tonight, so I figured I might as well stay for the remainder of the lecture going on downstairs, which was a little... random. It was funny cuz I wrote a lot of the planted questions that got asked and was feeling bashful because of it. But also, my questions were not eliciting the interesting answers I thought they would. But whatever

Then I left, had some company on my way to the BART, and after some inexplicable delays in East Bay, got home, ate, and showered. And now I'm here.

So, I actually had something worthy of being tagged "Advice" in this ridiculous blog, but I've forgotten what it was, and now I doubt that I'll even be able to benefit from whatever incredible piece of knowledge it was. Sigh.

Where am I?

2008-02-02T13:43:00.000+08:00

So, there have been a few developments recently. While there is still a bit of existential angst in my life, I've decided to grab pretty much everything by the balls and see where that leaves me (hopefully not trampled to death in a gutter somewhere, fingers crossed). Next Monday I start in my new position as library assistant at the WAC. Now, why the title is "assistant" I'm not really sure, since I would basically be the be-all-end-all in terms of who's in charge of the library, if you don't count my superiors, who really just approve stuff and don't have anything to do with the library's day to day functions. Of course, it is only a 20-hr a week gig, and apparently I won't have enough actual library work to keep me occupied all of those hours. So... But anyways, I get paid! And that gives me legitimate impetus to begin searching for an apartment. I was trying to put it off until at least Monday, when I have full use of the library's internet, but I inadvertently started yesterday. Yeah, it's as overwhelming as I thought it would be. I decided to try to get in with a bunch of housemates, since that brings rent down to my level of affordability, but it all depends on how likable I actually am. I e-mailed my two top choices so far, and I'm going to think about the others a little bit. The issue is that I want to wait a week to see where I stand for this job I just applied for and really really want. And also, I'm not interested in moving IMMEDIATELY. Late-feb/early-mar is about the time-frame I'm looking at. And also... dude... it's just a commitment. I mean, DUDE.

So that's where I am right now. gawd that was uninteresting.

While I'm here...

2008-02-02T13:31:00.000+08:00

So, I started an entry the week before last to talk about that eventful weekend, and then just let it rot like carrion because I was to lazy to relive the whole thing. Then last weekend occurred, which was also eventful, as far as my weekends go, and you might notice that I haven't written about that one either. Let me just enumerate, for posterity's sake.

--Friday: Was angry at the cleaning lady for placing my shoes on top of my backpack and getting crap all over it. Got over it. Explored San Francisco near the eastern wall of the Presidio. Wandered the Lucasfilm campus, walked along the coast, found the wave organ. Drank champagne at Alice's and slept over. Developed scratchy throat.

--Saturday: Woke up, went to sports basement, went climbing, went back to sports basement, went back to Alice's, went to the sunset, went into a korean restaurant, escaped said restaurant when we discovered that there were no free side dishes, found San Tung, had noodles, headed towards beach, waylaid by Great Stuff store, did not make it to the beach. Scratchier throat.

--Sunday: Climbing at the Pinnacles (only not really for me cuz I'm physically and mentally weak), dinner at eNoodle: real guotie, vinegar at the tables, but beef noodle soup was really weird. Aaand I'm officially sick.

The week passes.

--Saturday: Met Alice after lunch, got on the bus, arrived at Exploratorium, met Yash and Adam, a day Exploring the wonders of our world, got herded out at closing time, balance beam jousting, driving to dinner, looking for parking, Adam's ipod, B44, got tipsy, perhaps I behaved strangely, Muni to Alice's, got my climbing stuff, went home.

--Sunday: Old Navy and Borders. Yeah.

And it's Friday again! I really meant to flesh out a lot of those experiences, but I know myself well enough to admit that that's probably just not going to happen at this point. It's sad because I don't know how to tag this entry now...

For foreign teachers series: The School System

2008-02-02T12:21:00.000+08:00

How about I introduce the context and see how it goes?

Go outside around lunch time, and you'll see for yourself just how many students attend the Baotou public school system. If you have a good eye, you'll be able to to tell the Baogang #1 students from the Baotou #5 students by the different track suits each school chooses as their uniform. In some cases, you'll also be able to tell which students are boys and which are girls, and in others, whether they are 3rd years or 1st years. It's a very strictly organized system. However, since Baotou has a lot of schools, it took me a little while to figure that system out.

First of all, there's the nomenclature. Nearly every school in Baotou is referred to by an affiliation, followed by a number, followed by it's level. Schools are numbered in the order that they were founded. For example, Baogang #1 Zhong is the first high school founded in affiliation with the Baogang Steel Corporation. I originally thought that the affiliations were district designations, but that is not the case. I am still not entirely sure how the affiliations came about, though at one point I heard that the Baogang #1 school was originally founded for the children of Baogang employees. If that was ever really the case, it no longer holds-- BG1 accepts students from all walks and all over the country. Meanwhile, there is no specific locus point for schools with the same affiliation-- that is, you could leave one Baogang school and come to a Baotou city school before you see another Baogang school; they are interspersed. In the end though, when you're talking about high schools, locations and affiliations and numerations really don't mean a whole lot.

From my observations, what really runs the system are the schools' rankings. These rankings determine the "quality" of the students at any given school, the amount of tuition the school can demand, and, frankly, the degree of cooperation an extra-curricular teacher might expect from his or her classes, among other things. The rankings, in turn, are determined annually, and are based on the collective gaokao scores of each school's graduating class. Now is as good a time as any to state that the Baotou school system has evolved almost entirely in response to the nationwide college entrance exams, or gaokao. More on those later, but while BG1, BT9, and YJ1 have all been known to claim the title of best in the city, the true distinction goes to whichever one of those schools turned out the best scores on the exam.

Once there is the notion that one school is better than the rest and some schools are better than others, there is also the prestige of having attended one of the elite schools, or "key schools," as they're often called. There is clever saying among parents that I am sorry I can't remember word for word. The gist of it is that once a student has made it into BG1, a good university isn't far away. Not only does the name mean something, but the school is presumed to better equip students to score high on the single most daunting exam that any of them will face in their entire lives.

Therefore, admittance to the key schools is highly selective. In fact, a student's prospective high schools are not determined by anything-- not location, not what schools they've attended in the past-- but their previous academic performance. While it is illegal for schools to exclude students who wish to attend, only high-scoring students are eligible for reduced tuition, and elite educations do not come cheap. Those willing to pay a higher tuition for a better education also understand that they are submitting themselves to a more rigorous curriculum. Meanwhile, low-scoring students find that their choices are rather limited. Though I expect that one could find intelligent and hard-working students throughout the school system, the campuses of Baotou's key schools is where you'll supposedly find the best students in the city.

Ok... that's sort of messy, but I guess that's what a "first draft" is all about.

Next time: School Life

Blast to the Past

2008-02-02T11:19:00.000+08:00

On this quiet Friday evening, which I am spending alone and indoors, I'm going to take the cosmic hint and work on that foreign teacher's report I've been putting off for... well, an embarrassing amount of time. Let's revisit the Baotou public schools, shall we?

For the fall semester of 2006, I taught at the Baogang #1 Senior High School, or Baogang Yizhong. Someone at some time attributed to this school the honor of being not only the best in the city, but one of the best in Inner Mongolia and the whole region. It had an acclaimed math and science program, and was working on improving its English program. On the walls near the listening rooms were photographs of smiling foreign teachers from an earlier time.

Spring semester, I taught at Baotou #9 Senior High, or Bao Jiuzhong. This school also claimed to be best in the city, as the students would proudly assert. It's possible that their claim was legitimated with the results of that year's college entrance exam, but I can't be sure. In any case, this school was well-known for its English program and focus on the humanities in general.

In both cases, my class was something of an extracurricular-- students freely signed away their recesses to take part in our non-graded courses, which met once a week. The powers that be recommended that the other teachers and I teach on a rotating schedule, which meant that it could be two to three weeks before I saw any given class again. Classes tended to start out large before exams and other commitments pared them down to a few handfuls of dedicated students.

Ok, so maybe I'll work out the introduction last. In any case, so begins a series on English and the Baotou public schools.

uh oh

2008-01-22T03:26:00.000+08:00

last night i awoke from pleasant dreams with a fire in the nether-regions of my throat. you know what i'm talking about-- it's the kind of sore throat that makes you want to cry and ask "why me?" my throat got sore the night before, and was uncomfortable that morning, but i forgot about it for most of the day. but then i ran my mouth a whole lot, and that's why i think what was previously a scratchy tonsil transformed into a deep-throated furnace. i was torn between further entrenching myself in my warm blankets and getting up to find a remedy. i was tired. i wanted nothing more than to be asleep again. but then i checked my watch and found that it was only 1:50 (it felt like 4am). so i dragged myself out of bed and started going through the pantry for something--anything-- that might help. i thought that maybe i had bought some soup months ago that i'd forgotten about. i found mac and cheese in the freezer and noted that. but when inspiration struck, and i checked a lower cabinet for canned goods, i found the thing to do the trick. there, behind a cadre of canned peaches, sat a lone can of spaghettios, expiration summer 08. i decanted them into a tupperware container and heated them up. it's not that i'm a huge fan of spaghettios, although it's evidently a good thing that i don't mind eating them. for a sore throat, there's nothing better than something warm and viscous (bonus points for saltiness or spiciness) delivered directly to the offending area. and that's how i found myself eating spaghettios at 2am this morning.

tick tock

2008-01-14T14:02:00.000+08:00

in other news...

i spent the afternoon reading my brains out at borders, so much that i pretty much just stumbled home in a spatial and temporal warp, but anyways... it still managed to occur to me, as i stood on the BART platform at embarcadero just how fast 11 minutes can just whiz by. how many 11 minutes of my life have come and gone as i've stared at the wall in a stupor? time is a slippery customer at the best of times, and especially when it's spent waiting for the next ride. even when the wait seems interminable... from the longest 3 minutes EVER to the longest 30-minutes-in-the-cold-that-should-have-only-been-5-minutes EVER, it's like... damn, those minutes are come and gone forEVER, and at the end of my life, those are the ones that I'm gonna want returned to me because I always forget or decide not to bring a book. today's 11 minutes went faster than usual (often, you'll find me rolling my eyes incessantly) because i had mentally prepared myself by mishearing the announcement as "1 minute" and when I found out I was wrong, quickly steeled myself against disappointment by saying "whatever, I have my ipod." and then good-bye to 11 minutes of my life. they went so fast, and then next thing you know, i'm sitting in a dark tunnel wondering why the heck the train stopped moving. and then, with no explanation, we moved again, and from there it was smooth sailing all the way home.

the story this time had nothing to do with anywhere i had to BE (though, if you want to be fair about it, i was tired, dazed, hungry, and needed to pee), but the fact that there was nowhere else i COULD be, because if i wanted to be anywhere else, then i would just have to continue waiting.

and i thought that if i ever figured out just how much of my life i have spent and will be spending during an interim, i might be awed, or philosophical, or indifferent. but there's also the likelihood that i'd be quite depressed, and so i'm going to refrain from any calculations to that end for the time being.

bleeaeaeeaaaargh

2008-01-14T13:53:00.000+08:00

oh my god, i just ate a whole personal pizza and the last quarter of that falafel wrap. i'm perfectly aware that it wasn't *that* much, but i was only planning on eating half the pizza and it's almost 10:00. it's just that whoever buys groceries for my grandparents bought like 10 (more?) Celeste single serving pizzas the other day and only 3 of them would fit in the freezer. we ate three of them for my breakfast/their lunch that day, and the rest have been sitting in the refrigerator. so i'm trying to help get rid of them before they become unfit to eat but get fed to me anyway. By the way, I don't know why it is, but Celeste is like the only brand of personal pizzas that they sell at Safeway or something. It's more akin to the pizza you'd get in elementary school or the skating rink than anything anyone the least bit discerning would order of their own volition, but I guess since these people hold a monopoly in the frozen foods aisle, and random people still insist on buying it, that's what we're stuck with over here. Sigh.

2008

2008-01-13T11:45:00.000+08:00

On the bus today, I got to thinking about parts of my back-story and my resume and all those things that, at face value, make me sound pretty good. And then I thought about why I can't account for the fact that most of the time, I don't feel like I'm actually as good as I sound.

At Sam's on New Year's Eve, I made up a resolution that was actually more of a goal. It was a good goal, but not a good resolution. But now I have both a goal and a resolution, and here they are:

My 2008 New Year's Resolution: To sound good and be as good as I sound.

My Goal for 2008: To once again become a functional and contributive member of society.

Haha! That's it! I just thought I should write it down somewhere.

The day that went its own way

2008-01-13T11:00:00.000+08:00

I had a good day today, the first truly good one in a while, and certainly the best since Tuesday, which is good, cuz I needed it. There was a reason I didn't want to get out of bed today... it might have been an interesting dream, or it was just that I was so darn comfortable (and resentful that someone had called the REALLY loud phone in the living room this morning). But I got up. My plan was really just to check out the new Touchstone gym in Oakland, boulder for an hour or so to get my money's worth out of this month's membership, then get off the bus on College, check out some of the stores, then go home. When I saw that the sun came out today after all, I figured I had no excuses and got out of bed.

This morning I had cereal for breakfast. I bought this cereal back in September when I first came out here and just hadn't been in the mood to eat it until earlier this week. It's Kellogg's Smart Start, and it held up pretty well on top of the fridge all those months, though the texture of the cereal in its natural state is such that it could go a little stale with no real negative effects.

And then I left. I marched down to the 51 and rode it all the way to GWPW's convenient location on 20th. And then I went the wrong way. I swear the website directs you to turn right, but I'm not dumb enough to undermine my story by actually checking that fact at this point. So I went the wrong way on 20th, but was pretty happy about it, cuz I had my new playlist throwing some new acts at me, and I was enjoying the weather. Then I saw Lake Merritt and figured that I'd better turn around.

As soon as I started heading the right way, I saw a building with a honking big smokestack popping out of the top, and I said "OH. Okay." And within short order, I was there. It's a lot... smaller than I expected. I mean, it's not tiny, and it's not the first time I've been spatially misled by a climbing gym's website, but yeah. Actually, the top-rope area was pretty nice, but the bouldering wall's a little depressing if you're not particularly advanced. Or maybe if you're just not up to a challenge, which I wasn't really today. I tried to do a couple of the easier ones, but for pretty much all of them there just comes a point where you realize that the person who set the problem was at least half a foot taller than me. After a couple leaps of faith that brought me nothing but the fear that I would injure myself on the next one, I sat back to consider my options.

It was at this time that someone came up to me and asked if I went to Cornell. I'd forgotten that I was wearing my Cornell lounge pants, though sometimes that's why I wear things like that, and the Ithaca shirt, and so on. This fellow was an 04 grad who had also taken intro to rock climbing and had just picked up the sport seriously in May. He and his sister had come up from Palo Alto to check out the gym and meet the rest of their family. Long story short, I got a harness and top-roped with them for a while, and by the time I left, it was about 3. I had a really good time! The top-roped routes are long, though even the 5.10bB's are doable for me. But since the, uh, commitment was a bit more than I was used, to, about 3/4 of the way up my mind started wandering and I had to tell myself that obviously I could go the next few feet no matter how tired I was because come on, look at it. I did 3 routes and used my arms a lot, so while they're not very sore, I feel them more than I have in... wow, a really long time. Have we not been working ourselves very hard on Tuesdays? I don't know. But anyways. I decided it was time to go when I was less interested in climbing than I was in eating and I felt kinda weird being this outsider in this big fuzzy family gathering. They were a nice family though! At one point I got very self-conscious as I belayed my new friend, because I was terrified that I'd set up wrong and he'd plummet to his death as his parents, sisters, in-laws, and nieces looked on with their bags of almonds and dried apricots. But that didn't happen! AND the mom offered me dumplings to take home (which i declined).

I went back to the 51 stop and waited just long enough for me to get fed up and pull my book out of my backpack. The bus showed up within the paragraph. A few stops later, this woman got on... and... well, I was sitting sideways in one of the fold-down seats across from the rear door, not even halfway down the length of the bus. She came and parked herself right in front of me. It was a little jarring at first, but not a big deal until I realized that she actually had quite a few better options in terms of location and even seating on this not-very-crowded bus. I'd been considering giving my seat to her when I came to this realization. She didn't seem to physically need to sit down, but she was a bit unwieldy with her backpack between her legs and a big floral spray in one hand. And she was right in front of me, the ribbons from the bouquet were flapping in my face... within the confines of my personal space. It was just extremely disconcerting, more so when the girl next to me got off and there was just me and this woman in this large radius of totally empty space. Then, without warning, she turned and exited the bus. Very sudden. Kind of a relief. Now, this encounter was a lot less colorful than other public transit encounters I've had, but it was one of the first to actually just... irritate me.

I went "shopping" on College, and the only thing I really bought was a Street Spirit from a woman on the street. I went into Jeremys and considered getting a coat. I went into a very cute shop in which the items were just out of my price range... and also sort of useless seeing as how I have no apartment in which to display cute non-functional knick-knacks like felt rocks. I went into a recycled/organic/eco-friendly store which was absolutely adorable. I heard as song I liked, so the girl checked out the playlist for me, and returned that the band was Peter Bjorn & John, ironically. I saw a LOT of stuff I wanted, particularly a particular artist's metalwork, and a lot of the jewelry, and so on... so I decided to store that away for another time.

By this point, my stomach was doing a constant rumble. I'd passed Ici and wandered around the Italian food place and La Mediteranee, but held out... I wanted to get home to eat the other half of my falafel wrap from yesterday. I walked the rest of the way back, and around the last block started wondering if I'd be able to make it. My backpack had started really weighing me down in the first store and my head was... hurting. It still hurts, actually. But I made it, even though I forgot my key, and I ate half of the half of the falafel wrap and showered and felt nice.

And that was my day today. I encountered a lot of nice people, and the sun was out, and I did more than I thought I could do. Hooray!

The hair of the future

2008-01-13T10:54:00.000+08:00

I saw it today. Today I saw the hair that I want and I stared at a girl on the bus (as surreptitiously as I could muster) until I could ascertain just how to get it. I think I've been presented with the same concept before, but the execution on this one was the best I've seen yet. She was asian and had some pretty stylin layers. One of the bottom layers though was alternately dyed different shades of pink and lavender, so the colors peeked out from the bottom, but didn't look trashy or anything. Well, at least not to me. But the point is, that one day... one day in the FUTURE, I will have that or a similar hairstyle, when I find myself in a comfortable and secure position. since it involves color... I may have to wait until I'm in school again. And then perhaps I'll follow it up with that faux hawk.

Found: awesome tv show and lover in a former life

2008-01-12T12:43:00.000+08:00

The title for this post was originally going to be simply "found," but I figured I could dodge some ridicule this way. It's actually about LOST, that show that I used to watch and find myself watching again. What happened was that my harddrive was glutted after getting topped off with all the music I got over the holidays, so I was looking for ways that I could bear that would free up a few gigs. And then I realized that I had half of season 3 sitting on there in hefty mp4 format, and then I watched an episode and remembered that it was good. Also, considering how lame my life is now and how I'm constantly looking for entertainment with minimal effort to be expended by myself, well... one thing led to another and I finished the series and I really just need more.

Anyways, I know this subject is kind of boring, but I realized it's probably important for me to get this thing going again, since I'd never forgive myself later if I just let the precious momentos (siiiigh, it's a neologism, ok?) of my youth slip away without a fight.

And perhaps it seems boring at first until I disclose the abundance of vivid dreams I've had the past couple days (though I can't remember them in full, so it might remain boring for you, sorry). Last night, especially, after I finished the season, I kept waking myself up because I was trying to dream up season 4 and I dream-justified it as "not wanting to spoil anything." Also dreamt last night: terrifying car ride with my dad in my new car, on our way to arthur's birthday party, arthur's birthday party and some pretty weird guests, then party game in which teams build their miniature "dream garden" by bartering for found items. For example, you'd walk up to someone and ask for a lake and they might give you a small chunk of blue felt.

Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful new thing as I add some digital umami to my life as it is.

That is all.

Some credit, please

2007-08-27T11:52:00.000+08:00

Upon arriving home, I have discovered that it's somehow become so much easier to use someone else's credit card to pay for random shit. I feel like fool. At CVS, at Border's, you know, I just stand there waiting for the credit card slip, ready to dive for the pen to show that "oh yeah, this customer's with it" but actually no, they don't need me to do that anymore. Not that the old way really did that much for security in the end anyways... for years I signed with a signature that in no way resembled the one appearing on the back of my card, but seriously. Damn.

And as for Beijing...

2007-08-03T09:22:00.001+08:00

So what have I been doing with myself here anyways? Haha, eating, mostly, just... snacking.

At China Care, I'm kind of the assistant to the volunteer coordinator, Jeremy, a nice fellow whose dry sense of humor really confused me for the first week or so. I live on-site in a dorm-like situation (apartment with bunk beds) within seconds of the 4 children's homes. It's a very convenient location for volunteering, but not really for anything else. It's not *quite* in the boonies, but it's definitely not central or anything. We're about 20 minutes from the airport, but only because the road there is so loopy. I'm sure that a straight shot would put us much much closer. On the other hand, that means that we're about 45 bus-minutes from Beijing-proper, if the traffic's good. While this isn't the biggest deal actually, it's functioned as a pretty strong deterrent thus far against many more excursions into the city. I generally take one trip in a week and stay the night with friends. I might visit more often if it weren't for an actual sense of duty and the fact that the buses stop running after a certain time and cabs are like Y100.

I do like spending time at China Care though, so it all works out. The area here is what you'd call suburban, but there's surprisingly little in the immediate vicinity in terms of cheap, quality Chinese food (in the Baotou sense). All store fronts appear sketchy, and there are few of those anyway. Which is shocking, because you should see the sheer number of apartment complexes hereabouts. There is one park down the block, which is extremely pleasant and which I enjoy very much... except for the over-abundance of mosquitos. For about Y20 each way, you can get to a plaza with a Starbucks, a very delicious Italian restaurant, and a grocery store called Jenny Lou's. This place is like a crib sheet for the Western gastronomy. The first time I walked down the aisles and saw shelves of Campbell's soup, I thought... "You shouldn't be able to get this here! This is cheating!" I mean, after months of rationing a single box of Easy Mac packages, what was I supposed to think? I don't like to go often though, cuz just getting there is so expensive and then you're just spending money on expensive stuff while you're there. The restaurants do delivery though, and sometimes I just sort of feel that urge to let the food come to me of its own volition.

Ok, this is just gonna have to be part 1. It's been sitting unpublished on my desktop for the past week, so it's about time I guess.

Leaving Baotou

2007-08-03T08:40:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm not really sure why I haven't been updating this more frequently.

Anyways, I'm in Beijing! I got here... several weeks ago. The day I left Baotou, Julie called to say that she had to make an emergency trip with one of the babies, and so would be coming along on the same train. She needed to trade her ticket for a bottom bunk, so we thought it would be best if we could just trade our tickets onto the same car.

I actually finished packing mid-afternoon, and rather than ponder my fate in the sweltering apartment, I went out for a last chat with my fruit friend.

Alice came home, and we loitered for a while until Emily, one of the volunteers at the children's home, came to help with the move. Then the three of us loitered around until Linda and Alice's mom showed up, and we started to carry things downstairs. We found Helen's dad waiting outside the gate, and he went up to wrestle the large suitcase down the stairs and into the backseat of his car. Then we all piled into the two cars, and drove off.

We got to the train station just about on time, but Julie was late! All of us went onto the platform and finally got onto my car. There was some difficulty in this choice because we had originally planned to trade everything into the car they had. It's difficult for me to explain now, but her ticket was for a top bunk while mine was for a middle bunk, and bunks are valued and priced based on their vicinity to the ground. Extremely fortunately, Mr. Bao knew the family of the girl in the bottom bunk of my berth, and she was really nice anyway, so they traded right away. Then I went out as Julie came busting down the stairs with a bundle and a kind of harassed look about her.

We still needed to trade me into the car with all my luggage though... while it wasn't entirely necessary, I preferred it that way. After much ado and random flusteredness and bartering, everything worked out fine, the train rolled away, and I waved byebye to my Baotou friends.

A lot of times I think about going back up for a visit... though mainly to see certain babies and eat certain foods. But I think I'm mostly finished up there, it was a good year, but it's seriously just time to move on.

The last 2 days

2007-07-05T06:53:00.000+08:00

Apologies to my future self (and anyone who happens to care whether I update or not) for my delinquency. You know how it is when lots of smaller significant things happen and you don't want to write about all of it because you think you might be sitting in front of the computer a long time and somehow cheapening the actual experience with poor diction. I might as well mention a few things though. I don't know when people start showing up here to start using the computer, so we'll see how far I get.

So that "last thoughts" entry didn't work out at all, for the obvious reason that I didn't want to spend my last day in Baotou sitting in our sweltering apartment just blogging about it. Would you believe that I wasn't packing up until the last minute this time around? That isn't to say that things weren't hectic though or borderline dramatic even. The greatest obstacle, and a number of people have noticed my rants about this, was the disappearance of running water from my life. I've been doing anticipatory loads of laundry for weeks, and was systematically storing everything in my suitcases as I went. The weather got wet and chilly just before Chen's visit, causing me to break out a few heavier articles, but things were going more or less efficiently. Until Monday. I got up at 6:30 to put an early end to all the laundry business, and managed to wash the vast majority of everything, but then spent the rest of the morning at the children's home. I was back and ready to dig in again at about 3 in the afternoon, at which point I managed to dampen what remained of my dirty clothes with just enough water for things to be really difficult before never having water again. Ting shui isn't the rarest occurrence around there, and often will just result when one of the upstairs households uses the shower or something. Typically if they actually just shut the water off, it's back within hours at the most. So I spent pretty much the rest of the day going back and forth, checking the status of the shower, and subsequently cursing the heavens above.

No water has a lot of other consequences too. Water is an integral component in the operation of flush toilets. To wash your hands, you traditionally need water. And really, just forget about showering and all the other trappings of personal hygiene. For a while, the toilet situation was workable. Just hold it for a few hours as water trickles into the tank, and complete one satisfying flush cycle before hoping that you won't have to pee again anytime soon. Then, for post-potty handwashing, take advantage of the tiny 5-second jet that spews out of the faucet (also once every couple hours) and remove residual suds with baby wipes. And that worked fine for a while, and I still sustained the hope that our water would, at some point, return.

Packing went smoothly enough, though I did get very gross and dusty in the process. Even as my luggage filled, it seemed there was still plenty of just plain crap sitting around EVERYWHERE.

But I went off to Alice's house for dinner with her family, and when we all came back, there was still no water. Flushing became hit-or-miss. Around 11, we took our toothbrushes and biked back over to her apartment so that we could at least wash up a bit before bed. Her mom said that if water didn't come back the next morning that I could finish my laundry there.

Got up early the next day, came comfortably close to being finished, then called up Alice's dad about borrowing their machine only to discover that they no longer had water either. In fact, most of Baotou reported that there was no water. Well, most as in everyone Alice and I talked to. As the day went on, lower floors got water back... The fruit guy had his usual bucket of water on the sidewalk... other signs like that... but for us on the 5th floor, well... the toilet had quit flushing altogether. The situation still hadn't resolved itself by the time I left, and all I could really do was apologize for not having been able to do the dishes or clear the toilet of its... contents.

I hadn't showered in two days, which while bearable, was undesirable in the Baotou heat/dust.

As for the laundry, it wasn't clean and it wasn't dry. So that all went into random plastic bags to be dealt with here. The problem was that my Cornell sweatshirt actually managed to bleed all over my other things while they were sitting in the washing machine (it bled like a wounded animal), so... that was a nice discovery.

But anyway, I was at a stopping point at about 3... maybe earlier, and was pretty much just this bundle of nervous energy. You know like when you can't stop moving at all and nothing can calm you down. I was extremely aware of the heat and stuffiness, and also of the toilet being the way it was. So, in my final hours, I took my book and my ipod and went out for a stroll.

I got through a few pages of Lolita then had to stop. I couldn't really calm myself down. It had started after lunch time-- I had lunch with Dave at a Muslim noodle shop, as kind of a book-end to our first solo meal back in February-- and on the way back just got to thinking about being home and about being in Beijing, and doing something new at last. It got my blood circulating and I went off like a runaway train. But more like a sentient runaway train that suddenly realizes that it has no track. So I closed my book and began walking. The idea was to go to the fruit stand, but the fruit guy was across the street. As an alternative, I started walking towards the training center. It seemed like a place I should visit "one last time." The campus was really pleasant and quiet. Still on kind of an internal rampage though.

On my way back, YJ was back on his side of the street. So we talked until Alice came home and I had to get back to crunch time.

I already miss him a lot. You really don't expect in this day and age to meet someone that you can never see or communicate with again. But that's what happened in this case. There is absolutely no practical way for us to keep in touch at all, and slim is an optimistic way of describing our chances of ever running into each other again. I dunno, I have really strong yuanfen with some people sometimes, so I guess we'll see. But it's all just very sad and poignant.

There was actually some drama on Monday night that I'm not going to get into here, but it's a really... interesting story.

Getting to Beijing was another thing entirely, and I'll have to talk about it separately. I need to go check out my phone options. Trying to decide if I should just recharge my Baotou number or just forget it and replace it with a Beijing sim.

I'm ok though, if a bit itchy, and I showered twice last night!

Thoughts on this, the day I leave Baotou for good

2007-07-03T10:58:00.000+08:00

A few things:

Mostly they concern the past couple days.
... Actually, what is there even to say?

I've really enjoyed my last couple weeks in Baotou. It made me feel really good to know that some of my students will remember me for a long time. The last lesson I had was pretty much effortless, just speed dating. I still jive better with the first years than the second years, and we had a pretty good time (from my point of view) before adjourning for pictures. It was really chill, and I appreciated that. Chen came by last weekend, which was pretty exciting. Additionally, he helped me out in my two rowdiest classes, so things were more controlled than usual. I did get to see all of my favorite students a last time, which rules. I may have had specifics, but toootally forgot.

I attempted a batch of brownies on Saturday, with a few slight modifications. I don't know if it was the measurements or the oven, but well... some would say that I failed in my endeavor. Be that as it may, a cold pan of half-baked brownies has really come in handy every now and then since then. What is that like? Well, the majority of the center is definitely still liquid. But that can be cool.

The children's home has seemed pretty empty for a week or so, since Xin Cheng was put into foster care and a lot of the other babies I knew went hither and yon.

Ok. Sooo. Wound up not finishing this after all. More later I guess!

Saturday is Murphy's Law Karmic Revenge Day

2007-05-28T11:20:00.000+08:00

And it really is. Or at least on a small scale. Saturday is "I should have known" Day, though most of the time everything balances out in time for the afternoon. This Saturday was a pretty good example.

So really, Saturday just adheres to a strict policy of cause and effect, and therefore my story begins on Friday. Fridays are the days that I used to spend frantically trying to complete a worksheet unit for my Saturday morning students (who don't appreciate it so much, by the way) so that I could get it printed by 4pm, when I have to head back to class with Russ and Dave. Ever since I found out though that the printer opens at 7:30 in the morning, I've been putting off the work until the evening so that I can relax a bit in the afternoon and just wake up early (which I tend to do anyways) to get everything done. This worked fine for like one or two weeks, until one recent weekend where the machine kept choking or something and I wound up having to take a cab to make it to school on time (and the cab woman would not give me change for a 50, even though she had it, and insisted on looking in a gas station for change when they were either closed or didn't have it either and in this manner stalled me even further). My thing is that I like to take the bus cuz it saves money and I like to take it early because I don't like walking through a fog of recessing #1 school students to get to my classroom.

Anyways, last Friday, I was tootally not in the mood to spend my afternoon making this worksheet. I had some lunch, walked around a bit, and came home with the intention of napping for a while before getting started on it... but then I decided that maybe I wanted some lychees. I figured I could get some fruit and get in some brief conversation with the fruit guy and thereby put myself in a good mood to do work. The brief conversation became kind of an hour-long conversation, give or take, and by the time I got back I was even more tired and much closer to classtime. I ended up sort of not doing anything productive in the meantime and then left.

Putting the worksheet together at night normally isn't a problem for me either. I can stay up to do work if I have to, and really a lot of the worksheet is pretty automatic once I get the main idea set down. So this was not a big deal, nor was it out of the ordinary.

After class, I hung out with Dave and Russ as per usual. We often eat dinner together since it used to be we all had class relatively soon after, but recently it's just been a few snacks at some picnic tables near a bunch of vendors. By the time Dave and I got back (this particular class takes place in my neighborhood), Mrs. Liu and some of the parents were just standing around outside my apartment. After a brief chat, I headed in, BUT stopped short when I saw Tara's bike sitting there. I found that I could go no further. The whole idea of writing this thing with the constant distraction of her mere presence was simply too much. SO, I decided to go cool off in the little park area. I sat for a while... sent Alice some text messages describing my plight, and eventually pulled out my notebook and sketched out my worksheet idea. Eventually Alice texted me back and told me to go over to her place instead. So I walked on over, rested my head briefly, ate what amounted to a 2nd dinner, and at last the 2 of us came home. At that point I just wanted to shower and die, so I did just that. I didn't feel like wasting a bunch of time sitting around staring at Word, when I knew that I could get up early and have a nice serene work atmosphere all to myself. That's just what I did.

Saturday dawned. I arose as planned, and finished everything on time. I figured that the latest I should be headed to the printer was about 8:15, to allow for any copier troubles that could come up. Everything went all right UNTIL I couldn't find my USB drive. Couldn't find it anywhere. Still can't find it, as a matter of fact, which ain't good but whatever. I did, however, know the location of my 256k drive which I hadn't used in months because it was full. I decided to just delete some of the stuff for now.

I don't know if I was just dazed or what, but when my anti-virus/spyware monitor suddenly started asking me if Windows Help should be allowed to alter system information and access the internet, I just kept clicking allow. I remember thinking "this doesn't seem right... oh well!" Then I got the BSOD for the first time in ages and my computer shut off. Cue storm of cuss words and panic attack.

I restarted my system, and it all came back ok, at which point I was prompted again about Windows Help. I'm not sure why it said Windows Help, but the actual program in question was one RECYCLER.exe, which turned out to be a trojan/smashbot or stashbot or slashbot or something. I got sooo pissed. I'm pretty sure I got this virus from a computer at the #1 school last semester. But anyway, I couldn't access the drive at all, so I burned the files to CD to drop off at the printer so that I could come home and work this out while it was all getting done. I threw on a random outfit (jeans/t-shirt affair) and ran downstairs. When I got there, we couldn't get their CD drive open. When it opened, it couldn't read the data. SO. I had to run back.

By this time, Tara had gotten up and was getting ready to leave. Alice got up too, though I guess just to visit the bathroom. I waylaid her and begged her for her usb disk. She gave me her usb hub. We spent a moment trying to clarify this and finally I got a working disk with my files to the printer. While I was there they also killed the virus on my USB (though it involved deleting everything). At this point I had enough foresight to ask whether or not I should go make some change to pay for the printing. I did have to, so I went to the convenience store and bought random crap.

I got out at 9:15 wide awake with enough adrenaline in my system to last the rest of the day. At the end of it all, I decided to just take the bus anyway just to sort of reclaim my morning. I got to class exactly at 10.

Afterwards I went for a soothing coffee/student journal reading session and the rest of the day went all right.

So anyways, I'm not complaining, since everything worked out in the end, but it's just kind of a funny story to me. By the way, I fiddled a bit with the registry and it seems like my virus problems are solved...

actually a really short entry about laundry that was hard for me to title so this is it

2007-05-28T11:00:00.000+08:00

Laundry day again. But this time it's a SPECIAL laundry day. Today I am washing all the clothes to be packed in my suitcase not to be unpacked until I've reached the landlocked shores of the big OH. Kind of exciting, though I still hate doing laundry here. I'd considered outsourcing this particular load, but the skinflint in me won over. I spend a lot of random money this month... on a hard disk, a dress, and coffee, so...

There's lots to say about this past weekend I guess, so I'll go ahead and start new posts for those.

Dirty Weather

2007-05-11T15:40:00.000+08:00

It's dirty. Just plain dirty. It's been cooling off a bit the past couple days and the wind picked up a whole lot. The clouds moved in and I haven't seen the actual sky for a while now. Anyways, yesterday when I left the orphanage, I noticed that all the cars parked outside were coated with something. I figured it was the weird seed fuzzies that have been floating around for the last week or so, clinging to what might have been a light drizzle leftover from when I was indoors. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the cars were all covered with a dense layer of what looked like splatters from a mud-soaked brush. I thought maybe the rain had condensed whatever film of dust must be already stuck to the hoods, but I looked even closer at the windows on the bus I rode home, and yeah... it was actually just the rain. It was raining dirt yesterday.

Today counts as a sunny day, but the wind's pretty strong. I went out for lunch and the dust from the street was getting blown everywhere. Turns out, if you part your lips for even a second, grit will get stuck in your teeth, so when you close your mouth there's this mineral grind between them. I didn't realize where that was coming from at first, and then just resolved to keep my mouth closed.

Like a polaroid picture

2007-05-07T09:23:00.000+08:00

A little more than halfway through my class with the primary-age kids last night, we had ourselves a bit of an earthquake. I was explaining some exercise from the textbook when our 2nd floor classroom did the rhumba. You got the sound too... a low grumble. That's actually the real sound effect! I didn't know! It was very cinematic. The kids started yelling and whatnot... some popped under their desks as a joke (I think). I personally wasn't really sure what had just happened, but one of the dads insisted that it was just a big truck driving by and that everything was fine. Whatever, everyone knew it was an honest to goodness di zhen.

Earthquakes aren't a big surprise for people in Baotou. Some years back, there was apparently a big one that caused the only school closure in recent memory. The English teachers who were working here at the time got moved out of their apartments to live in a bus, which I think sounds pretty rad.

Technically earthquakes aren't news for me either. My grandparents live in Berkeley, and according to my mom, every time we visit, there are tremors like every single night. It's just that I've slept through every single one (though I did once respond with a sleeptalked "rumblerumblerumble"). So while I've been party to numerous little quakes, this is the first one I've ever consciously experienced.

So yes, it was exciting for me. I remember sitting there asking myself questions like "will the lights go out? will a huge chasm manifest on the floor of the classroom? what exactly should we do?" until it stopped. Then I sort of waited to see if there would be any follow-up, but there wasn't, so life continued almost as normal. We got out of class sooner, which was awesome cuz I was really tired of teaching them last night. I don't know how focused they were anymore anyway, and outside you could hear indistinct chattering, and inside people were having trouble dialing out for info. As class ended, someone confirmed that yeah it was an earthquake, and so I headed home really interested to see if Alice had any commentary to make about it. She was totally oblivious though that it had even happened and was actually disinclined to believe me! Snap!

But everyone else knew. Folks in Hohhot knew. And now you know.

This morning, I found two late messages from students asking me if I knew about the earthquake and if I was all right. Bless them! I don't know exactly what that means... whether or not it was stronger elsewhere, or whether they just think I'm weak-constitutioned, but I guess it's cool that someone cared.

The kindergarten class I'm making up this morning was cancelled last night, but then was uncancelled this morning. So it's a good thing I ended up not sleeping in like I'd planned, cuz otherwise I would have woken up just as the first students started pounding on the door.

Random note: saw a commercial last night that used the star wars theme. then shortly after, was the commercial in which computer animated multicolored condoms threw a tantrum. it honestly might have been a commercial for vascectomies, but it was pretty hard for me to tell. anyways, the condoms cheered and threw a party at the end, so whatever it was worked out.

The ambrosial mango from across the straits

2007-05-05T18:16:00.000+08:00

First off though, I'd like to mention the newest application of my fear of commitment, at its most socially crippling. So, just outside the south gate of my xiaoqu, the gate we most frequently use, is a fruit-seller. We've been buying fruit there on and off since we moved in, but there wasn't ever really any sense of attachment. One reason for this was the eventual rotation of every person who has worked there-- usually it's operated by a single person every day from morning to night until that person mysteriously disappears and is replaced by a new person who does the same. Another reason is that there have been times when the selection of fruit was slightly under the par set by other fruit sellers citywide, or the prices still sounded a little higher in comparison. For these reasons, I've had no problems just taking my business elsewhere, though often I just grew too lazy to buy fruit at all.

Anyways, two days ago I decided to stop and buy a few mangos, when the jolly young male fruit seller decided to strike up a conversation with me. I guess sometimes you can't help but notice the comings and goings of two girls who speak English all the time and who also rendevous with old white men nearly every day right in front of your shop. But since then, I feel somehow beholden to this fruit seller, who, unlike other sellers, makes friendly conversation in lieu of speedy wordless transactions. Because now we have the bare construct of a relationship, I feel like taking the extra steps to go buy fruit elsewhere would be an act of disloyalty, even though probably no one even cares. Also, when I pass the shop now, will I have to make eye contact and small talk? Aaaaargh! These are the concerns that keep my from functioning like a normal person all of the time.

Whaaaaatever, this post is actually supposed to be about mangos. Sweet, succulent Philippine mangos. The Philippine mango is a goldenrod-hued ovoid fruit that is more slender than the mango we are familiar with in the US. There, it's possible to encounter it in the dried fruit section, but here, it's been mango season for a couple months now, and they're everywhere in their fresh golden glory. The first thing you notice, I guess, is the frangrance, and after looking briefly for where that smell is coming from, you'll find the mango. On the street, in a bag on the couch, its tattered peelings in the trash can, wherever, there's that haunting... melodic scent. Instantly recognizable as mango, only it does make you wonder why you've never smelled it this strong before.

These mangos you peel and eat like bananas, and it is a messy endeavor. You'll invariably have to wash your hands afterwards. The skin is pretty tender, and comes away easily, though sometimes you do have to tug a bit. Then you just tear copious amounts of mango flesh off the large pit in the middle, and finish by using your teeth to comb through the remainder of the pulpy fibers, much like whales do, for whatever vestiges of that sugary sweetness are left. If your vigilance wavers, the juice starts dribbling everywhere, and you get neon orange droplets slithering down your wrist, onto your kneecaps or the toes of your socks, and all over your chin. I'm usually pretty careful about this, and had a method that was working pretty well until today, when I just removed the whole mango from its jacket and ate it two-handed. For me, pretty soon the area around my lips and chin starts to burn and itch from the pectin, or whatever it is in fruit that I'm mildly allergic to, and I have to stop.

They've been selling mangos for several weeks now, and I've passed by several mango peels scattered on the streets. For some reason I just didn't want to go for it, under the illusion that these had to be approached like the ones back home: with a knife and a blindfolded sense of disappointment. It seemed like such a small mango would really suck to eat, with more pit than flesh, and a truncated length enjoyment. Also, I had no way of knowing whether they were ripe or not. But anyways, since my first mango a few days ago, I've been hypnotized and can't actually stop thinking about them. The flavor is inspirational. I've cycled through all the cooking possibilities but can't get past the delicious notion of just consuming them raw forever. Now I understand why mango ice creams and candies taste the way they do. This is what mango should taste like! The flavor's so rich and... yellow. These mangos taste like pure nectarine sunshine. Or like a Beach Boys song (a pretty one, about the beach)!

If you ever get the chance, I encourage you to embrace this fruit for a transcendental gastronomic EXPLOSION!

May Day!

2007-05-03T19:41:00.000+08:00

So, I had a post started that talked all about class schedules and stuuuuff, but I don't want to deal with it, so I'm starting a new one.

At the tail end of my "vacation" now. We had a whole slew of makeup classes last weekend (and a few more this weekend), and then starting Tuesday and going until tomorrow, we've had days off. Not gonna bother checking back over the grammar of that one, so whatever. Currently doing laundry, which is taking predictably forever.

It's been a pleasant enough week. Tuesday, May 1, was a big deal, but one which thankfully didn't produce any fireworks. We'd been planning on hitting "the mountains" but were at kind of a loss as to which/where/how the hell to get there. Dave and I grilled some of the high school students about Meiligeng, which he'd somehow heard about, but most students said just not to go there. We didn't really know of any alternatives (weren't even really sure what Meiligeng itself even entailed), so Russ ended up asking one of his students, Ann, who ended up taking us to Meiligeng anyways, which ended up being gorgeous.

Tuesday morning, we met up at the walking street at 8am, and piled into a car. It was a taxi-ish car, but slightly bigger, nicer, and black. That ride cost us Y150, which I thought was pretty steep. We split it 3 ways to treat Ann, which honestly was unexpected... I don't mind saying that I thought we were gonna do 4 ways. Whatever though, not a huge loss (except then I might have considered taking a cheaper car... I can be an assy skinflint when I want). Apparently when locals go, they take a bus or even just their bikes. So yes, we were just basking in luxury in that car. It was the first time I'd gone to the east side of the city... I remember asking Alice during Chinese New Year if she wanted to walk that way, and she adamantly declined, saying pretty much that it's disgusting cuz the only thing there is Baogang. Well, she was sort of right. The sky turned outright gray, and the streets were crowded with coal trucks and other trucks, and so on. We had to drive a ways before the sky cleared up again. I started taking photos at that point, where you could just barely make out the outlines of the Qingshan range in the smog, and photographed the progression from that out to the countryside. There, garbage lessened, civilization was spread a lot thinner, and the sky turned an amazing crystal blue. You could see the mountains pretty clearly after that.

The drive wasn't even an hour, so I guess that means we were ripped off a bit on the ride. But you know, we got there fast, comfortably, and relatively safe, so... yeah I'm not really sure how much that's worth to me exactly, so I'll just leave the whole topic of money cuz I sound stupid when I talk about it.

Since most people take May 1st off, we were expecting a good number of people to be at the mountain, one of the few (but proud) places of interest around these parts. Alice had to go to the monastery again with her company, and reported that it was crowded there also. But since we got there early, the population was still pretty manageable. We really lucked out on the weather, which was absolutely perfect: few clouds, bright sun, slight breeze, warm, not hot.

Not sure what I was expecting when I heard "mountains," but for some reason it didn't occur to me that there'd be admission. It was only Y20 though, which is less than half the price of the monastery, and really for triple the chance for enlightenment. Alice told me that back in the day, it was a dangerous place to go, and people died in ways ranging from falling to drowning. She didn't say that this happened regularly, but that's the image I got in my head. Anyways, since then, it's been "cultivated" into a tourist-friendly sort of trek, through the addition of steps and railings, and a few well-placed "no-climbing" officers with walkie-talkies. Once you start up the path though, you're given a choice every now and then of the safer, easier route, or the "more dangerous and more exciting" one. Of course we took the latter, which consisted of railings plugged next to footprints carved into the rockface, some set for strides much wider than my own. To its credit, the "wilder" paths really did make things much more interesting than, say, Taishan, which is just stair after stair after stair. There was a surprisingly slim margin for error in some places, and people stumbled fairly often.

For the number of people at the mountain that day-- there were some bare areas where folks literally looked like they were meandering through an ant farm (I have photographic evidence!)-- there was still quite a bit of unobscured view. In all I took about 250 pictures of... well, more or less the same thing. Blue sky, gnarled pines, scrubby bushes, and rock. Mountains of beautiful frictive rock. It's the kind of landscape you really just want to clamber all over.

The attractions of Meiligeng are usually listed as the following... "green" and "water." People were in various states of denial over whether or not there'd be either at this time of year. Fortunately, there were both. The waterfalls and creekbeds were already flowing, in a very benign and non-lethal sort of way. The trek up the mountain passes a lot of smaller waterfalls, all unique and interesting in their own rights, to a tall gusher at the top. The volume of water was much less than, say, Taughannock-- people were skipping across the pool to stand on a rock just in front of it without getting so much as sprinkled-- but it was still pretty impressive. If you hold out your right hand in front of your face and turn it 45 degrees counter-clockwise, you have the rock formation that the waterfall's nestled in. It's called the "hand of Buddha" or some such, and the water flows down the crook between the thumb and index finger. The resemblance really is there too. I have a semi-detailed record of all the waterfalls, having been inspired by the h2o pictures on Drew's website. I could really sit around and take close-ups at the same stream of water for like... an hour or something. Of course, the outcome is different every click!

All around the "summit" as it were, are the people who got there before you, staking out rocks and other hard places for their families and friends. You see things like picnic blankets draped over boulders, heated card games, and cans of beer cooling in shallow pools (cuz that water was freeeezing!). People of all ages start at the foot of the waterfall and scramble downwards on the rocks to find a place to settle down. Uniformed guards stand here and there saying goodness knows what into kschhhhking radios while also taking photos for various groups of people and occasionally yelling at others to quit climbing stuff.

I ran into two students up there, which was vaguely awkward, but we took some photos and said "seeya" and moved on. I sat around a while, a ways from Russ and Ann (some interesting, but ultimately confused observations there) and ate a quick snack. Dave had marched on ahead of us long before and spent 30 min or so at the waterfall before heading back and bumping into us along the way. I took more photos. Eventually the three of us started picking our way down the rocks to go back.

Actually, going down was the hard part. It was only about 11, but more people had arrived by this time and were making their way up. Meanwhile, a lot of folks who had already been sitting around were making their way down. Here and there, both groups must use the same narrow path/bridge/stairs/footprints. Then there are the people who think they can take shortcuts but going off the path (I participated at times), and while that does get you there faster, it's still sort of at the expense of others. I have the utmost admiration for the parents who carried their babies/small children both ways.

We met up with Dave and headed back to the front to get some food. There's one restaurant there, and I guess it's part of the Meiligeng resort. Yeah, there's a whole litter of villas where dwell large parties of vacationers. Actually, I think the restaurant was booked mostly full of them. We may have been the only ones there who didn't live on-site. That food was expensiiiiive, but I have no complaints about flavor or any of that. I mean, service was slow, but it's cuz they were also taking care of 3 full tables next to us, and it ended up giving us time to just unwind. The most interesting dish was the last one... chicken and mushrooms, where the mushrooms were like... big honking mushroom caps and stems. Very chewy and, uh, resilient, but I got a kick out of them. They held the sauce pretty well.

Afterwards, we started the long walk back. Meiligeng is actually at the end of a long road along which there is nothing. It's apparently around 8km long, but we figured what the heck, we like walking, and just went ahead. We were like the only people walking at the time, even though I know we saw a whole bunch of people coming the other way that morning. It was maybe 2:30 at that point. We walked a real long time, but it wasn't the least bit tiring or anything. The sun felt good, but my right hand and wrist were turning gray and totally mummifying. I couldn't really wiggle my fingers so well because of how dry my skin was getting. Also my fingers had swollen quite a bit. When I finally looked down I was all like "holy crap!" On either side you could see piles of scree, some last trickling vestige of the waterfalls and streams, scrubland, boulders, and weird animal tracks. Every now and then a vehicle would come literally screaming by. There was a temple on the side of the road, but it was gated and quiet. Also there was a small colony of abandoned tourist yurts, which intrigued me.

The end of the road fed into the road home, and the mouth was clogged with people waiting for the bus. Ann had planned for us to take the train back, so we walked a ways further away from town to a totally deserted train station. I didn't even realize there was a train station there. Anyways, the first thing I thought when we got there was how much like a computer game it felt to be on a totally empty platform and to be staring at signs but at no people. Very Myst-like, or at least Syberia-esque. Despite that, we went inside to inquire about tickets and the employees informed us that the schedule had been changed and the train now comes at 3 instead of 4 or 5 or whatever we thought it was. Aaaand it was 3:30. So we turned around and decided to hail a cab. But the road wasn't really a happening place either, and most vehicles coming by were 3-wheeled cars and cargo trucks. Otherwise you'd see cabs that already had fares or which the owners were using to take their families out for the day.

We walked back past a mian jing restaurant (how much business could they possibly get out there?), where a woman standing outside started asking us if we were looking for a taxi. She said she could get us a car. We took her up on the offer of a van for Y80 and went inside while she called whoever it was. He wouldn't do it for Y80, but Y100 was about what we expected, so we offered that instead. Then we waited around for the van. The woman looked sort of like how you'd expect Natalie Portman to look if she were Chinese.

We went back in a nice white van along the very bumpy terrain of Liuyuan district (or something to that effect). Suspension on these vehicles is really, uh, springy (I don't even know if suspension is what i'm talking about), so a lot of bumps sent me bouncing off the rear seat to the degree that all body parts lost contact with all car parts. Getting air that way was pretty fun. Got some more pictures of the drive back. I kept dozing off and smacking my head against the window.

He dropped us off at the far end of the walking street, so I walked back home via the north gate of our xiaoqu (uh... small district/living district/apartment complex/subdivision/what have you), and took pictures! So now you can see what my neighborhood is like.

I got home at about 4:30 maybe, and fiddled with pictures until almost dinner time. Alice and I took the bike back over to her place and I took pictures along the street too. We posed with the bike a bit, and her mom took pictures of us. Then we had a nice fairly light meal. I ate mostly xiancai (pickes) and this tofu rind(?... i'm just calling it that)-cucumber salad cuz it was goood. We made fun of the tv for a bit, and came home to watch It's a Boy/Girl Thing.

I don't know why I've never heard of this movie, but actually it was... cute. Parts of it were really dead-on in the humor department... others, not so much. It's weird that after all these years since Freaks & Geeks and The OC, Samaire Armstrong is still playing a teenager. Anyways, it wasn't the best movie experience cuz Alice was QQing with some pilot the whole time, but whatevs. I then decided to sleep, and I did.

Can't wait for real live holograms

2007-04-16T14:52:00.000+08:00

This morning, just before I woke up, I dreamt I was at another museum. I think it could have been Union Terminal in some way... if only because it had to be a familiar childhood memory, but as in most dreams, the resemblance wasn't really there. A few things of note happened. First of all, I ended up there in the course of some other activity that I can't remember too clearly... I was on a bus? I was walking through a city? It was mildly unpleasant, but not too much. In a cab? It was really old-fashioned, I think. Three things happened worth noting. One thing... I was with someone trying to get through a gate. We were in a hurry. I ran through the logical opening with someone. Then friend Christine runs straight through what looked like a solid metal pylon... or... something. Right through the gates/potted plants. We were like wow, we totally didn't see that opening. But it turns out that it wasn't an opening... just that a lot of the gate was a holographic projection. Same with all the... sales clerk... ish people standing at regular intervals in what was apparently a larger hall. A lot of things were. I ran headlong into a few very solid looking objects to test it out. Turns out we were at the entrance for the holographic image exhibit in the museum. It was really delightful, and I went into the exhibit.

Coming out, I went to sit on one of three wooden tiers near the exhibit exit. I may have been younger. Anyways, it turned out to be a kind of musical activity that involved us singing, and I felt emboldened enough by my dream state to voluntarily participate. I sad on the second tier. The only other recognizable person in my... group... was Michael from Salute Your Shorts. The guy in charge of the activity explained that there needed to be like 3 groups of 10 or something, but then suddenly asked me if I spoke Chinese. I said I spoke a little, and he told me that I had to go to a different room. I think this was the point where my teeth started hurting. As in, someone had removed my two bottom front teeth and then put them back in upside down. I really really wanted someone to go back and put them back the way they were but no one would listen to me. Actually, they'd set me up for an activity where I got to play with a baby rattlesnake. They gave me very little instruction in this direction. The rattlesnake was actually big and fleshy, and hot pink. And asleep. I was actually pretty excited to play with it, but I totally didn't want to get bitten.

I don't remember what point I woke up at.

The one with all the cartoon characters

2007-03-30T22:02:00.000+08:00

Weeell, last night I had me a real lulu of a dream, which I would like to record before I forget much more of it.

So whatever the course of events was up until then, I had qualified for some major Olympic-esque sports competition in-- SURPRISE-- gymnastics! The idea was that even never having done any gymnastics whatsoever in all my long life, I had enough random natural talent to get me in. It was very exciting.

Then I was in high school chemistry... or something.

Then I was touring the the competition facility with some friends, and saw people warming up for various activities... everything except whatever gymnastics I was supposed to take part in. So we were concerned and went looking for answers.

Found them in this little conference room where apparently the other gymnasts had been gathered by means of a note from the office. I guess you needed to be present in order to participate, so my eligibility was hurt by my... non-presence. But I never got a note! Somehow, the person in charge of all of this was Lisa K'Bedford, and she was meeean about it. But I never got a note! I was on the verge of tears when this older gent came in. A trustee type or at the very least a chairman type. But maybe not that high up. But at least high enough to veto Lisa K'Bedford. So I pleaded my case... they were sitting on chairs and I'm pretty sure I was on my knees. In this conference room. And I was all like crying, but I made a really good argument. So the dude decided that I should be allowed to compete, and I was so happy that I hugged him. But... then suddenly he wasn't so old anymore. And then he engaged me in what was definitely kissing, and I remember thinking, "Well, this sort of undermines everything I just said." Thing was, it seemed very much like some continuation of a past encounter, which I had no recollection of. Afterwards I looked around cuz I didn't want anyone to think that I was back in because of some sort of... backdoor relation, but everyone just went about their business like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

By this time, I'm trying to figure out why he had felt it appropriate to embrace me in such a fashion. Where had we met before? Only now it's not something between him and me, but rather Colonel Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist and Disney's Pocahontas. How did they happen to meet before? Well, we're about to find out.

So, there's wilderness. Kokoum (who is a bit goofy in this incarnation) is professing his undying love for Pocahontas for what seems might be the hundreth time. Maybe he's trying to offer her something? Anyway, she's irritated and goes off into the woods, where...

Someone comes tearing through the vegetation, fleeing the wrath of a giant velociraptor. I'm not sure who it was... though I imagine it was Powhatan, members of the Powhatan tribe, or someone totally unimportant. Anyways, Powhatan ends up dangling from a plank bridge over a really big crevace, much in the way that Cuzco and the other guy dangled in The Emperor's New Groove. There are a few rampaging velociraptors at this point, though actually they look sort of like T-rexes. And then there's Roy Mustang, in the most ridiculous getup I think that I could have dreamed for him. He's wearing one of those floppy hats that you picture on fly fishermen, as well as a matching long beige trenchcoat... covered in what seems like rabbits feet or other scraps of fur/foliage. Camoflage, no doubt. But he's only shown floating in midair or standing in a tree or something, by way of an introduction.

The real action begins when a gas jeep come crashing through the jungle. In the jeep are random characters from the Jurassic Park novels, as well as the X-Men. Whoever the humans are, they attack the velociraptor, and there's this moment of irony when the narration declares that this is the same velociraptor that ate Regis and Muldoon (and yes, I know how the story actually goes). Everyone does their thing, and the dinosaurs are vanquished. The remaining characters from JP die anyways though, possibly, and the X-Men remain. There's Rogue, Jean Grey, Beast, Wolverine, possibly Cyclops, and a random male character who might have been Iceman. But Wolverine somehow ends up in an off-screen fight with an off-screen velociraptor, and you can hear all sorts of macho comments about his healing factor and stuff not really hurting when actually he's getting torn to bits. In the end he dies. The other X-Men are standing in a bush. Like actually in a bush. Rogue is the only one who seems sort of upset. It seems like they're just treating his passing like a fact of life. Anyways, Rogue's wondering... something. To which Jean responds by saying that actually they've all been powerless as long as they've been in the jungle (kind of Savage Land like, but that's not actually what's going on here, I think). Apparently Rogue never noticed this. Beast makes some comment about how he's so glad... but actually he still looks the same. Then it turns out that he's glad that he's host to a colony of warrior tuna, which turn out actually to be about the size of sardines and blue, and honestly living in his fur. He throws one at the random male X-Man as a joke. This is an asset.

They chat a bit, discussing how the velociraptors have lost their predatorial edge in this new environment. This is, I think, a nod towards The Lost World. The idea is that they were once like, hunting killing machines, and now they can only kill when their food is brought to them. Not really sure how that mechanism works, but as an illustration, one of them sort of lumbers by and takes no notice of our X-friends. I supposed at this point that you had to provoke/harass them in some way before they'd attack you. Beast decides that he should go collect Wolverine's corpse and they agree.

MEANWHILE. Roy Mustang rescues Powhatan from his predicament. Then he and Pocahontas share tender moments, and it's literally a montage of getting-to-know-you type scenes. In the end, he's got to go, and actually rides off on a horse, into the sunset if I'm not mistaken.

There's some conflict that leads Powhatan to declare an open tournament where the winner gets Pocahontas' hand in marriage. But Col. Mustang doesn't show! A lot of other random dudes do though. They're all in a circle, wielding knives, when Pocahontas intervenes and grabs this kid (the boy really does come up to, like, her waist, and looks vaguely like his name should be Skippy, although he looks a bit like the blond guy in all those Naruto posters (maybe it is Naruto? I've never seen it) who might have been wearing a pink fishnet shirt) and makes him drop the knife. She tries to make everyone drop their knives, and tells them off. They drop their knives and produce an arsenal of other much larger/sharper weapons. Like battleaxes and stuff.

Some decision is made and they decide to go to the burial ground. The burial ground is... a hut. Kind of like a small highway rest stop. Inside are boxes that could be seen as shrines/coffins, but some of them look extremely electronic... I think one was a jukebox, and one was an older model two-door fridge/freezer. This represented Pocahontas' grandmother. Now, there had been references before now to the grandmother and also the soul of the grandfather being trapped with the grandmother, or some really bizarre whatever, but it all sort of fell into place at this point. We (yeah, I feel compelled to say we again, though I'm not really sure why) produce a plan of the refrigerator contents, and by now we're totally certain that the grandfather (or at least his soul) is in the freezer somewhere. But we're just gonna clean out the fridge. The plan shows like ketchup and mustard bottles and I think all those things actually represented non-tangibles, but I can't remember. Then, in the freezer diagram, there was a big oval with an arrow pointing to it that read "Vic." We assumed that was the grandfather.

Anyways, we were in this process when I woke up all "what the hell."

I think this dream proved a few things about me, though I'm reluctant to really talk about what they might be.

More on that gravity thing

2007-03-25T18:26:00.000+08:00

Actually, does anyone remember that Garfield and Friends episode where the rooster convinces someone (if there was a crazy duck on the show, it was probably him) that they repealed the law of gravity and they sang a song about it?

Anyways, yesterday, one of my fears proved to be a totally rational one when I fell off the back of a bike. Ok, so it's actually happened before, but I'm wearing band-aids now and people [who know me] keep asking what happened to my face. People who don't seem to be following a better code of etiquette than I do or have much better things to think about, because I always ask things like that.

But whatever, yesterday I was running a bit late to my class at the #1 school because I opted for the bus, which is in a random classroom on the far end of the campus that I didn't even know existed all last semester. I teach my Sunday morning kids class on Saturdays now in that classroom. I was crossing the soccer field (I think) and saw one of the kids' moms, who was presumably scouting for me, and she offered to take me the rest of the way on her bike. I was concerned, because the rest of the way involves a gradient that it's almost scary to run down, but I thought what the heck it might be fun. And it was, at first. When we got to the bottom of the hill though, the bike started swerving and tilting a lot, and I didn't know really what to make of it... I thought I might fall, so decided I'd better jump, but whatever really happened, I fell face-first into the concrete. Well, yeah, so I broke the fall with the palm of one hand and the knuckles of the other (hence the bandages). And since my legs were pretty much straight when I made contact, and I was wearing jeans, I got by with a small skinned bruise on one of my knees. My big ol' purse must have padded me in some way, though I can't even guess how, and I skinned my cheekbone. I went in and taught, and felt kinda nasty because I couldn't point to anything without giving my students an eyeful of bloody shredded sores, but I figured they were used to it. The mom kept asking me if it still hurt, and of course it stang, but really-- really-- I just told her how it is: I fall all the time. Period. At this point, it's managed to confound my daily routine quite a bit though, because those injuries are in just the places you really need to put your hair into a pony tail efficiently/successfully, and it's hard to wash chopsticks/any other dishes, so I'm running out of all those things. And I have something very much like whiplash, but only in my left arm, and I can't even begin to tell you why that would be.

Anyways, a little story to add to all the rest.

Life on the Streets

2007-03-22T19:36:00.000+08:00

Today I randomly purchased two small bags of fruit for Y20. Included were strawberries and loganberry/mulberry-ish things, and they smelled so good that I just let myself get ripped off.

Alice had a day off today, so we went shopping! I found a pair of running shoes last night that cost only Y86 (the cheapest ones in WFJ were like 200+, with Adidas running about 600-1000), so like... I bought those. Also, I bought some really awesome zipper shoes... hard to explain, but they're really awesome, even though they will probably make my feet bleed a lot. Uh... also I got a shirt. And CDs.

In a shoe store, I found some awkwardly wingtipped sneakers, and realized that I would ultimately like to own a pair of slick, wingtipped ballet flats. If I had me a pair of those, I don't know what else I would ask for. I mean... well... figuratively.

Also, I realized something. All those random splashes of liquid that I thought were people emptying tea mugs on the street-- not that at all. So, diapers aren't really *in* here, most babies just wear pants with the seam split open in the back, so when they squat it's like one of those coin purses that pops open to reveal familiar excretory orifices. So I knew that parents coax their babies into peeing in the shrubberies and along the curbs and on the cobblestones near the playground, but I sort of convinced myself that I was skirting baby puddles pretty well. Today, outside the bank, we saw a family walking their baby along, encouraging it to leave this astonishingly long streak of baby pee in its wake. I mean, I avoid all street puddles on principle, but to be shown so vividly that the ratio of pee-to-actual water is actually much greater than I thought, that I run a high risk of stomping into *that* kind of puddle should my vigilance fail just once... well, it was humbling.

Yeah, shopping here isn't something I opt to do much on my own. Too much sales pressure. Like, I've never really been "pee-shy" (as Ryan called it) in public restrooms or anything, but I imagine that it's something comparable to what I feel when I walk into a store here. For example, I went into an outdoor gear shop last night and immediately there was a girl on my left and another on my right, intently following my gaze so that they could describe (as if I wasn't already looking at it) every object it landed on. So like "that's a t-shirt... those are swiss army knives... shoes... belts..." aaaargh! I just can't go about my business while under so much scrutiny. There is really no store where this does not occur, and it really gets me so... hulihutu that I no longer trust my own taste or judgement and feel so beleaguered and vulnerable that I eventually just have to get the hell out, abandon ship, mayday mayday! And so I do. So if I ever do elect to go shopping, I also elect to have Alice with me, because, strategically played, the presence of a second warm body increases the amount of personal territory we have between us.

I have learned that I have a new class on Saturday afternoon. I did find out just a few hours ago. I am going to lose my mind lesson planning tonight and tomorrow (mostly tonight, I suppose, dammit... or according to the people who subtitled the Friends DVD we have, TMD!). Glad I brought that coffee with me.

Yes. A bottle.

2007-03-20T14:13:00.000+08:00

I am drinking yogurt from a bottle, and it has chunks of coconut floating in it. I wonder if this will make me sick.

Name a time when you've had vertigo in your sleep.

2007-03-19T13:30:00.000+08:00

Return of the memorable dreams!

This morning... I was a counselor at some camp where we took the kids out in a bus for a trip of some sort. The head counselor stopped us in this random school playground so that he could get gas. The kids though got into like... vague little fights with the kids in the playground. I think I was one of the kids. But everyone piled back onto the bus and we drove off, pretty angry.

Then we were at a resort-type situation, and I found these 3 or 4 kids that I needed to lead back to the main group, which was across this recreational river type thing, by the pool. The most direct way involved walking over the river via a narrow stone bridge, and I thought that maybe the kids couldn't handle it, so I figured we should wend around this other way. But the water, which we had to bypass anyway, was this white color, and the kids thought it was dirty, so we didn't. Oddly enough, the back path up the side of the cliff was easily accessible even without crossing the river, which... actually... would have been physically impossible, but whatever. Once on the other side, these two like... female volleyball players were looking for the other female volleyball players, whom I knew to be lounging around ... somewhere. I went into the hotel, where our sleeping bags were spread out in the lobby. I was just going to hang out there with the few kids until everyone else came back (shortly) so that we could leave. Then I got a phone call from the boss, who turned out to be this woman I volunteered for back in Ithaca a few years ago, and I talked to her about the schoolyard fight.

When I got back, more and more people were coming back in to get ready to leave. I went looking for my sleeping bag, but found out that someone had packed it incorrectly (but had tried, anyways). And Sarah, a childhood friend, was randomly sleeping on the couch.

Then I was in another one of my hotel dreams. In this one, you had to climb the stairs to the 2nd floor, where you could take the elevator. I was on the 4th floor. I went up and came down. Then went to dinner... ish... thing with friends. There was an ice sculpture? It was nice. Then I wanted to go back to my room, by myself. I found the elevator and got in, but couldn't decipher the buttons. I could see a panel on which the only recognizable button was 3, and then a bunch more. I pressed one that looked like 4, but really turned out to be 10. So then I pressed a lot of other buttons, but it turns out that each one went to an even higher floor, like 34 and 47. I tried to make sense of all these other panels in the elevator, but it turns out that they operate pay-toilets for men. Two guys entered the elevator and had similar button problems. Then finally two women (operators) got in. I was getting really panicky the higher we went. Like, I was really scared! I even had dream vertigo. Finally I just got out at the first floor I could, which the other guys did also, and started running down the stairs. The stairs were a low-gradient spiral staircase upholstered in pastel carpet. As you descended, a plastic shield would appear 2 steps down, to catch you in case you tripped (it's a long way to the bottom). I ran all the way back to the first floor before trying to figure out again how to get to the 4th. Totally didn't trust the elevator because I didn't understand how the regular elevator (only supposed to be a few floors) was replaced by an express elevator that took you straight to the double digit floors. There was only one elevator door.

Anyways, that's the dream I woke up from this morning. The childcare part was actually much more interesting before, but i can't call up enough of the details to recreate that for some dumb blog.

Brownies, baby!

2007-03-19T10:22:00.000+08:00

My name might as well be Betty MacGyver. I had another baking session cum mad science experiment last week, and the product was a batch of life-giving brownies. I'm actually really proud of myself!

I'd received what some might call a "motherlode" of bake mixes for Christmas (thanks, friends!) and no way to bring them to fruition! Since baking's not really a part of home cooking hereabouts, an extensive search of the department store/grocery turns up about zero baking pans. Ceramic and glass dishes have stickers on them depicting ovens with a big X on top. All salesladies advise against using any other kind of receptacle for baking, no matter how much it looks like Pyrex.

Now, I'm adventurous, but I'm still not about to put just any unknown alloy into my oven and risk ruining a chance to have delicious baked goods. Also, I realized that Man has been baking throughout the ages... uh... possibly since the dawn of time (hey), so if I tried thinking a little "outside the pan," I might be able to solve the problem without shelling out 3000 for a cast-iron skillet.

Not really sure why it didn't come to me sooner, but in the end, I went out and bought a roll of aluminum foil and fashioned my own roughly 8-in cirucular pan while watching a few episodes of Friends. It was awesome fun, and I really can't wait to do it again. And so simple!

Our fridge was still broken and therefore empty, so we had no eggs. I also wasn't willing to buy more than the one egg prescribed on the back of the box, since we had no good way of storing them. Fortunately, Alice's mom rules. She lent me a nice big egg and also took me to the new grocery store for a fresh jug of oil. I got soybean oil, because it seems slightly more novel and cost slightly less money.

The bane of all baking excursions for me is measurement. I am aware that it's mostly my fault for not just buying a measuring cup (there is a 4 cup measuring AND converting cup at the store for a couple hundred). So I wind up spending a lot of time beforehand looking up metric conversion utilities on the internet. Thing is, few companies mark the volume on containers anymore, and for those that do, I'm unsure as to whether it refers to the total volume of the jar/bottle or the actual volume of stuff they had in it. I went ahead and assumed the latter, so that I could rave about it more. There is a Tupperware cup we got for buying too much clothes one day, and that's 470 ml. I didn't really know how to do 1/3 c with that though. I had an idea that my French press might be 8 oz, and that our paper cups might be 4 oz, but after various internet searches failed to confirm either way, I set up a volume lab at the kitchen sink, and did me some interesting mental stoichiometry. I determined that my French press holds 12 c, and then was able to eyeball my liquids and bake some tasty treats.

It was only after everything was in the oven that I realized that my cough medicine came with a cap that measures 1 fluid oz, so I went back to test my hypotheses and discovered that my French press is actually 13 oz and our paper cups are a whopping 6.5 oz or something like that. It really blew my mind how little space an ounce actually takes up.

I know you're probably thinking that I thought about this too much... and I don't have anything to say about that except that you're probably right... but boy did I feel cool.

Then I gained like an inch of fat around my waist from eating too many brownies (although I did share like half the pan with other people, so don't feel too bad for me).

Gravity, and how it applies to me

2007-03-06T00:21:00.000+08:00

Well, since coming to Baotou, I've developed an interesting fear that I did not have before. I am talking about my newfound fear of falling down a manhole. Is this a distinct possibility? Well... I really can't say. I have unwittingly walked very near open manholes, and I have to say that they do kind of sneak up on you. It's not like you expect to find open manholes anywhere, but every once in a while, someone will remove one of the covers and leave no trace of a warning. Knowing my own tendency towards falling in all manners, and my hit or miss attention span, I would say it's a valid fear. Manholes, for their part, are inexplicably dark for how sunny it is outside, and unreadable in their depths. Also, I'm sure that they're full of all sorts of nasty shit, and that any sudden descent into the sewers would be every bit as painful as they make it look in cartoons.

Having shared that...

It is cold once again. We had a warm spell, but boy, was it short! What followed was a lot of snow and an intense wind that lasted for 2 days. I watched the wind blow from my window at night, more or less drawn by the sound-- the equivalent of a train whistle. The streets create a kind of wind tunnel, so everything was swept efficiently away. Everything includes a few of the lanterns people had hanging out for spring festival. With snow, as always, comes the solid sheet of ice that covers all the roads and most of the sidewalks. Going anywhere becomes a perilous enterprise, and with the wind... well, my mass is such that high wind + low friction = wooooo!

Don't ask why, but I was so sure that we were out of the woods for this type of weather. But no. Actually, I should have known. It had to snow one more time at least, so that I could wipe out at least once. Why on earth would I suspect that I could live through such an icy winter without falling on my ass?

So today, I fulfilled my destiny. Dave and I were on our way to teach our first classes at No. 9 Middle School when I unwisely stepped on this little ice... slope... and I had the most spectacular fall-- even by my standards. One of my mittens, which I was wearing, even went flying a few feet. Because the fall involved my sliding very quickly down a gradient (the part of a the sidewalk that slopes to meet the street), there was that feeling of going horizontal in mid-air before coming crashing down. I made contact with the sidewalk all along the right side of my body, and it was like snowboarding all over again. I have a nice long bruise down my thigh, though it's mostly the invisible kind, and also tennis elbow in my arm. I guess maybe it's because I landed on my hand (the one that lost the mitten, so it didn't feel nice). It hurts to sit and also to put my hood up, but like...not a lot. Mostly just enough for me to talk about it. Anyways, I elected not to look too closely at the patch of ice where I fell, though I do know that there was a discarded apple core very near my face.

But anyways, that was an exciting addition to my day, and therefore I ended up dwelling on it... a lot. I mean... I did have class, and it was interesting, and I did have dinner, and it was tasty, but mostly today will be the day that ate it. Though... actually I have been having a lot of flashbacks to dinner and the vinegar that was there. Ooooo.

Class... well, I modified a lesson from last semester that was really fun, but in my opinion, it felt really dull. So I was really bored with my own lesson. That means I'll switch it out with something else when we have class again on Friday. The students were really... bright-eyed. If they had tails, they would have been bushy. So I felt bad that my lesson was so yawn-tastic. Ah well. Next time. I will redeem myself!

Dinner was xian[r] bing, but a different variety than I've had before. These were more like round guotie, and the filling was a bit drier. Also, they were smaller and therefore 500 times easier to manage. I think I prefer these, and foresee many take-out trips to this restaurant, which is right across from the school.

Apparently my arm/wrist hurts also when I type a lot, which I do not like, so I am stopping now. I get to visit the orphanage tomorrow... I hope I can find something to do there!

I've been places -or- Moldy news

2007-02-05T20:55:00.000+08:00

And that's the reason that I haven't been able to update this at all. I did make one attempt at an internet cafe in Jishou that was finally able to even connect to blogger, but there was some error at the end of it all, and I basically just stopped trying after that.

Anyways, I am back in Baotou now... arrived yesterday just before noon, and I'm ready to tell all about the rollicking good times I had all over the place. Errr... to be narrower in my description, I'm not ready to tell *at this moment* because my attention span says no, but I'm psyching myself up for it. I've been keeping tabs along the way of all the things I've wanted to note, and hopefully I'll be able to recount everything in some detail. Just not today! Instead, I'm going to list a, uh, table of contents, because I'm most definitely going to be doing this piecemeal. Sort of to make things easier to swallow and also so that I don't build up a psychological barrier to updating.

Just so this particular post doesn't get classified just as one of those stupid frank "I've got a blog" entries, I'll introduce the new situation with my refrigerator. Our fridge was unplugged while I was gone, presumably to save energy, but when I opened it yesterday, I discovered that much of its interior surface area is covered in mold. Quite smelly mold. Mold akin to bread mold, fortunately, so it doesn't appear slimy or orange or anything like that. Also there is an egg in there, which makes me very uneasy. I went out to the store today and bought some cleaning cloths, a kitchen cleaner that's hopefully anti-bacterial, and what I assume is an odor neutralizer for the aftermath. Actually, I tried to communicate to one of the sales ladies that I needed something to clean my fridge because it molded, and she insisted that there's no cleaning solution I can use because you put food in there, and that I should just wipe it with water. Well, maybe soap and water might be effective enough for SOME (okay, maybe most) people, but I personally want the peace of mind that all microorganisms in that fridge expired in a storm of chemicals. Sales ladies have this tendency to give me doubtable information about... everything. It makes it harder for me to trust. Anyways, I bought some things I thought might work, and also have an antiseptic that I use with my laundry that I was thinking about splashing in there too.

I then decided that I didn't want to do that today either, so I'm psyching myself up for that as well.

Tomorrow will be such a full day!

Soundtrack of my Life?

2007-02-05T19:18:00.000+08:00

So, I did this twice on Facebook already, to pretty dismal results... my library is just full of stuff I've either never actually listened to or actively choose not to listen to. My answer to that was simply to cheat by shuffling from my largest playlist, which is 453 items out of the total 3325, so it's a bit lame, but a bit more pleasant.

Directions:
If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

1. Open your iTunes library
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press Play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the Next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.
7. Don't skip songs.

My Movie:

1. Opening credits: Happy Endings- All American Rejects

2. Waking up: Counting the Days- Goldfinger

3. First day of school: We Are the Champions- Queen

4. Fight song: Change Your Mind- American Rejects

5. Breaking up: Hand in My Pocket- Alanis Morissette

6. Happiness: Such Great Heights- Postal Service

7. Life's okay: Drowned World/Substitute for Love- Madonna

8. Mental breakdown: Everything You Want- Vertical Horizon

9. Driving: Straitjacket Feeling- All American Rejects
(I sorta wish it wasn't)

10. Flashback: If It Were Up To Me- Rooney

11. Getting back together: Amsterdam- John Denver does Jacques Brel
(apparently it's not under the best circumstances... unless maybe we're at a revue?)

12. Wedding song: These Are Things- Wheat

13. Birth of first child: White Days- Juliana Theory
(oddly appropriate, but... harrowing!)

14. Final battle scene: Private Emotion- Ricky Martin and some female

15. Death scene: Breathe- Wheat
(i'm trying to picture the most upbeat death possible... i was standing outside too long?)

16. Funeral song: Elephant and Castle- Houston Calls
(i never knew that this was actually the title for this song)

17. End credits: Patience- Guns N Roses

I SWEAR I didn't make these up!

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!!!!!

Actually, if anyone who reads this has any free time to press the advance button 17 times, I'm really interested to know the results you come up with!

an update but only sort of?

2007-01-24T11:24:00.000+08:00

At last, I've found an internet bar where the connection's speedy enough to connect to this damn website!

Anyways, currently I'm in Hunan, which is a far way from where I was... before. For the curious, Liz's visit was quite exciting, though the most interesting thing I could do for her was to take her on a food tour of the city. She did come with me to all my classes, and we managed to take a trip to Hohhot and watched lots of movies, but it was cold enough that I was mostly content to feed her and stay inside places.

Turns out that I had to administer a test on Thursday to the training center students. Let's just say I found out about that one very recently. I think I made up a pretty nice test though. The only thing was, that it was sort of a more... ostentatious type of exam, meaning that *cough* they're supposed to pass *cough*. I made them work for it though. I only copied about 30 pages though, since an average of only 6-12 people had been showing up the last couple days. Whew. Nearly everyone showed up. It was really, um, surprising. I'll miss that class I think.

As soon as Liz left on the 10th, I definitely got an itchy throat. It progressed to screaming burning pain over the next couple days, and after having taken a bunch of random medication, I took a nap on the 13th only to wake up unable to speak at all. It was just a sort of feeling that said "don't even bother trying." So I didn't.

Ooh. I have to leave. Haha, not what I meant to say, but there you have it.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-03T00:25:00.000+08:00

And here we are again. It's not that I've been too lazy to update, nor have I necessarily been too busy. Frankly, I've been terrified of the sheer bulk of things left unrelated that I tend to shy away from any commitment that I could make to getting it all down. But anyways.

I'd really like to share my holiday experiences, since they were fun for me this year. So, there's actually a Christmas season here in Baotou, and it's characterized by Santa Claus posters and beer advertisements (the best) in the windows of most shops and restaurants, as well as people selling tinsel and fireworks on the street, and also a large Christmas decoration sale by the entrance of the Wangfujing department store. The department store itself had an impressive display involving a structural frame of a Christmas tree bedecked with lights and what looked like giant stuffed bears trapped inside and trying to break free. I have a picture, don't worry. Christmas here was a strange animal... it didn't really have any religious aspect to it (Santa reigned supreme), but surprisingly, it was also missing the rampant commercialism (which comes pre-assembled as a phrase, so forgive the cliche). There were no crowds comparable to the human seas we get back home, and no insistence that your Christmas would be any worse if you didn't spend NOW. It was more like an amusing little reminder that Christmas was happening elsewhere in the world, which was nice seeing how I almost missed both Halloween and Thanksgiving.

I bought myself a set of tiny string lights, which is amazing, as well as a bunch of dinky little ornaments... and a felt stocking. All of these were displayed around the living room at one point... well, for one night, but the ornaments had to come down before the elementary schoolers even set foot in the apartment just because.

In terms of observation, there was plenty of celebration to take part in, but I didn't get a break at all... opposed to Russ who managed two days without real classes. It started on the 23rd, Saturday, when I met Russ and our combined adult students at a bath house after my Saturday morning class. I made Alice accompany me to the door since I had no idea what I was doing. They made me check my shoes in the lobby and wander sock-footed up a flight of stairs to a locker room/dressing room/salon-type place. It was a big pretty room with a handful of women ready to assist. It's just that I had no intention of taking a bath and was really only prepared to find the dining room, which was the meeting place.

Oh, so the bath house phenomenon... it seems pretty straightforward. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was just a public bath situation. But if you ask anyone "what's the bath house like?" you get answers like "well, you can watch movies," "there are lots of games," "you can eat 3 meals there." No one really talks much about actually bathing, which, while I guess it's assumed that you'd just take a bath, just confused me a lot more.

So then, after a confusing few moments with the ladies in the changing room, one of the hospital students walked by and I latched onto her. She helped me straighted things out and I was presented with "pajamas" (shui yi) and a key to a locker. I got changed while the student just stood there chatting with me, which was ok I guess, and then the two of us made our way to the dining room. The dining room was an all you can eat buffet, and some of the foot was pretty good. I had a good time with the meatballs. The students were divided in two tables kind of far away from each other based on what class they were in, which was just silly. I don't see why Russ allowed them to do that, but whatever. So there was a lot of running back and forth, taking pictures with one or the other group, eating bread at one place, and meatballs at another, and finally I was just like "let's go meet them." And things were easier after that.

We sat around a little while, and at last there was a group decision to go play some games. So we went to the... game room? It had a pool table and two ping pong tables. Yes! Two games I love, but unfortunately am untalented at. So I got myself into a pool game against Russ and one of the hospital students, with another hospital student on my team. We got killed, really, but it was fun. Not only was the other team more skilled, but... actually, maybe they were just more skilled. I know my teammate was just playing for the fun of it anyways, and every turn I had, I was lined up with shots that I simply couldn't figure out. Well, and also, seeing as how my conception of physics is sincerely warped, there was just no contest. After that though, I ended up in yet another game... and then another! I got a little better, but never quite won. Then I went into ping pong volleys with one of my students and actually worked up a sweat. It wasn't the ping pong so much as the heat. The bath house is hot and humid throughout, which I guess is what necessitates the pajamas... loose-fitting short sleeved v-neck shirts and matching... bermuda shorts? I enjoyed myself though. At the end, one of my students looked up at me and said "you are funny." Was I being a kid again? Maybe, but it felt good!

After that, I had to take off because I told Alice I'd be back around 3 to decorate the apartment for my Saturday night class with the #9ers. When I got back though, she was asleep, so I ended up watching most of Step Up and attempted to decorate on my own. Turns out that the string lights could only go in one place-- along the back of the couch-- because of the way the outlets are set up. I tried to make my own garland of ornaments using dental floss, but... what I got was the most hopeless knot I've ever encountered. I ended up untangling part of it, which is hanging on the cabinet thing next to the tv, but cut mercilessly through the rest of it. Those ornaments I hung from the string lights. So things didn't get much more festive around here, but you could at least sense that there was an attempt. I set out a bunch of junk food I bought the day before and hoped that the kids wouldn't count on me to entertain them.

Perhaps they did? So I taught them how to play hold-em, using my vast amount of candy leftover from Halloween as chips. I'm not sure if they really caught on... one boy was making infuriatingly poor choices when it came to betting, but it was all right. We also did Secret Santa and then played Psychiatrist, which is always a good game for bonding and whiling away time, even if it is at the expense of a single person. He was a good sport about it though.

I decided early on that the elementary schoolers would be coloring Christmas cards or Christmas posters. And that's just what they did-- their pictures are hanging prominently on one of our doors. I doubt I'll be taking them down anytime soon... same with the lights. Just carrying on that Pan family tradition of eternal Christmas. Unfortunately, I had to pull the jack-o-lantern face off the tupperware for my Thanksgiving cooking experiment, so there are no Halloween decorations to complete the effect.

That afternoon, I did another class party with the other high schoolers at Russ's apartment. We did Secret Santa again, which was a little less interesting than the night before, but ok. Then Psychiatrist again. What's funny is that the student who was psychiatrist the night before also came to this other party and got to play on the other side. He enjoyed it better, I think. The kid I was hoping to get short straw this time did, but he didn't take the role as well as I thought he would. It seemed like he was having like... an internal battle when Russ came back with more food, so I had Russ join him. They figured it out together, but it took almost 2 hours, which is insane.

After the kids took off, we watched LoTR for a while before going out to meet Linda, the mother of one of the students in the Saturday class who organized everything and shows up to pretty much every class. She's a cool lady. Anyways, she'd invited us out for dinner with some of the students and their parents. The restaurant was amazing, and it served some of the best Chinese food I'd ever had. It was described to me as "farm food," but... something doesn't click. Diana and Sean (students) were already there when we arrived, and Diana came down with us to pick the dishes. You walk through what looks almost like a cafeteria... maze... of liang cai (cold dishes akin to salads), soups, breads, meat dishes, steamed veggies, and so on, and we ordered a ton. We waited a while for everyone to show up, then dug in. One of my favorite things was this salad made of what appeared to be the leaves of a jade plant. It was actually some succulent herb that's good for sore throats, but it tasted great. And the fact that it was a succulent made it very refreshing. Also notable were the mushroom dishes. I took many pictures. The company was excellent too. These students obviously work hard at school and still manage to put plenty of effort into our class. But they're also really easy to get along with, and I had a good time chatting with the girls throughout. Russ got really annoying as the alcohol flowed, but all I could really do about it was to edge as far away on my seat as possible to avoid his flailing arm gestures. Oh well. Dinner ended up lasting almost 4 hours with all the conversation. Very memorable!

Next day Alice and I went over to Russ's for a party he was having for the hospital students and, oddly, one of the TC students. I had a fun time? It was weird. Turns out that Connie still seriously believed my name to be Christine. I left early with Alice so that she could go home and change for...

That night we had to go to a... function hosted by the Baotou Municipal Government for the foreigners in town. I was given my invitation as we walked in and was stunned to find that I had been renamed "Kathavice Pan." Why wouldn't you question that? I mean, they got the "a" right, but really... They hand out gifts at this thing every year, I guess, and last year Tevie got a plastic jar that I actually think looks pretty cool (she gave it to Alice). This year we got what was generally agreed upon as "really ugly" pig figurines. Mine is a pig hoarding a large bag of money, I think. I haven't looked at it a second time. When I visited Alice's apartment a few days later, her mom sat down next to me, pointed to Alice's pig, now poised on top of their TV, and exclaimed how ugly it was. I wound up seated next to two 22 year old girls from Chicago and was very excited. One of them reminded me a lot of Deb from home, actually. But at the time there wasn't a ton to talk about, so who knows. Turns out that one of them is friends with one of my sometimes students though, which is cool. The whole dinner was just... odd. They had cool performances, including these girls who were like hula hooping geniuses, and also this crazy British man who insisted on singing Frosty the Snowman and made us all feel a little awkward.

And that was the holidays. I audited my last English class at #1 on Monday morning, actually... I hit an 8am class, which was really hard, actually. Two of my Saturday students were in that class and I love how enthusiastic they were about it. One of them forgot to bring his gift for the class though, which sort of screwed up their system and I was slightly disappointed. But he managed to remember both his gifts for the weekend, so I figured he deserved whatever slack it took. Turns out the lesson was sort of dependent on my presence. I mean, the teacher could have done it without me, but anyways... first she had them do ping-pong to spoon relay races, then had me shout out random 3-digit numbers for them to formulate in teams with cards with the digits 1-9 written on them... that was a little funny when they came up and the numbers were backwards, and the students were like screaming for my attention (cuz sometimes it's just who you see first). Then she had me make random sentences for them to do competitive Telephone. I couldn't come up with anything particularly clever, so I just went with "I can't seem to find my keys," and "My favorite band has a concert on Friday." For the first one, one of the teams came up with a sentence so discombobulated that I couldn't believe that they could have believed that I actually said that. They both did pretty well with the second though.

Seems that people here are told that Christmas is a mega-holiday that ranks in importance with the Spring Festival. "Is Christmas the most important American holiday?" is a question I was asked a lot. I didn't want to be the spokesperson for the American people, but... Probably "yes" if you're just considering the whole agglomerated holiday season, but for obvious reasons, but I tried to convey "no" in the fairest way possible.

As for New Years, I was in the shower. That is exactly where I was when midnight hit. Oops. But with the rearranging of schedules to accomodate the holiday (which doesn't seem like it should be one, but whatever, people deserve it), I had 2 classes on Monday, so I really justed wanted to be lazy and homey.

Uuuum, so wrapping up classes now, and preparing for a mid-Jan departure and some highly anticipated vacation time and travel. I know I don't work nearly as hard as some of my friends stateside, but I could use a break nonetheless. Meanwhile, Liz has wandered into my clutches. She flew into Beijing and then into Baotou today, and hopefully she'll enjoy her mundane everyday taste of this somewhat remote city. Nah, it's a pretty interesting place to me, and maybe she'll think so too!

8 seconds

2006-12-20T21:22:00.000+08:00

Right now I have the most incredible hiccups. I can't even remember the last time I had the hiccups. These come with a periodicity of about 8 seconds and are really... fierce. Here's a fear I've had for many years: that I would be like that one guy with the world record and go on hiccupping for years.

Anyways, I explained the Mr. and Mrs. Smith love triangle to some of my students today. They didn't know who Jennifer Aniston was (the name anyway).

Oh! The Glory commercial just played! It's for men's clothing and it's definitely the closing score.

Yeah, honestly that's it.

I'm better at this than Ross

2006-12-20T13:15:00.000+08:00

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Last night, Alice and I were watching Friends, and we got to the Thanksgiving episode where Ross can't name all 50 states. I wanted to give it a shot and could have done it in like 2 minutes, only I couldn't get more than 49. Eventually I googled a map, and LO, I forgot Wisconsin. Which makes sense, since it's in the W's, which just seemed like they were thrown in there to begin with. Also, I have a really hard time visualizing Wisconsin on the map. It's just that with Michigan, the sillhouette is very much like that of Minnesota, which I already do remember. So I draw the outline of the US fairly regularly, and like... Minnesota and the Michigan peninsula merge into like this one single pointy thing and Wisconsin is lost. Anyways, now I know and hopefully I won't forget again. By the way, the only reason I can do this at all is because of Mrs. Niehaus, who taught us a song that lists all the states in alphabetical order in 5th grade. I wonder if I'll still remember that song in like... 50 years.

Ok, ok, I've got one.

2006-12-20T12:07:00.000+08:00

So I saw this on an ESL teacher forum last month, or like, 2 months ago. Or something.

What do you call a deer with no eyes?

Think about it.

Anyways, I've been listening to songs from Evita (the movie) and am toootally enamored of Antonio Banderas. Mostly his voice. Though now I'm really confused, because I went to imdb to figure out what movies he's been in, and it seems like I've only seen Evita and The Mask of Zorro. So like... how did I know who he was? Because I did. Something's not connecting here...

So, since my last entry, I've gotten rid of most of my anxiety. My Sunday class brightened up for two fun participatory lessons, but is now back to its slack, inattentive roots. It's so draining to teach them. The last lesson I had with them was like having blood taken for 2 hours. I won't deny that I'm fond of these kids, but do you know what would make me fonder? If they learned something from my classes, which I don't think they do. Anyways, the two classes we had that went well involved planning a 2 week vacation on a budget and movie creation where they had to come up with short scripts and premises. The group of 3 guys got into it and ended up portraying the murder of Jay Chou by one of their female classmates. It seemed a little mean at first because the idea is that she worships him and is excited to finally meet him in Milan. He says she's ugly, so she poisons him. But the girl didn't seem very offended, and the boy had an interesting falsetto. So... The other group did a heist story... only not really. A guy's brother was wrongly thrown into prison, so he robbed a bank with the intention of getting thrown into prison too so that they two of them could break out together. I think. Anyways, I could think of a lot of ways to go about getting someone out of prison that don't involve commencing your own criminal record, but whatevs. It seemed like it'd be a good movie anyway.

What movies did the other class come up with? Well, one of them, in which the girls dominated, did what was essentially a condensed Korean teledrama. Childhood friends go to college together, and the girl loves the guy but the guy doesn't love her and then he mysteriously disappears from the plot so that a new guy can win her heart by having wine spilled on him during a blackout at a party. Obviously the second relationship blossoms out of the ensuing animosity they feel for each other. The other group was less convicted, but they did come up with some interesting ideas. At first they were going to start with a commercial for glasses. Which is not what the assignment called for. Then it came down to a pair of magic glasses that let you see ghosts or magic creatures or something. Then it morphed into a fairytale-ish thing where a boy goes to live with his grandmother and gets into all sorts of accidents. Turns out there's an elf following him around and changing out his class speeches for girlie magazines and so on until he finds a pair of glasses that let him catch the elf. But the elf sneaks out again, steals the glasses, and continues his "sabotage." I think it's a good idea!

Did you get the answer yet?
What do you call a deer with no eyes?
No idear!
Now, what do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?

I've settled into a kind of pattern for the Training Center classes... we go out of a book called Speak Naturally, a conversation guide from the 80s (very apparent in yesterday's class when the characters in the book started discussing the inflation, the reckless spending of Democrats, and the failing auto industry). The first half of class is pretty boring repeat after me stuff, but it's weird... I actually feel like it's important to do it. But then the 2nd half they go through the cued dialogues, which are pretty much the best part of the book, which is pretty sparse in itself, and I go around troubleshooting and stuff. I dunno, I think it's pretty fun. Attendance has dwindled to about half of the original number, with some people randomly coming and going. And it's like "whoa, I didn't know you were still coming." It's nice to have the smaller class though.

The current lesson for the high school is a pick-me-up. The last set of lessons was REALLY boring for me. I sort of lost my way with them, I think. I felt soooo unfun, which isn't cool. It's like, I try to give them lots of interesting new vocab to practice with, but they don't wanna... A lot of them don't take notes either.

My "boss" back in the US has given me something of an assignment. I'm supposed to do a report on teaching high schoolers? Something along those lines, and it's very exciting. I like assignments. Now, I realize that after all of my past tantrums and breakdowns, it's a little unconvincing, but I love writing papers! I imagine it's a lot like what doing drugs is like. Maybe... the opposite of what doing drugs is like. But the result is the same.

So partially because of that, and partially because it only seems right, I've asked to attend the students' English classes just to see what they're like. Mr. Yuan set me up with 3 classes, and I went to the first two last week. The 3rd years were nearing 2000 completed multiple choice questions in preparation for the entrance exams and the 1st years were reading newspaper-like things very similar to the ones we had in elementary school that taught us about Earth Day and stuff. It's like... their knowledge appears fairly advanced. It was really helpful for me in trying to structure my classes. Not that we have many more before the break, but you know. I think I'll be back next semester. The experience also sort of told me that Russ's class is a biiig step down the ladder for the kids. I mean, I had that idea to begin with, but... anyways, we're almost done.

It's not winter yet. Not officially for 2 days, right? It's real cold here though. It's interesting-- the ice here is like, 3-dimensional. It looks like gak, like someone threw water down and if froze immediately. It's pretty cool. The black ice on the street isn't as slippery as you'd think either. Mostly it's covered with dust and dirt so it's just like walking on the ground. People still really like to dump their water outside though, especially at the roots of trees. So there are layers of ice several inches thick between the edge of the sidewalk and the dirt holding each tree in place. It seems like it wouldn't be good for the trees, but they're standing their ground.

Last Friday we couldn't get a taxi and so my toes were frozen and unresponsive by the time we got on the bus. It was annoying, so I suggested that we have dinner at Pizza Hut. Oh! Which reminds me. I have something that I'm pretty sure none of you have: A Pizza Hut planner/calendar with a leather cover (fake? real? who knows?) with the Pizza Hut logo stamped into it, and the logo on every page (the waitress showed us that specifically). The back has coupons and the front has all the dialing codes for major cities and a listing of the holidays. All for Y6 with our meal! I dunno, I thought it was an all right deal.

What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?
Still no idear!

Ok, well... I think I will go now and possibly continue reading Jurassic Park, which is still pretty good and actually a bit more comprehensible after all these years. Seems much shorter. You know, I can actually remember where I was when I read all these parts? I was with my parents at Virginia Beach, and we'd been seated in a restaurant when I got to the part about the aviary, which I remembered being way more exciting than it was this time through.

ugh

2006-12-10T00:02:00.000+08:00

i'm really bitter right now because there's no water in my apartment, so the toilet won't flush and i had to brush my teeth with water from the purifying tank, which, by this exercise, i have discovered carries some very freaky, very *large* particles.

anyways, i've meant to update with fun stories about witnessing an attempted pocket-picking, the nature of ice in baotou, a fun package from my mother, the trip i'm planning in january, a series of successful classes, and a series of awfully boring ones (probably my bad), but yo, now is not the time. blllllllgh.