Thanks, eh?

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.

Can't wait for real live holograms

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

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.

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

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.

Yay day

I look forward to Saturdays, despite knowing that I'll actually have to get up early on Saturdays. Saturday is not my day off: at 10, a little girl named Betsy comes over for a one-on-one class that, originally, was supposed to last no more than 1.5 hours. Now it's 2 or a little over. At 7:30, I have a 2-hour private class with what is now 8 high schoolers (previously 6) and one of their mothers, who is a cool lady who sits by and helps some of the less advanced students WITHOUT INTERFERING (which therefore means she's cool).

These two classes are not only a pleasure to teach, but they're soooo easy! Betsy's class was sort of a surprise when it started, you know, I wasn't expecting her to start coming over so soon. But that was 2 weeks ago, and she is such an enthusiastic student that just about everything goes over well. Her lessons are easy to plan because she's very good at learning. As for my evening class, the students are amazing. Some of them pick up real quick, and most of them have the guts to stop me and ask questions. Also, their curiosity comes out better than that of my other students, so we always have something interesting to talk about. And we get along well and have laughs. Most importantly though, I can always expect them to do what I asked the week before as "homework" (since it's fundamentally optional), and also to follow along and complete each section of the actual class. So planning for them is a breeze-- I'm already ahead like 3 weeks. Well, two now I guess.

Anyways, I was just short of breathing fire when I woke up this morning... I'd had some dream where some activity wasn't being accomplished efficiently, and so every time it was attempted wrong, I'd try to rearrange myself in bed. But like, I sleep in a sleeping bag, and so all night I had this sensation that I was trapped, and like, so on. I opened my eyes just before my alarm went off at 7:45 and was like "holy shit, I'm tired." Just then, my alarm rang, and I actually wanted to cry. Got up though, and had class. Betsy is really cute, and has pretty good manners during class, so it like, wasn't a strain or anything. We read stories online, pick up some vocab, and then make Go Fish cards. It's an interesting challenge for me when she decides that she wants to make a card out of a verb or adjective. "Spy" as a verb was hard today, but I ended up just making it "spyglass" cuz you can still get the point.

Afterwards, she and her mom invited Alice and I to Haide Hanbao for lunch. Hanbao means "hamburger," so yeah, it's the closest thing to McDonald's. They also serve Chinese fast food there, a la Mark Pi's, Hong Kong, and Peace. For the parents, I guess, cuz the kids love hamburgers. By the way, "hamburger," as a term, is more distorted here than it is in the States, because it can also refer to chicken sandwiches. Basically, anything on a hamburger bun is a hamburger. For your reference. I ordered a beef hamburger, and got the equivalent of a Big Mac. The meat patties here are... thin. And uniform. Spam-ish in appearance. But taste ok. You'd probably need at least 3 patties to equal one quarter-pounder, so I guess the double-decker burger I got wasn't all that much more food. But you know, I can eat a hamburger and be done-- throw in an extra layer of bun, and I'm very done. Add fries, and you'll have to slow down. There was once a time when I would have sat down to an x-treme junior bacon cheeseburger showdown or two, but those days are past, for now at least. I can pig out, but usually to the note of an extenuating circumstance or two. What I'm getting at is that the mother (one of Alice's... high school (?) teachers) tried to order me a bowl of rice, essentially a food-court Chinese restaurant combo, and when I said no, ordered an extra chicken sandwich just in case. I didn't even manage to finish the first thing, and when they saw it, they asked me if I was afraid of getting fat.

It was a really fun morning. I mean, the weather was dismal, cold, and snowy (at last!), but that doesn't really matter to someone like me, whose essential functions take place indoors. In the cab on the way there, Betsy was trying to explain something about a speaking competition she wanted to enter, but got stuck on the words. Even the driver chimed in and told her to think about it slowly. We had two female cab drivers today, and both of them were quite willing to chat it up with Betsy's mom. Pleasant! With her mom or her cousins (who I taught once at the beginning of my stay here), she's like an anime character. And she is so clever, to the point where Alice and I spent a lot of time laughing at her comments or antics. I think her mom's trying to convince her to come stay Friday nights with us, and I'm not sure what I think about that, but at least it's an excuse to avoid having to accept unwanted dinner invitations.

I then caught up on sleep this afternoon.

My evening class now comprises 8 students. There's a boy who was in my Sunday class, but couldn't attend it anymore because it conflicts with a math class his parents are making him take. So, I invited him to come on Saturday instead. Frankly, any student from that class would do better for themselves in this one. But anyway, when he found out about this second class, he seemed really excited. Like... more excited than I was expecting. I understand that the students are tired from all their excessive learning (SO excessive in this country), but he really did seem to prefer napping and being otherwise distracted while I'm teaching over actually paying attention. I liked him though because when he did work, he did good work. But anyways, apparently he's a big fan of my class, and sort of shocked me with that information. The other Saturday students all seem to know each other very well, and there are only two other kids from his school (who are probably younger than him), but he came in with confidence today, and gave an awesome presentation about foreign cars, and I'm pretty sure that once he gets a hang of the... well, borderline cult-ish stuff we do on Saturdays, he'll be all good.

Another student from my Sunday class, the only other one who's got the initiative to actually e-mail me, has taken to telling me how much she enjoys my class. This girl is one of my favorite students, but I can't help but wonder where this is coming from. The Sunday class really just amounts to a big cracker barrel, where the students come and gossip and make fun of each other the whole entire time, in Chinese. If I could take each of them and shake them, sometimes I think I would. I like them. But daaaaaaamn. I'm not their English teacher, I'm their Chinese-American babysitter. They dynamic is way different from the one on Saturday. I often feel like we don't accomplish much in that class and it drives me nuts! Still, it does feel nice to know that she at least appreciates me. She says that they think of me, as a friend as well as a teacher, though this Thanksgiving, she also added "sister" to that list of relationships. And I was like... "oh." So I'm that older sister that nobody listens to *although they should.* I think knowing that actually makes it more frustrating.

Friday night, it was raining. Because of that one experience when we couldn't find a taxi in the rain, Russ and I accepted a ride from Mr. Ding. Mr. Ding, for his part, just sort of walked out of his office with the keys and had us follow him, so... it just sort of happened that way. On the road, though, he asked us where we wanted to go. I think it probably still would have been impolite to ask to go home, and maybe Russ felt that too. So he suggested dinner, though neither of us had really planned on it, and I wasn't all that hungry (and had to pee), and neither of us knew where to go. So we went back to the Dings, where I met Mrs. Ding for the first time. We eventually settled on cheap chao cai, or like... food that comes in dishes rather than in a bowl with noodles. Cheap, cuz I'm way poor. On the way to the restaurant, I got to talk to Mrs. Ding, and she is a really nice lady. Sort of pretty too. I wondered briefly how this marriage had come about, but then stopped when I realized how mean that sort of was. Dinner was pretty good. Russ only knows how to say gong-bao-ji-ding (kung pao chicken), so we ordered that. They also ordered some... beef? And some potatoes. And glutinous rice cakes with red bean paste filling. It's too bad English doesn't have the words to make that sound more attractive. Also there was sweet potatoes soaked in carmelized sugar (which I actually spelled shuger just now, if you can believe it) that was starting to harden. So when you took a piece, it would trail these long sugary threads. Good, but having sweet things for 2/5 of the meal was maybe a bit much for me.

As we headed downstairs, Mr. Ding asked who was going to treat this time. I'd half expected this to happen, since Russ was the one who suggested it, but then it was sort of like... would we be treating the whole family? Sticky, because I think his wife was preparing to cook before we got to their apartment, but also the three of them outnumbered the two of us, and also Russ payed about $300 for the 3 of us the week before. Another issue was the fact that I only had my last 20 that I was willing to spend for the month, so... But Mrs. Ding let him have it, and told him that of course he shouldn't make us pay. I dunno, friendship with Mr. Ding is not the easiest thing for me because it always comes down to money for him. He always brings up money. He also has kind of a frustrating personality, but anyway. His wife is cool.

So that lands me here, at the cusp of Sunday, which is definitely not yay day. I passed a lot of the last couple days watching Youtube clips of male figure skating competitions, and have pretty much exhausted that entertainment venue, so... I guess feel free to send me your online Christmas shopping. I'll find that perfect jacket or pair of shoes that your loved one would be thrilled to own. Or maybe I'll just try. In any case, I know a lot of places with quirky gift ideas, so bring it.

This is getting ridiculous

A casual observer might remark thusly: "Gee, that Katharine girl sure does sleep a lot."

This might be true sometimes, but be assured, observer, that I get little rest despite all that sleeping.

For example, last night, after tossing and turning for a respectable period of time, I dreamt about the headless horseman in at least 5 incarnations, was nearly murdered by several of my closest friends, watched a finalist from the 2nd season of America's Next Top Model get dismembered several times in rapid succession, witnessed a man take a sledgehammer to his politically dissident wife's skull, AND my unicorn was slow, meaning that I personally died once, meaning that I woke up at least once, though the actual number of rude awakenings amounted to 3 or 4, and each time I went back to sleep to experience some other gruesome snuffings. I've never had so many nightmares in one night, especially since I'm not predisposed to nightmares. Actually, I can't even think of why, of all things, I dreamt of beheadings and labyrinthine houses, since before I dozed off I was primarily thinking about wine, wine parties, and job hunting.

Granted, I do have 7 copies of Sleepy Hollow sitting somewhere in my living room, but I really wasn't thinking about them at all. There was a thing on the news earlier in the evening about a girl who was brutally murdered with a butcher knife, but that didn't really linger as much as you'd expect for the seed of such a gorey clutch of nightmares. So... I dunno.

One interesting thing that did come out of all this, is that I also got to watch full-contact speed chess, which was pretty awesome.

Aaaagh, I'm so tiiiired!!!

Another dream

I opened my eyes this morning with the grand design of relating my epic thrills-a-minute schizophrenic dream here so that I could have access to it forever, but then the jerks upstairs applied a jackhammer/motorboat (nary an exaggeration) to the floor above my head and most of the dream just fell out of it. Then it was like some annoying child beating a wooden block repeatedly on the floor. I... have no idea what they're actually doing up there. It sounded like heavy construction work.

But, hah, I'm going to try anyways. Sorry!

So I'll start from the point that I remember more clearly. I was with Selina at a park/mall/theme park and there was some imminent danger from interdimensional forces... maybe Doctor Octopus? Anyways, there was a lot of cool stuff happening, lots of running around, but I wound up going back to the hospital where I worked. Buuut, at the hospital, I was held hostage. They really just enjoyed opening fire whenever, but I can't remember if anyone was killed. Just that there was some blood? So I got locked in a broom-closet type space where we kept a computer, an operating table, and some other medical equipment. It was well-lit, and I was in there with a few doctors and orderlies or whatever. We were climbing on top of stuff, looking for an escape (which could probably easily have been had by going through the ceiling tiles, but as much as the observer me shouted it to the active me, she never got it) when the people came in and told me that I could go out. Basically, I was given a nice dress and me and an unidentifiable guy could... go to dinner? They gave us like 3 bucks each for a cab. We got onto the revolving platform outside, and decided we'd save some of the money for ourselves by taking a bus instead. On the bus, he became a linguist. And there I met another linguist friend, who I apparently saw last in like a mall or something, which is really not true. Then, looking over, there were two other linguists I recognized. I opened my mouth and was like "it's like the linguistics bus." Tsk. Anyway, I related the story of how we'd been held hostage for a few days.

The next part I remember was on a beach. We were... body boarding, but the process for doing this was simply to run straight out into the water, put the board in front of you, stick your face under the surface, and skim until you have to come up for air. Away from the beach. Then you had to paddle back in. I was told that I was doing pretty well for someone who couldn't hold her breath underwater. This continued for some time, and there was some dramatic occurrence that took me down the beach, but I can't remember what that was. This was I think the 2nd beach scene in my dream.

Then, I was in my mother's bathroom in the old house, trying to brush my teeth, but there was a mosquito in the room that I was unable to kill due to my having the motor skills of someone who was in fact asleep at the time. So I chased it everywhere, slamming the wall with my hand generally about 6 inches away from the target. Then it wasn't me, but this woman with a baby and her husband applying black and white paint to her face. Recalling this scene makes me think that something much more interesting happened earlier on, but I can't remember what. Anyways, everything got very dramatic and ethereal and the air changed colors, the lighting changed, the music changed, and I think the mosquito died in the process, which was very satisfying to me.

Dream dream dream

Had me a really... flavorful dream this afternoon. But it sounds like my class is here, so more later...

... Ok, 2.5 hours later, let's see if I can remember what I was going to say. The beginning part is a little bland, but it's worth it when you get to the hats.

So the beginning part is a blur, but I was engaged, to a dude with whom I had at least one kid. Only it wasn't me, it was some blonde woman. Only then they got into a conversation about how he wanted children, so then there was this confused moment that was like "wait... so we don't have kids?" Then she realizes that maybe she should tell him about her "problem," which I gathered precluded her from having children.

Ok, then I'm sitting in a theater, and I'm ecstatic because they've just come out with an X-Men film that was actually an accurate portrayal of the Dark Phoenix Saga, which was such an amazing storyline that the filmmakers were actually very foolish to completely ignore when they made the 3rd movie. So it was a cartoon. And there's Juggernaut? And then, no longer a cartoon, we're looking at this building that could be the mansion but probably isn't cuz it's in like prairie land. And then comes the arrival of hats from space. They are a variety of hats, notably cowboy hats, and sun hats, and baseball caps, etc. And they're sentient. From inside the mansion comes this herd of little football-shaped machines on feet (sneakered feet), clearly inspired by Batteries Not Included (that great 80s movie), and also maybe by the Roomba. They're also slightly reminiscent of Orko from He-Man. They all talk with cute little machine voices. They encounter the extraterrestrial hats. It's determined immediately that the hats mean no harm, and in fact, have come to save the Earth from a terrible threat. So the hats and the mechanical footballs join forces. Each football is fitted with a hat and somehow this turns them into the ultimate fighting machine, only they're still just little metal footballs with hats, eyes, and feet. They could have been McDonald's characters a la the Fry Kids. I'm somehow witnessing all of this from an apartment that has no food in it, and I'm wandering back and forth to the kitchen trying to find something to eat that's preferably of Western origin. I think I found a casserole of something on top of the fridge?

Anyways, the hat thing is one of my favorite things I've ever dreamed.

Plus more adventures in food

last night, i dreamt that i was driving in mariokart along with a number of friends. it was sort of macabre.

Also included: baking experiment #1.

Ah, so yesterday was my day off! I sat around for part of the morning as Alice configured her new gmail account, then the two of us went out shopping. It was coooold yesterday! Well, just chilly and very windy. The wind totally sabotaged my outfit and I had to run back upstairs to change. Gangtie Lu (a wide road running E-W) was like one big wind tunnel.

We started out at a "spicy soup" place, as Alice has been calling it. It's funny she does this sort of descriptive translation for me, which is nice, but I swear I can handle the actual Chinese words... it'd be more helpful anyways. I think if I needed to find this sort of food on my own and asked someone for spicy soup, they wouldn't know where to begin. Almost every one of this region's specialties I've encountered so far has revolved around this main idea of spicy soup. Anyways, it's called ma la chuan, and it's the Mongolian BBQ of soup. Anything with the word "chuan"in it involves a skewer, by the way. So we ran across the street to this little restaurant that was incredibly crowded. No seats. We went up to what looked like a set of produce shelves at the supermarket, where there were baskets full of skewered mushrooms, tofu, greens, hot dogs, fish balls, squid, tofu skin, etc. You pick up your own basket and fill it with whatever you want. I went with two things of frozen tofu, sweet potato, yellowish brown mushroom slices, and some big leafy greens. Then up to the counter to pay for it... plus some potato starch noodles and a cold green tea, it all came to... Y7.5? Less than 10 anyway. They gave me a number- 6- and I went with Alice to stake out a seat. We managed to sit down at a counter, but it was not build for people to eat around it, and they were sort of using it to store some vegetables. So we snatched a table after some other people left.

You have to wait a while for everything to boil, but after a while, they bring out a bowl lined in a plastic bag filled with a whitish-yellow broth and a thin orange film of oil on top, assuming you asked for hot sauce, which I so did. You know, it was ok. I think I personally had better last week and a place near the Training Ctr. The broth was barely discernable... the entire thing was just the best spiciest soup ever. Dark red! It was great. I was crying, which is a natural reaction to having that much chili at one time. Ooh!

After that, we ran through the chill to an indoor mall selling nothing but clothes. I got a pretty generic navy track jacket from Eruner. Some nice white racing stripes down the side. And I put it on immediately, over my fleece, cuz it was cold outside.

When we finished there, we went back over to Wangfujing. We go there a lot. Just twice last week for the microwave. We went through the supermarket in the basement for.... baking ingredients! And a bunch of random crap. I always feel like an 8 year old who was asked to do the shopping for her family and buys only junk food and snacks. It's not aaaall junk food, but we're always short on snacks around here. The worst was this really heavy sack of flour.

Then back up to the 5th floor for a toaster oven! I bought a hulk of a toaster oven, a big brushed silver Galanz. It has a rotisserie function. Cost me Y638. We begged the saleslady for free gifts since we are clearly regular customers. She managed to find a set of spice jars and another microwaveable dish (we got two free with our microwave). One of the salesmen gave us a Y500 gift card in exchange for 500 in cash, and then carried everything out to the curb for us. I took the oven and all the groceries in a cab so that Alice could return with the bike.

The first thing I did was whip out an oatmeal raisin (that was originally "oatmean raising" for people who are interested in my disintegrating typing skills) cookie recipe I found online (ok, actually the first thing I did was put two pairs of jeans into the wash, but whatever). People here don't ever bake, so first of all, no one could understand why I wanted to buy such a big expensive oven in the first place.

Here's where the tricks game up though. The recipe called for baking soda. We bought two known leavening agents at the store, assuming one was soda and one was powder, but were unable to tell the difference between the two. I remembered a speech my home ec teacher gave in the 8th grade about what horrible things happen when you accidentally use one instead of the other. I realized that after all the baking I've done, I couldn't remember what one looked like compared to the other. I thought I'd be all clever and Mr. Science-y, and do some simple experiments in my kitchen, but... ok, so both contain NaHCO3, sodium bicarbonate, so both will react if you pour vinegar on them. So getting all excited about that didn't help me one bit. It turns out that baking powder is baking soda already mixed with a dry acid and usually corn starch and will react as it gets wet. So I added water and nothing happened to either. So I felt silly.

One did look more like corn starch than the other, but I didn't know if that was good enough. The internet didn't help a whole lot. On various message boards, some people claimed that xiaoshuda, which I had in a green bag, was baking soda, and on other boards, folks claimed that it was baking powder. I conclude that maybe none of these people actually know. The label on the other bag, a pink one bearing a character I don't recognize but am tempted to pronounce as "cheng" plus a character I do know, mian, is unscrutinized on the internet and didn't show up in Alice's translator. Xiaoshuda came up as "saleratus" which I had to dictionary.com to find out meant baking soda. Buuut, then there was all that other contradictory info. Finally Alice called her mom and came back with the answer, " just use the green one... the pink one you should use only if you're cooking something sour." A hint, yet still more contradictory.

This led me to believe that the green bag was actually full of baking powder, since soda needs an acid added in the recipe to do anything. But I decided to just listen to her mom, even though the recipe called for soda. A quick internet check revealed that various recipes call for one, the other, or both, so I just threw up my hands and went for it.

I mixed everything together in a pot. The recipe... basically functioned as a set of guidelines. The actual portioning of ingredients came entirely out of my ass. For one, it called for a cup of butter, but I only had one smaller-than-usual stick, so... Also, I don't have ANY measuring equipment! So I used a paper cup and what I thought was a teaspoon but which I now believe to be nearly two teaspoons. The recipe called for a massive amount of brown sugar, by the way. So I got to the part about raisins. I had a bag of green raisins that I got from the market a while ago, but when I tasted them it turns out... they're not the kind of raisins that would go into a cookie. So I ran to the fridge and got an apple and chopped that up. In baking the first batch, I discovered that 176ºC is so much hotter than the recipe needed. So I turned it down to about 140º. It looked to me like the bottoms were burning, but it was actually the brown sugar playing tricks on my vision.

I added some coffee grounds to the second batch, because I love coffee grounds in baking. Thanks to one of my kayaking instructors who introduced the idea to me and a Bobby Flay BBQ special for cementing that for me.

So... the outcome... Uh. You know, they're good. I'm happy to eat cookies like this. But there were a few brown sugar lumps that I didn't get to, so every once in a while you get this molasses burst that can be a little creepy if you're not prepared. Also, here and there you get a bite that's almost... savory? but not in a bad way. So I dunno. What I've determined is that the oven works. It's just execution that needs to be cleaned up a bit.

Alice's two friends were over by the time I finished, and the four of us went out for hotpot. This meal lasted for way too long. One of her friends met several of his there, and we couldn't leave until they were finished talking. In the meantime, the other three of us chewed gum and I dissected most of the larger floating spices in the soup and composed a portrait out of the leftovers. You know hotpot by now. This place does it pretty well and gives you a choice of two broths-- I thought it was called xiaofeiyang (little fat sheep/goat), but it seems like it's actually called something else. There are two giant statues of adorable goats in mongolian garb pulling noodles outside though, and I really want to climb one some night after I get a new camera. Very busy that night-- one very celebratory party at two large tables directly to our left, so...

Afterwards, they wanted to go to the internet cafe, so I went along. Spent most of my time reading around NYtimes and National Geographic and they played a Mariokart-esque racing game (hence my dream). We were there until 12, when most of the lights were turned off. By then I really had to pee and even my skin smelled like smoke. Alice and I took a cab home, where, unable to really account for anything I wanted to do, I did dishes, showered, and went to bed.

Ta da!

A recent "nightmare"

Fact is that I just posted a really long entry, but I can't get enough of this sharing thing, and actually here's a dream I want to describe for posterity before I do any forgetting.

Prologue: as you know, many if not all of my dreams recently have been pretty dazzling (to me, I mean), colorful, clear, and startling in their realism (at the time). Not only that, but they differ from dreams I've had in the past in that the weather is more distinct and more visible, and there's more of a physical component than ever, especially in terms of pain.

Two or three nights ago, I dreamt that I was walking down the street in Ithaca (only it definitely wasn't Ithaca), listening to music, and it was about to rain. The sidewalk I was on was on a higher plane than the street, so there was a short slope of grass between me and the road. Nearby, there was a chubbier white balding man in a white t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, jogging, possibly listening to a walkman.

Then the approach of a group of... hooligans. Terrorist youth. Serious troublemakers. I don't remember if they came from the side of the street or in a convertible, but they definitely appeared. They were all of a certain persuasion and wasted absolutely no time in accosting this man, and eventually graffiti'd his back with black spraypaint. I got a feeling that this was a serial thing... that they were assaulting a certain kind of person, much in the same way that there were serial kidnappings in a dream I described earlier, and serial vampire attacks in my oldest nightmare (you know... they were dressing up as postal workers to get at children as they watched TV... my assailant was a curly carrot-top with beetlejuice's pale skin, an orange and green striped or polka-dotted tie, and a tux-- no joke, this one scared the bejeesus out of me when i was younger).

Anyways, I started walking faster, towards an group of apartments. Sometime before this dream occurred, I was introduced to the fact that my friend Christine's grandmother lived in one of these apartments. The buildings themselves were identical to some that I saw in Orange County this summer, but transplanted in a greener northeastern setting. I just felt like I would be safe if I could get there, even though I believed I wasn't the type of person these others were targeting. By the time I got to the right building, it had started sprinking.

The apartment building had four apartments, two on the bottom floor and two on the top, with two sets of stairs. All the doors opened directly onto individual patios/platforms where people would keep picnic tables, lawn ornaments, and so on. I couldn't figure out which of these four apartments was the one I was looking for. I looked closely at each one, climbing upstairs and back down again. When I got back down, Christine was there, having the same dilemma. Then we sighted her grandmother's cat (I don't think I've ever met her grandmother and I don't know where she lives or if she has a cat), and entered the apartment.

At that time, it was clear that those people (having a hard time coming up with an appropriate label) were coming for us. So as soon as we got in, we started going as far into the apartment as we could, looking for a place to hide. We found a large linen closet, tried to climb up, but couldn't find any better cover. There was a window that I felt that I could fit through, but decided that that was for the ultimate emergency. I wanted to call the police before they could get in, but since we couldn't be sure if the land line was tapped or not (we still didn't know if they knew which door we came in), and our cell phones were in the kitchen. And then I got the feeling that they were already inside and that there was no option to call for help. They started searching everywhere, systematically. We piled clothes on top of ourselves, stationed hampers in front of us, but I was not confident. Someone poked their head in, but didn't see us right away and left.

There was an ambiguous time where it seemed like there was another closet in the room and Christine's grandma was already in there and we were able to whisper with her, but I think a part of me really didn't want that to be part of the story and kept denying it to the point where it sort of happened and sort of didn't.

Then one of the girls/women/whatever in the group had some inkling that we were hiding in the closet, and I could see her start walking towards us. I had a very clear view this whole time of everything they were doing. Christine was much better hidden than I was-- I was just sitting against the wall with my legs in a hamper, using it as a shield. She came in and started talking to me. She had long black hair. I think she knew very well where I was, but wanted to pretend she didn't, just so she could fire her gun at the hamper. So she did, she fired like 3 shots randomly through the hamper so they landed around my legs. I got squeamish and started flailing, and thus exposed legs and eventually the rest of me. So she shot me once in the leg. And again, in... the other leg. And was going to continue shooting me, when the pain woke me up.

After waking up once, I started directing the action in the dream with more agency. What resulted from this, I'm not sure... grandma definitely was no longer hiding with us, we rewound before the shooting, something like that. The last thing I remember was looking through the window at the rain and a pine tree, thinking that there was a forest out there I could hide in when there wasn't at all. Just before waking up, I was contemplating breaking the window, wondering if I actually had the strength to do so, and what would happen to Christine, who wouldn't be able to fit through it (think the really small windows you find in basements). Then wondering if I could actually fit through myself.

Anyways, this dream stuck with me all day, and I found myself wondering: if I could have escaped through that window, should I have? Also, that woman would have killed me in a few more seconds, or tortured me or something. I'm pretty sure they were going to ask me where everyone else was. What should I have done? Not said anything and died and have them search the 5 feet around me where everyone was hiding anyway? Or should I just have given up to see if we would get any other opportunities to escape?

So yeah, I would file this one under "nightmare" even though it's not especially nightmarish.

Details, details, me being pissed, and when words become tasty

[In this installment: today, yesterday, food habits, appliances, teaching, going apesh*t, and a colorful restaurant review]

Today I awoke at 6:something from what amounted to a teaching nightmare to find that my abdomen was still inflated like a balloon. I'd been tossing and turning for goodness knows how long, from confrontation after confrontation with confused and irritated students and some righteous gastro-intestinal injury. Basically, I'd eaten an unusually large portion at dinner previously and it appeared that none of it had yet begun the journey to digestion and was just hanging out in my stomach. So actually this morning sucked, because I knew I still had 2ish lessons to plan for today. I sat up straight for a while, consumed an oreo, took some pepto, and tried the sleeping thing again, really uninterested in puking in any way.

After my alarm officially roused me around 9, I managed to pass out again (you know how that goes). This time, I had a really interesting dream about "King's Island" (only not really), getting pizza and candy there with Selina, some holiday, a small child, a bunch of Chinese people who are related to me, and... stuff. Whatever, it was weird, and I woke up during this really emotional part that involved lots of cheesy pizza.

You see, the restfulness of my sleep has not improved.

Anyways, classes today went all right. The training center students now have THREE textbooks! I was like... what?? When I realized a few days ago that they'd all paid for the first two and were already in possession of them, I started building some lessons around those. The first day was boooring, cuz I didn't get the corresponding tapes (yes, cassette tapes!) until 30 min into the lesson, and not everyone brought their books, and also I wasn't 100% sure of the most efficient way to use them. I've since determined that some of the activities are just plain dumb, but have also accepted the usefulness of some of the others to spur discussion. So that ended up warming things up today after the initial blaaaah of the recorded dialogues.

My ideal class would be smaller, with a more consistent level of advancement. But oh well. At least when they're doing activities, I get to move around and check on their degree of understanding. It's actually, like, my favorite part and I'm hopeful that it helps, but really they're the ones who'd know about that-- not me. Sadly. Today we did introductions (almost as done as it sounds, but with a bit of logic behind it, coming from a book) and superstitions, which was fun and COINCIDENTALLY (whoa) appropriate since yesterday was you-know-when.

When I got back, Alice and her mom were home getting dinner started. In case you wonder, I've been subsisting largely on a diet of potatoes and rice, and, uh, losing weight in spite of it. All my clothes started fitting better again almost as soon as the plane landed. It's been pretty sweet. Anyways, tonight there was rice, potatoes and... leeks? with extra soy, and some leftovers from when the Lees cooked lunch here the other day-- the green remains of some di san xian (Alice's mom insists that it's just stir-fried eggplant... i guess since the green peppers and potatoes are more common) and some stir-fried potato slices with green pepper. The leftovers were brought to us by our brand new microwave, which we picked up Thursday morning from the 5th floor of Wangfujing department store. The microwave... was Y400, but interestingly enough has a function that admits the use of metal... I believe it's the "Lightwave." I don't know anything about it, so I'm reluctant to use anything other than nuke hi until I can get details on the instructions from Alice. Also it was big and we had to drag it down all the floors by escalator and then wheel it home on the back of the bike.

I started still another class with high schoolers today, this time only 7 students. There were two English teachers present, moms of two of the boys. They came to the apartment at 8 tonight, and we talked for about an hour before they all left. They were pretty enthusiastic, but most of them have some big exams this weekend (class will be 2 hrs long, starting next week). I felt bad though, cuz one of the girls kept insisting that they had absolutely no free time to watch movies or listen to music since they spend so much time at school and on homework. I was like... damn, 1) I'm glad to be out of high school, 2) I'm glad I went to a US public school.

Viewed 10 Things I Hate About You, courtesy of iTunes, for the 3rd time in perhaps just as many days, but the idea was to show it to Alice since we watched Brokeback Mountain the other day (agreed: it should have won, and crash is a sillier movie than ever) and I wanted her to know that Heath Ledger can enunciate when the script calls for it. As you see, it's been a good week for movies.

Friday marked the end of my first week of real classes at the high school. This second lesson was mostly about getting them in the right mindset for learning English-- first present the potential, then discuss it. Also, I wanted to get an idea of the subjects they usually talk about with their friends (in case I'm more out of touch than I thought). And we listened to/analysed "It's Beginning To Get To Me" by Snow Patrol. I want to equate the first class of the week to a firstborn child. That is, they get the raw unadulterated lesson, which has had no feedback, no correction, and they have to deal with any unrealistic expectations that may exist. The kids are all really charming though. I thought that my first lesson, which involved throwing a ball and sitting around chittering while other kids had the spotlight, would make them think that it was ok to be unruly. But boy, do they listen to you when you speak! By Friday though, I was way bored with my own lesson (and I have to do the same thing for the other classes next week, ick), and changed it a little-- for the better evidently. Instead of my blind quest for a group analysis of the song (which left me explaining most of it), I was like "ok, you figure it out for yourselves." Yay for getting to walk around and talk to everyone!

Meanwhile, and this is something I HAVE to complain about, Russ spent all week screening Fellowship of the Ring. I know he's declared vehemently that he doesn't want to teach high schoolers, but I don't see what the big deal is. In a lot of ways, they're a lot easier to teach than the adults-- they're no less cooperative, and due to the miracle of a 5-7 year (still not sure which) curriculum, they understand more of what you say, sooner. Also, hey, you have slightly more power over them, weird as that sounds. Anyway, the story began on Monday, when Alice asked me and Russ if we had our lesson outlines prepared. He said yes, and I said no. By lesson outline, she meant like a handout that they could photocopy for the students. I was expecting to have until Tuesday morning. At all this extra information, Russ was like "what?" Turns out he had a lesson plan, but had no idea that anyone had ever asked for a handout (which I'm sure has been brought up before). The next morning, I got up bright and early to type everything out and finalize like my song choice and all that, and had the original sheet printed by the time Alice woke up. She left to photocopy and didn't come back for hours.

When she finally got back, I was like... did you really have to wait that long? I was curious because she only needed to make 300 copies of each outline, and having walked various print jobs to the Olin copy center, I figured that no matter what equipment it was, it couldn't have taken that long. She said, with some exasperation, "I was waiting for Russ!" I had heard her call him before she left to make sure that he had something, but he still didn't even by the time she got there. What he wound up giving her was a handwritten sheet with a few random terms from freaking LOTR written on it with colons after them. I looked at this paper and not all of my laughter could be suppressed. Seriously, anyone who had this handed to them would have a big WTF branded hard across their forehead. I was like, you are shitting me, plain and simple. But no. Alice's aunt had bought a computer for Russ to use, so Alice was like, can't you at least type it? Well no. He refused to revise the "outline" (like hell) in any way, saying that he never wanted to teach the high schoolers and that they could fire him if they wanted. What makes this situation more exasperating is that he's leaving in January anyways, when a new teacher is scheduled to arrive, and we really don't want him to leave sooner than that.

So Alice didn't copy that.

We went to the school early to sort out all the technical matters associated with him playing that damn movie, and they almost couldn't get it to play. But since my equipment was controlled by a console I'd never encountered before, I asked Alice and Teacher Ding (who's in charge of the language lab Russ was using) to figure out my stuff while I messed around with the DVD. Proud to say that my experiments bore fruit, and quickly, and I was off.

I had the training center that night, so Alice and I were dropped off within walking distance (well... in campus/city terms, I suppose). She'd sat in on Russ's class and was nice enough to describe it to me. I would probably have been really pissed if I'd been sitting in there. He'd insisted that he would only show about 15 minutes of the film, but actually spent 40 min or something on it. Only... the way he did it... he apparently played it, unsubtitled in any language, then stopped it and repeated all the lines, and wrote them on the board. Alice had told me earlier what Russ had told her that his plan was: 15 minutes of the movie and then October holidays. Fucking holidays! So the first day at the hospital and training center, we'd been surprised by the fact that we had to actually teach a lesson (this was the day after we arrived), so he turned randomly to a page in a book, saw the word "holidays" and insisted that we do holidays. So holidays, to me, says "I don't want to think of anything else to teach." But also he wanted to do just October holidays. Alice said that since we teach the same lesson to two sets of kids for 2 weeks, she was afraid he'd just teach nothing but month-specific holidays all year. Which I think was a valid fear.

So I asked if he managed to teach Halloween ok, since it was the only Oct. holiday I could think of. She said no, he didn't make it to Halloween. I was like, uh? What eclipses Halloween? Well, apparently Columbus Day does. Along with Columbus day, evidently, came a Spanish lesson. Yes. In his ENGLISH class, Russ taught SPANISH. And also a smattering of racial terms, which I saw evidence of the next day.

The next day, we walked into the classroom and I looked at the board and just had to roll my eyes. Remember now, that I'm a huge Fellowship fan, but I'm sure you agree when I assert that the usefulness of the language in those first 15 minutes is... well, these are 9th graders. They have English exams that will determine their candidacy for college. "They were all of them deceived" will probably not help them. "Nine rings were gifted to the race of men" probably won't either. Neither will the word "Mongoloid" which was scribbled in an area of the board with a lot of other "-oid" type words that no one ever uses. So additionally, the language in this movie, apart from being a little ornate and dusty, is very standard British. Russ hasn't got a British accent. As far as I know, he has no intention to teach British English. In my opinion, this makes his lesson hyper-inconsistent.

What else adds to that? Well, the second day, when I asked if there was any more Spanish, Alice reported that Russ showed the movie until there were only 5 min. left in class. That is the time that he decided to say "let's have a 5 minute break!" In my experience all week, the kids are already a little confused when we end at 5:40 as we're told to, because the bell doesn't ring until 5:50 (the time class would be over if we observed the 10 minute break that occurs 40 min into class). So that's like... what?

The next day, Alice spent the period in the hall talking with Mr. Yuan (the man we had dinner with that one night and who's sort of in charge of the fact that we're there) and Mr. Ding. So I end up finding out from Russ himself that the audio didn't work that day. So I was like "maaan, what did you do?" Because Tuesday he'd insisted that he had a back up plan "in his head" when I sorta criticised him for having such a tech-dependent lesson (I was considering the fact that he's technologically inept, to be totally totally frank in my words). I was interested in knowing how he'd pulled it together. Still optimistic, I promise you. Until he said that he'd just showed the movie anyway and did the voices himself. Eh!

Whew. That was long-winded, but you know how I like to get things off my chest. So I know that I have my own short-comings, but here's what I have to say. I don't care if there's something you don't want to do if it needs to be done. It's of absolutely no inconvenience to him to teach these classes and take the effort to do it well. Of the two of us, he's the one who's TEFL certified, so what the fuck is going on? These students are not released from that school until 7:20 or some such, and I think they actually have to go back until like 10, and their only chance to eat before 7:20 is the time they get after our class before their next one starts. So really, can't he just reflect for a moment and then give them something worth learning? They're in our classes voluntarily and are really excited to have us there. I just wish he'd show them some real respect.

And I know that he thinks he's doing well, but I'd have freaking murdered my language teachers by now if that's all we did in class. And who knows-- maybe the students enjoy it? But anyways, as of now, my opinion on this matter is that this sucks and I just wanted to say so.

End rant. Ah. Maybe I've been nastier than usual. Whatever, we took the bus back that night and Alice and I booked to Xiang La Xia ("fragrant spicy shrimp" it means, and they ain't lying) to meet her mom for dinner. It's the 3rd time I've been there-- we had our first Baotou dinner there, and ate with Mr. Yuan there to discuss the high school-- and it really doesn't get old. Tell me if there's any way this can get old: The first plane of eating manifests in a large stainless steel pot/wok. It's brought to your table containing a jumble of shrimp, wings, potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, and bundles of starch noodles dripping in bright spicy oils. You eat and eat and eat, while sipping a really lovely tea that's sometimes lightly sweetened, with dried dates and a guiyuan (described as a cheap lychee/longan type fruit) floating in it. But no matter how much you eat, the meal does not end. There is a second plane of eating. There is another level, another step. There is eating 2.0. Once you've deemed that you're done with phase one, they bring out a second menu. Then they dump a bowl of chilis and spices into the pot, add some broth, and light a gas burner underneath. Then come plates of other delectables: raw lamb, beef, or pork, leafy greens, vermicelli, mushrooms of all varieties, tofus of different makes-- all these can be yours! On this occasion, we ordered some frozen tofu, golden needle mushrooms, and vermicelli. I actually doubt that what we had last night was frozen tofu but really some potato-derived bread-like substance that we'd eated on a previous night. Alice may have misunderstood what I'd asked for. But it was essentially what I was after. Both frozen tofu and this mysterious substance have a sponge-like consistency that is really bizarre at first bite. What I'm saying is that it's like eating a sponge. But it's like eating a DELICIOUS sponge. What happens is that all the little pores lock in the super-spicy soup and it's like an endorphin-explosion in your face. Then we got some noodles on the house-- someone comes by with a plate of dough pieces about 3-4 inches in length, then wh-ptsch! they grab both ends of one, whip it up and down a few times, and you've got a noodle a yard long. If they're the right thickness when they go in the soup, the noodles come out nice and chewy.

Because of the operation on her throat, Alice's mom wasn't in a position to eat spicy food. So all that stuff that I just described... I ate about half of it, and Alice ate the other half. I mean, it's an exaggeration: Mrs. Lee ate many of the chicken wings and we had a lot leftover in the end, but... anyways, that brings me back to the beginning of this entry and the stomach that was full for nearly 12 hours.

Dream sequence

Our TV works! Sort of. Now we need a DVD player!

So today I took a nearly 4-hour nap after lunch. I'm about ready to fall asleep still. I'm really at a loss as to how I can be so tired after sleeping sooo much. I may get more sleep now than I have in years.

I thought maybe it has something to do with my dreams. I have vivid, memorable dreams every time I close my eyes. Last night, for example, I distinctly remember two Chinese hip-hop posers trying to sell me their blingy clothes, and me demanding that they just give them to me. This was in the desert, next to an adobe wall. Then I ventured out, and eventually shielded some friends of mine from a land mine explosion, with my body. This led to the amputation of my right leg. I was allowed to keep my leg and walk around on it for a few days before the amputation, and was really depressed. There was a sequence in which I walked down the dusty desert street crying buckets. Some other army amputees (army? army.) explained that after they took the limb, they'd give me a medal, and tv promotions, and lots of other compensation, but that's when I realized how important my flesh was to me. I was really confused when I was still able to use the leg. I thought maybe they'd already taken it, and I had the phantom limb thing. But like, I was walking on it. So I thought maybe they'd already fitted me with a... replacement. But if I poked it, it really hurt. So yeah. That was last night.

This afternoon I had some serious dreaming about an elevator. Like, I was some woman, maybe a blonde, on some mission, which took me to this building like a shopping mall. I had two exes there (and I mean like ex-husbands), one of whom had some exec position, and the other was a security guard at a desk. Neither of them wanted to help me out. In whatever ensued, the exec guy took me shoes so I couldn't leave the building, and I couldn't get out of the elevator because otherwise they would find me. This story ended twice. Once with the exec-like man forcing the elevator open and sticking his head in the door to compromise. In the other ending, everyone just stopped paying attention and I was able to just pick up my shoes and leave the building. In one of these two endings, the security guard and I rekindled some spark or another, but it was totally PG.

Then a scene in the subway, in which it became clear that I was a character in a computer game, because if the person playing moved the cursor to either end of the screen, it would tell you what direction I would be headed if I started walking that way. Like... to the subway station.

There was a whole other dramatic part after this that was very distinct when I woke up. OOOH. I was kidnapped! In my sleep! I was napping on Alice's bed in her apartment, but whoever I was in my dream (maybe a 7 yr old black girl?), I was in a room I have never ever been in before. Now that I think of it, it hearkens to one of the guest rooms in Arthur's old old house, but the furniture was never arranged like that. Anyways, so I read this news article online the other day about how electrical stimulation of a certain part of the brain might cause you to sense a presence behind you ("shadow person") mimicking your movements and interfering with your actions. I think that's what inspired this. There was some string of kidnappings, and my character was experiencing one of them. In it, she was definitely sedated (probably inspired by the fact that some thieves drug you so you don't wake up while they steal stuff... heard Alice talking about it the other day), but woke up anyway. She/I couldn't move, and there were little shadow hands under me trying to lift me off the bed and carry me out of the room. So I tried to make some noise, any noise, but it only came out as heavy exhalations.

Then more dreaming followed, inspired by the Golden Compass. There were characters from the book anyway. Only those characters seemed much less likely to succeed in escaping whatever danger was following them. Oh yes. I remember what that was. There was some ploy to kill this girl. And they knew she was going to be poisoned, but didn't know when or who would do it. All they knew was that the poison would be put on a needle and shoved up her nose. This prospect was totally scary, I promise.

But anyway, when I sleep, it's not exactly like resting. It's like, my eyes are closed, but my mind is still going crazy-go-nuts, and it's like I'm reading/watching tv/surfing the internet, whatever. Only I have no control over what it is that I'm doing. So no matter when I wake up, I feel like I never actually slept at all.

So that's probably one factor.

Anyway, better work on some lessons.