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

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?

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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.