Perplexed, proud, frustrated, sad and annoyed... one at a time.

I was kindly reminded that it has been a while since I last wrote. I appologize. The past couple of weeks, I have been especially busy. Doing what? I can't say exactly. I'm tempted to suggest that there may be fewer hours in the day in China. I've been working a bunch (7:30-5), but that ought to leave plenty of time for simple things like writing and the like. My schedule seems to have filled itself with unnecessary obligations: Dan and I go to the village a few times a week to talk with our friends (and usually spend most of the evening there) and two other nights I teach a little Fillipino girl English. It seems, however, that I ought to have at least a couple more hours than I actually do every day.

I know what you're thinking, but I don't sleep that much!! I do take a short nap at lunch time(que la siesta no me deje!), but I also wake up at six a.m. to start my day. Life is hard :-)

Anyway, this weekend, I actually did a lot. Friday, I went to get a foot massage after work (I know, life is rough, but for 3 dollars I can afford a massage) and then we went into the village for dinner and lessons. Saturday, we woke up bright and early for the Great Wall! I'll post pictures if I ever figure out how. The wall was amazing, but not what I expected. I think it's incredible that they built such a long and intricate wall over hundreds of small mountains, without a single machine and so long ago. I was, however, expecting something a little more massive in terms of height. Obviously it's tall enough that you can't just climb over it, but it's not that high. Another thing I wasn't expecting was the incline of the hike. It was steep! The pictures I have may not do it justice, but there are some stairs you don't want to go down without holding on to the railing. After a short afternoon nap ;-) we went into Changping in an attempt to find me some markers and other supplies.

Today was "interesting". I woke up early to go into Beijing with the church bus and Dan slept in. On the ride in, I was looking at the trees and wondering, for the umpteenth time, why they paint some of the trunks white. There doesn't appear to be a pattern, but I think maybe it's a certain variety of tree that they paint. All of the trees that line the streets of Changping, for example, are painted white (but only the bottom three feet or so). Once we asked a Chinese person why they were painted and they told us it was for visibility reasons. Now, in any other country I would have thought he was nuts, but the way they drive here it seemed plausable. Today, however, I saw an entire forest that had been painted like that. So, while it's plausable that somebody might take out a few of the trees, it seemed just a tad overboard to paint the whole woods. I'm perplexed. Any suggestions?

This morning I had an agenda. I went to Beijing with a purpose. I was going to get a laminator! I found the store I was told sold them and it was ENORMOUS! It was five stories tall and each floor had at least a hundred small booths that sold electronics of all kinds. I managed, speaking almost no Chinese and in less than an hour (bathroom break included), to find a laminator and, admittedly half-heartedly, I bargained just a little. No more crappy paper flashcards for my kids, no sir-ee!

After my wild success at Computer City, I decided to try my luck in Carrefour. Needless to say, my luck had apparently run out. All I wanted was some ground cinnamon (it's hard to find around here) and maybe some other spices if they had them. So, I entered (or so I thought) the complex. It was enormous and confusing and I literally spent a half an hour just trying to find the entrance to the store. That done, I realized that it wasn't the grocery part of it and it took me another ten minutes or so to locate the food. To my utter disappointment, they didn't even have what I was looking for! So, I bought myself some chocolate and headed back to the bus, wallowing.

Back on campus, Dan had the B.B.C. on. I sat down to watch it with him, but I'm either extremely hormonal today or it was more depressing than usual. I started crying because they were talking about the forest fires in Borneo. They didn't say anybody had died or anything, just a forest burning and I cried. I had to leave the room, to do something to distract myself. I was just immensely sad for everything all at once.

We went to the village and I asked to go get my favorite soup with noodles. Dan obliged, but even my noodles were different and the restaurant people were less friendly. They gave us beer without bubbles! Towards the end of my meal a few men walked in for dinner. That in itself would have been relatively harmless, but one of them kept spitting. Mind you, he wasn't spitting in a napkin or getting up to spit out the door. He would just spit right next to himself, on the floor, for everybody to hear and see. I didn't feel ill. I didn't lose my appetite. I was just disgusted. I was annoyed with the restaurant owners and more so with the spitter. The food was fine, but the atmosphere was killing me.

Now I'm home, warm and cozy. Soon I'll be asleep. Dan killed the flies that had been haunting us, so I will hear nothing, no buzzing, no spitting, maybe just the hum of my computer.