Stuck...

I should have known better. The first half of my flight was too good to be true. I had two seats to myself and no crying babies. The second leg is more than making up for that comfort already.

I hate United Airlines. Their service on board isn't great, but what's worse is that they are always running late! Today, my flight is a ridiculous 2.5 hours late (if it arrives at the predicted time). I tried to change my flight to an earlier one, but since I had already rechecked my baggage, they refused to help.

I'm jet lagged and I am getting pissed off really easily. It doesn't help that people go out of their way to make traveling difficult. The guy routing people into various lines for the security check insisted that I had too many bags, but as long as I held some of my stuff in my hands without a bag, THAT was o.k. WHAT?! IT'S THE SAME AMOUNT OF CRAP YOU MORON! Needless to say, it only gets better when you have to practically strip naked for the security check. Take off all of your coats and sweaters (in winter this is a feat in itself), take off your shoes, take your laptop out of the bag and your toiletries too. And, don't forget that you have 15 seconds to get it all back in order before the next person's crap will slam into yours. I don't know anybody that can get their shoes on that fast!

I have been awake for 24 hours now, and I still have at least 7 hours to go before I can sleep well.

35/60

35 out of 60. It looks like a barely passing test grade, but it is way better than that! 35 out of 60 is how many channels on my cable that show the same 7 o'clock news! Dan and I noticed this before, but tonight was the first time we counted, 35! This new information adds to my love of Chinese Cable Television. Is it not just a little ironic that CCTV also stands for Closed Circuit Television?

A little too much holiday cheer...

Or perhaps just a little too much wine last night and too much whining this afternoon. Last night was the staff Christmas party. Though I'm not usually a big drinker, I did have a tad too much. I blame the waitresses who refilled my glass when I wasn't looking. In all honesty, I would be talking to somebody and poof my wine glass was full again. I'm not good at staying sober if I can't count. In spite of my excesses, I had a good time. I danced like it was going out of style, and my legs haven't stopped thanking me for that. I did eventually figure out that the food was downstairs, but it was a little too late to balance out what I had already drunk.

When I got home from the party, I discovered the true disadvantage of not being able to drink water out of the tap. If you're thirsty and have about 10 ounces of water per person to last till morning, you either have to be thirsty or boil water. I was too drunk to be hanging out by the gas stove, so I went thirsty.

Dan and I slept away most of the morning, and at 1:30 I headed over to school. I had the priveledge, yet again, of working on a Sunday. Granted, I enjoy coaching, but I don't enjoy the hour and a half of down time when the kids aren't playing. I don't generally mind hanging out with the kids because I really don't feel that much older than them. I can joke and play around with them and they don't treat me like an old lady. Yet, there are times when all they do is winge. Today was one of them. They complained that one of their friends wasn't allowed to play, they complained about the refs and the scores, they complained about each other, and on and on. I am a complainer, but come on, it's soccer! Have fun, play the game and don't worry about whether or not the refs made a bad call. I'm not sure how some of the kids even knew what a bad call was since they haven't played a whole lot of soccer. The bus ride back to school was also trying as kids insisted on spilling things, yelling and cursing at each other and, you guessed it, complaining! Andrew asked me if I was planning on having kids. I told him I wasn't really sure how anyone could reasonably say yes to that after spending an afternoon with the kids on our teams. A father of one of the boys piped in and said, "Two is manageable, it's just that you have too many." Perhaps.

Why Chinese People Love Hitler: A very long post.

It's been exactly a month and four days since my last post. I am ashamed. At this point, I'm going to have to personally notify people that I've blogged again because they may have assumed me dead. I'm baaaaaaack! I've been seriously overworked, but the semester is almost over and three lovely weeks of rest and relaxation will soon be mine. O.K. so there might not be much rest or relaxation for that matter, but I will get to spend massive amounts of time with friends and family, and that makes me happy. Needless to say, my lungs could use the trip out of Beijing. They scream for clean air every time I find myself running to work.

Not a whole lot has happened in a month, actually. I started studying Chinese characters and stopped again. I'm sure you're surprised. I worked, coached, worked some more, ate and slept a lot. I haven't had a single work-free weekend since October holiday!

Last weekend we met up with the Aleonards (Dan's parents' friends from Carriers) and their friends for dinner. It was fun. I spoke French till my head was about to explode and then had trouble switching back to Chinese. It's sort of reminiscent of my sophomore year of college when I had trouble keeping Russian, Spanish and French in their proper places. I have also noticed my Spanish waning, but there isn't a whole lot I can do about it at the moment.

This past Wednesday I bussed my butt out to Changping to visit Dan and our village people. It was not an average visit with them! As a matter of fact, I think I got more of a cultural education in two hours than I've had in the past six months. I'm well aware that there is so much about Chinese culture and people that I don't understand, but this was pretty jaw dropping.

To start the night off right, it was just Song Bo and I chatting. For some reason I asked her if she didn't have much time to rest because of her job. Her response was to tell me she was pregnant. Uh, congratulations? I wasn't quite sure it was a good thing since she spent the whole last year telling me how she didn't want kids. But then, maybe that's just what Chinese people say. So she told me exactly how many days pregnant she was, which took me an absurdly long time to figure out. I think I was expecting her to talk about months, but she was telling me 45 days. Since the word for days and money sounds pretty much the same, I was a little confused. She talked about how she felt fine and had lots of energy and that she was planning to work until she was seven or eight months pregnant. I said I thought that was a good thing... at which point Dan arrived.

Thinking our previous conversation was something to be excited about, I blurted it out first thing. "She's pregnant!" Dan turned to her and asked in Chinese and she got all weird and said, "No, no, no..." And I was wondering if I really missed something in our conversation during the last half hour. So, I asked, "You're not?" "Bu hao yi se (It's embarassing)," she said.

Ooops. Apparently, only women can talk to women about that kind of thing and men to men. Yeah. HUGE faux pas. So, in an effort to down play my aweful social skills Dan CONTINUED to talk about it, until I told him to shut up, he didn't know anything. And he told Song Bo that he didn't know anything, but I think it was lost in the cultural translation.

Later in the evening, when Luo Mo Cong came back, we were just sitting around chatting and the news was on. It was something about protests in Taiwan. The conversation that ensued was long, so I'll get to the salient points. Basically, both of them thought China should just go to war with Taiwan. They insisted that it is Chinese and that it cannot exist appart from China. Luo Mo Cong seemed to think the best course of action would be to just bom the crap out of the country. Dan made the point that if you kill all the people and flatten the country, there won't be any Taiwan. "Mei wen ti (No problem)," was his response. It was at about that point in the conversation that our jaws dropped, and we didn't think they would go any lower, but they did.

This led to a conversation about rulers and who were great rulers. His list consisted of Deng Xiao Ping, Napolean, and... HITLER! I don't think I've ever seen Dan look so stupified. See the dramatic recreation below.


Luo Mo Cong talked about those three people for about half an hour. Deng Xiao Ping was great, according to him, because he was a good leader. When Tibet wanted independence he went in and killed them all (this proud nationalistic outpouring was accompanied by gestures in case we weren't sure what he meant by killing). Napolean was great because he killed people and presumably Hitler as well, though to be completely honest both Dan and I were in a fuzzy state of shock. Dan's jaw reached its lowest point when Luo Mo Cong said, "Wo hen xi huan Hi te le (I really like Hitler)." At that point we decided it was probably appropriate to tell him he shouldn't say that to foreigners. He explained that Chinese people didn't care if a few thousand people were killed and we felt he had missed the point. "Yeah, but, you can't say you like Hitler." He still didn't get it. "It's like if we said we really liked the Japanese, they're really great people." "Oh, bu, bu, bu... (no, no, no)." Chinese people dislike the Japanese, to put it lightly, so he understood.

After all of that, I was starving. Dan and I went to a restaurant and I ate a pound and a half of dumplings! What's weird is that I didn't even feel full after that. The next morning I had a stomach ache, but details.

The rest of the week has been far less interesting. I made truffles last night, gave end of semester exams at school and visited my first dentist outside of Bath, convinced I had cavities. I was wrong, according to the dentist, but that doesn't change the fact that my teeth are sensitive. Her advice... don't eat sour, hot, or cold... and pray tell, what shall I eat? Melted ice cream ought to do it... or perhaps room temperature lettuce... mmmm! Anyway, I'm glad there's nothing to be fixed. It had been four years since I'd been to have a cleaning, but she said she couldn't tell. God bless whoever invented those spinning toothbrushes!

Signing out from an absurdly long post, but before I do I'd like to let you in on a little bit of news you might not get in your part of the world. There's a crisis in Thailand. There aren't enough pink polo shirts! Seriously, this made CNN news here. The Thai government actually produced 40,000 pink polo shirts to avoid a price increase. Why pink? Because the king wore a pink vest when he left the hospital a week ago. Wow. I mean, they have good food, but wow.

So much, so little time

Time flies. It's already been about two weeks since my last post. Since then, there have been visits with the village people, parent-teacher conferences, ick, a bike race, some bitterly cold days, a soccer game or two and a halloween party. I just got home from said party.

I have been so busy, and so, so neglectful of my friends and family in other places. I feel like the work never ends, and I guess it never really does! I've been coaching soccer, doing a climbing activity, reading, posting (for my class), trying to figure out wikispaces, trying to get some exercise, trying to stay warm, trying to spend some quality time with Dan, and trying to stay at least a little bit social. Oh, and occasionally I sleep, it just doesn't feel like it's ever enough!


So, there was this bike race. I knew it was mountain biking, but thought, "I can hack it!" Oh, how I have so much to learn. Dan and I went with borrowed bikes, thinking we were going to do one 3.3 km lap. It turned out to be three. I still only did one, in large part because I was scared out of my mind. I had never gone down such steep hills on loose dirt, and the fact that these were followed by 90 degree turns didn't help. So, I sucked big time in that race, not even finishing. Later I picked up a little slack in the team relay, a different, significantly safer route. Our team didn't finish first, but we definitely didn't finish last either. What follows is a great picture of me looking as unathletic as humanly possible. If I look like I'm not really enjoying myself, it's cause I was way behind everybody else. There I am though, sporting a lovely hat my granny made me!


The race was last Saturday, and since then, I can barely remember what happened. I ate, slept, and worked some and on Friday I finally got to spend some time with Dan. Today was beautiful, so of course, I spent it inside!! It wasn't by choice, though. I had signed up for a first aid refresher course a while ago, thinking it would be a morning or an afternoon. Afterall, if it's a refresher, I would imagine it's basically some practice. WRONG! We were there from 9-5, but it was so unnecessarily long! I suppose there's no point in crying over it now though. It's done, and at least I'll have current certification.

Tonight we went to a Halloween party. It was fun, I just dressed up and I made Dan be a candy man (we used double sided tape to make his jacket very sweet). It was a few people I knew, and a lot more I didn't. I had a couple of drinks, some food, and danced my booty off for a few songs. It was the most gay men I've seen in one place since college. Ah, the good 'ole days. For pics, see: http://picasaweb.google.com/RLMohr/Halloween?authkey=wZ3jhgqB81E

And now I'm going to bed. Here's hoping we wake up in time to get some brunch somewhere!

Green what?

Starbucks is proud to announce their new drink, the creamed spinach latte, served up HOT for your drinking pleasure! O.k. so maybe it's a green tea latte, but it looks like creamed spinach and it smells like creamed spinach. It tastes o.k., sort of, but it's hard to get past the sensation that I might be part of a new government initiative to get foreigners to do their part in cleaning up toxic waste. A color that bright (the photo really doesn't do it justice) is most definitely hiding something!

I'm at Starbucks now. It's a nice way to spend a Friday evening out of the house, but not really doing anything. This week has been pretty busy for me. I've been doing testing at school, which means I've spent a lot of time grading. I've also had the typical workload and master's course work on top of that.

On Monday, I did absolutely nothing to celebrate my birthday. I did, however, received a package from my dad (he has impeccable timing), and that was really nice. I got some jewelry from Dan, but we weren't actually able to spend the day together because Mondays and Wednesdays are the nights we spend at respective ends of the city. I also got a little Piglet snow globe from one of my Korean students. It was a typical Monday birthday, not good, not bad.

Tuesday, my girls' soccer team won their first game! It was great, and I was really proud of them. I don't have the winning photo to post at the moment, but I will add it later. They were all really excited to have won as well, especially since they won against girls who were way bigger than them and they played the whole game without substitutes. I really love coaching, I love being able to share that sense of accomplishment with them.

Yesterday, I played in our first two club football games. I'm playing soccer with about 9 or 10 other people from the school and it's really good fun. We got trampled, but I enjoyed every second of it. I actually played fairly well, especially considering it's been so long! We lost the first game 3-1 and the second game was a very high number-1 (I actually did lose count of how many goals they scored, but they were really, really good). My proudest moment was the assist I had in the second game. I would even say it was pretty and it led to a very pretty goal.

And today, today was Friday, thank everything holy. Work was rough and I didn't have much in the way of downtime, but it's over. At the end of the day, I did some line dancing (we're doing it for our school's International Day) and had some pizza. I love the slow moments like these, with Dan and my green tea latte. Life is good!

Wrecked!

I am soooo tired. I'm including a picture of me, right now, at Starbucks. O.k., I'm not actually sleeping, but I wish I was. I feel so overwhelmed right now. It's report week, which means that I still have about five comments to write by Friday afternoon. I also have school work (for my graduate class), which is mostly done, but then I have to prepare for next week. I have to hand in a statement of my goals by Friday as well, which is a hassle mostly because I'm just too busy right now. They could have waited until the week AFTER reports, couldn't they? I'm also doing a virtual seminar which is from 3-4:30 a.m. thanks to the time difference. I've arranged to go into school an hour late, but I still think I'm going to want to die. I have planning that needs to be written and I need to get my next unit planned as well. All of this probably doesn't even seem like that much, but I feel like I don't have a good hold on it anyway.

Aside from floundering in my professional life, things are going pretty well. I am enjoying the time I get to spend with Dan, even though it's not always restful. We do our best to do nothing. This week (from last Friday until this one), we've had guests from France. They've been staying in the Hutong and we've seen almost nothing of them, so hopefully we'll get a chance to spend some time with them tomorrow. They're really nice, and they have a very cute baby. I'm totally going to want one of my own someday!

Last week, when we went to visit the village people, they took us to an amusement park. I use the term very loosely because Dan and I were only really amused because it was so horrible. Think county fair and then take away all the fun rides and the cotton candy and the fried dough. You're not left with much. There weren't even any animals. I'm not really sure why Chinese people find these things fun, and we don't.

We went on three "rides", only two of which actually qualify by definition. The first was a very slow moving roller coaster type ride. All of the cars were connected and they went through a series of rooms with neon fish and under the sea themed plants and monsters. The music was different in each room and ranged from watery to the music they play when something bad is about to happen. There were some very mechanical mermaids and dragons along the way, and the cheap decorations were usually lit up by black lights. It's really hard to describe how crappy it actually was. It was so lame it was actually kind of funny.

The second "ride" was the aquarium. There were quite a few different kinds of fish and even some sea turtles. The thing that made the aquarium visit different from any other I've had was the fact that everybody and their mother tapped (or banged) on the glass in spite of the signs that said in English and Chinese "Please do not tap on the glass." The only thing I can figure is that maybe when it's written in Chinese people read it and think "Oh, we shouldn't tap, we should bang on it!" It's also interesting to note that the fish they get most excited about are the biggest ones and they often make a comment along the lines of "That one would be a good meal!" Sadly, I didn't get the impression they were joking.

Later that night we took them out to dinner. It was Dan and I and five of them. The beginning was a bit awkward because nobody would order any dishes worth more than 8 or so kuai ($1). I figured it was because they didn't want the bill to be too high. So Dan and I went ahead and ordered some of the most expensive things on the menu: pigs feet, duck and fish. We also ordered a whole bunch of beer, maybe 10 litre bottles. The grand total for the bill, including the 6 or so vegetable dishes, less than 200 kuai (about $30). I'm not sure how I'll ever survive in any other country again! Anyway, the highlight of the evening was getting everybody to sing, a couple of them were really awful, but we had a great time!

BUGS!

I didn't get a chance to blog until now (liar) because the voice in my head told me it was time to take a vacation (LIAR!). No, really, I've been lazy. I meant to blog about Experience China Week, but we all know what they say about good intentions! And now that I'm in a disgusting internet cafe, typing on a keyboard that some slob spilled Coke all over (fingerlickin' fun!) I have found the time in my busy vacation schedule to write.

Experience China Week was an experience, that's for sure. I wouldn't say most of my experiences were related to China as much as they were to the psychology of whining 12 year olds. Oh, and I experienced bugs, and the impact they have on the volume of a twelve year old girl's voice (it's a positive relationship for those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing it). The kids experienced China, and complained about almost every minute of it! They didn't like the food, they wanted a snickers bar or more pringles (I don't know whose genius idea it was to provide them these snacks in the first place...), they didn't like hiking and they definitely didn't like bugs!

Actually, the trip wasn't bad. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it (and a little bit sick), but I really enjoyed getting to know some of the kids and I LOVED the hiking! The trails were not easy, but they were beautiful, and I saw some really neat things that I wouldn't have seen elsewhere. In general, it was just nice to be outside of Beijing for a week. I will post pictures of some of the places when somebody gives me some. I didn't take any myself because Dan's memory card was full and the usb cord seems to have gone missing between three apartments.

So, now it's October holiday. I have a week off for "National Day" which makes me really like this country. We have no plans. I thought about leaving, but then I took a smart pill. Dan's ankle is still recovering from an injury almost two weeks ago now, so he's still not up for much walking. Tomorrow we're going out to Chang Ping to hang out with the village people. Neither of us have seen them very much lately, and I'm starting to feel like a total loser for not being able to maintain contact with people so physically close to me! I don't even want to get into the dozen or so postcards that are waiting to be sent.

AAAAHHHH!

At a pretty high octave, that's as close as letters come to representing the sound I made in the hutong last night. Dan and I opened the door and were instantly appalled by what smelled like poop somewhere in the hutong. It is not a large place, but whatever the smell was coming from was well hidden (presumably behind the furnace since we still haven't found it). I walked in and flicked on the patio lights the doors to the bedroom and living room were closed, but the bathroom and kitchen doors were open.

Thinking, quite logically of course, that a poop smell might be coming from the bathroom, I stepped up to flick on the light when... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! I screamed like a little girl. Something rather substantial had run by and hit me in the leg just before I could switch on the light. Not having seen anything, I turned to Dan, panicked. He had this funny look on his face, somewhere between disbelief and amusement. At this point, I don't remember the words exchanged, but he did inform me that it was just a cat, with a look that said, "Why on EARTH would you scream like that about a cat!" Of course, I didn't know it was a cat.

In my life, there have been plenty of bats in the house, and mice and even rats, but never cats. I can assure you though, had I seen what it was and that it was coming, I wouldn't have freaked out like that.

So, the cat scared me. I think, though, that I just might have scared the cat a bit more. It ran for the door, which leads us to believe that's how it must have come in in the first place, but the door was closed. I went to try to open the door, but then, of course, the cat ran the other direction (back onto the patio). It stood for a few seconds on the table, beautiful orange and white hair on end, tail enormous and then whoosh, it ran into the kitchen and as far as possible under the cupboards where it would stay for a good portion of the evening.

At this point, I felt like a real idiot for not having shut the kitchen and bathroom doors before going to open the patio door. All of those times we had a bat in the house haven't prepared me for anything!! I still forget to shut the door! In the hopes that the cat would leave on its own during the night, we left the hutong door open a crack. I insisted on leaving it open because I didn't want to have to torture the cat in the morning to get it out (it had already been in our place for at least a couple of days without food). Unfortunately, I'm paranoid, so leaving the door open meant that I didn't sleep well at all last night. I started awake about every half hour or whenever there was any noise. At a couple different times I got up to see if the cat had left yet so I could shut the door. It wasn't the case.

So, today's been a bit rough. I sort of feel like I have a hangover or something. On the up side, classes were super easy and there were no major happenings after school. I came home, had two sips of red wine and crashed for about an hour. I'd like to just go to sleep now, but I have work to do :-(

So, until the next incident...

Another busy week.

It's Sunday morning. The weeks are flying by now. Last Sunday, we went to brunch at Frank (the upper school principle) and Louise's (humanities teacher) house. I was a little nervous about it at first, because I wasn't sure who else would be there, but it turned out to be great. Dan spent a great deal of time talking to Delinda (a Chinese teacher) about the origins of French. She claimed French was influenced by Chinese and Dan argued stubbornly that it wasn't possible. For whatever reason, he was convinced (and wrongly so), that an alphabet couldn't come from a character based language. I'm really not sure who was right or who won in the end, but the argument lasted a while.

I spent some time talking to several different people and eventually, when most people had left, Dan and I stayed a little while longer to taste whiskeys with a couple of other teachers. It's odd, because I was convinced that I didn't like whiskey, but whatever Frank had was really good. They were all single malt and I guess that makes a huge difference and we tried three different kinds. I think both Dan and I were surprised that we actually liked it!

Tuesday, I had climbing club again. It's getting a little more interesting, but the kids are still kind of a pain in the butt. There is one child who cannot follow anything we're doing and neither Bruce nor I can figure out exactly why. When I tried to teach him how to tie the knot for his harness, I showed hime 6 to 8 different times, using different techniques. He still can't do it and this is the third time we've had climbing. Apparently he was no more of a whiz with belaying. It doesn't seem to be a language thing, but I have a hard time believing it's spatial either since he's in fourth grade.

Anyway, after climbing I went to the hutong. Dan and I went out for dinner and then to the police station. Apparently, letting somebody stay with us wasn't a great idea. A cop came by the hutong when just Peter was there and told him that we all needed to register (let the cops know we're living there). I had been under the impression that because we were registered elsewhere in Beijing, we didn't have to register there as well. I was wrong. So, we walked down to the police station and asked several different cops whether we needed to register or not. They were all soooooo nice and it is so painfully obvious that cops in China don't have much to do on a regular basis (aside from pushing paper work, anyway). They even had a sign on the desk that said, "Please speak nicely to us" in Chinese. Softies! Long story short, they didn't seem to think we needed to register, but they took my phone number and said they'd call me the next day. Imagine cops in NYC doing that. "Hey, I'm not sure, but I'll find out and call you, ok?" Yeah, right! They did call, though! Not the next day, but the day after. They told us we had to register and what we needed to bring. So, that's what we have to do today.

Wednesday, I had soccer practice. It was fun, and I have a great group of girls. They're really keen to learn and they're always willing to try something new. They had their second game on Thursday. They only played six on six, which was good because that's how many kids we had for the game. The girls totally outplayed the other team, but lost by one unlucky goal. We had more shots, but since we were playing with really little goals, it was tough going. I'm really proud of them! Our next game is Tuesday against WAB, though. They're supposed to be really good, so I'm just hoping we don't get creamed!

Oh, yeah, and this week I did something really cool. I figured out how to simplify the reports that we have to do for midterm and end of term. It took me all afternoon on Wednesday to figure it out (I had no idea what I was doing to begin with), but when I finally did, I was estatic! Basically, I created short cut keys for fillng in a grid. It isn't too complicated, but I got a lot of praise for it (and, more importantly, I was proud of myself)!

Friday and Saturday Dan and I didn't do anything other than exercise really. I made chocolate chip cookies to totally undo all of the good things that we did, though. Today, we're planning on going in to the hutong to register and then hopefully do some climbing.

Being a busy bee...

It goes without saying that I have been busy since I got here at the beginning of August. The last couple of weeks, however, have been even busier. Dan arrived on the 26th, which was nice, because I missed him, and not, because his flight got in really late and we only had a few hours together since I had to work the next day. I had him doting on me for a full week before he had to start work. He brought me a couple of awesome presents, a necklace and matching earrings and a spice rack (really great because all I had in the apartment up till that point was salt).

This week was the first week both of us were working and it was a rough adjustment. We spent a couple of nights at the hutong, a night apart and a couple of nights at the Chaoyang apartment. Rough as commuting can be, it's totally worth it, I think, to have the hutong. I've had a lot of work to do, but I've been managing. I haven't relaxed too much though.

Last night was pretty cool though, and I'm really glad Dan was able to come with me. There was a dinner for work at the Landgent Courtyard. Basically, it's this enormous, beautifully redone courtyard that the board uses to wine and dine people. We left on school busses at 5:30 and got there around 6. There were drinks ready when we got there and they spent very little time making speeches, maybe 15 minutes. We met the founder of the school, Mr. Nee, a thirty-two year old realestate tycoon who does not look like he has that much money. Then, we had a really nice dinner, buffet style, but a really nice variety of asian food. They served us wine that they were very proud of, from France, and great dessert. In all, it was a really nice evening and we were back to the school by about 8:30. Oh, and I forgot to mention what was probably the most Chinese aspect of the whole evening, the presents. On our way out, we were told to choose two presents each and they ranged from business card holders and wallets to silk scarves and ties. They were very nice gifts, but I still think it's a bizarre thing to do.

So, now it's Friday and Dan and I don't have plans this weekend. It's great! I think I'd be happy to be a slug for a couple of days. On Sunday, we have a brunch to go to, but it's the next building over, so it's hardly a task!

From good to bad and back again.

This afternoon was positively awful, but then I started to feel pretty good about it. Had I written this blog around 6 this evening, it would have been a pretty upset entry. Luckily, the only thing people do fast in China is build stuff. I spent two hours at the bank. It's sort of like the supermarket where they think long and hard before lifting a finger and getting something done. That and as any Chinese person will tell you, there are too many people "Ren tai duo le!" At any rate it was probably a good thing I had the time to mull over the things that were bothering me.

Today was pretty good in general, but this afternoon was a total disappointment. When I was told I would have a homeroom, there was mention of going on the Experience China Week trip with them. I was kind of excited because I thought it would be fun and kind of nice to spend time with the kids outside of school. I know being a chaperone is hard work, but I was actually looking forward to it. When we started talking about it at school, however, I got the impression that I would not be going with my class. This afternoon, the principal confirmed that.

I imagine that at some point I will not care that I am not going (because it is a lot of work), but I can't help but feel like I'm missing out on the only chance I'll have to get to know the kids better. I am a little worried that it will set me up to be the "odd man out" so to speak. I know the school doesn't want to pay for all of the teachers to go, but it really wouldn't cost that much to have all of the homeroom teachers go. I think my disappointment is especially strong because this trip was moved forward in the year to make it a bonding experience, and I feel like I might miss out on a lot in terms of seeing the kids in a different light. Regardless of what I think, however, nothing is going to change at this point, so I suppose it's time to suck it up.

After getting all down about the trip and having that compounded by the heat and long wait at the bank, I had a really pleasant surprise. It may have been a total accident, but Huijia paid me for the last two weeks of school!! I had 2000 and some rmb in my account! I thought I had nothing, so anything would have been nice, but that's a chunk of money.

Maybe the title of this blog would have been more accurate if it was "For every action there's an equal and opposite," but I'm not sure if that's always true. 2000 rmb will certainly help if Dan and I decide to take a trip of our own during October holiday! So, it put a smile back on my face.

On my way home, with my pockets a little fuller, I stopped by the market. It was the first time I had really walked around there and it was absolutely fabulous! There were so many vendors with nice looking fruits and vegetables and all far cheaper than the local carrefour. I was a little hesitant about buying because foreigners almost always pay too much, but I'm getting better at reading and can certainly pretend to speak a few words. So, I went for it. I only bought some grape tomatoes and some grapes (which turned out to be slips kins!!), for a total of two kilos at 12 rmb. That's a dollar fifty for over three pounds of grapes, which are deliciously juicy, and 30 cents for a little over a pound of tomatoes.

It's hard to feel down when life is so cheap!! It is, however, easy to feel exhausted. Good night!

An uncomfortable update...

I'm really uncomfortable right now, laying on the hard floor because my butt was starting to fall asleep. I do have a desk in this room, but my battery was low, so I had to move the computer to the floor to be able to plug it in. Obviously, I am not yet lucky enough to have wireless. I guess I should buy an extension cord. Unfortunately, or not, it's a bit too late for me to go out (Carrefour is still open, but it's almost my bedtime). It just seemed time for an update.

Last week was my first week of school. I think it goes without saying that I survived. My classes went fine and the students are really great. Everybody is as helpful as possible, though, of course, not everything is possible. I feel like my classes are off to a good start, but I am incredibly disorganized. I have plans for a few weeks, but feel like they change a little every day. I guess that's par for the course though. I'm really not freaking out about school anymore, but I do feel like I have a lot to do to catch up.

Last weekend was pretty nice because I actually relaxed and managed to get out of the city for a day. On Friday after work, I went to our school social club's "Survivor Party." It was a barbeque and drinks at a bar sort of nearby. I had a good time talking to people and the food was o.k. I probably should have had more to eat before I started drinking, but that's a lesson that's hard to learn. Regardless of how quickly I felt tipsy or why (I'd like to blame some of it on exhaustion), it was meant to be an early night for me. I caught a cab back to the apartments with another teacher and was in bed by 11:30.

The next morning was hard. I had only had a couple of drinks, but the combination of that and lack of water and sleep was killing me. I had to be up at 6 and on the bus by 7 and I made it, with a few seconds to spare! I was off to a place that I didn't even know of and I still can't tell you the name, but it's somewhere South and West of Beijing. The ride itself was nice, there were only twelve of us on the bus, so there was plenty of room. I tried to sleep a bit, but wasn't very successful. The plastic palm trees by the side of the road were just too distracting!

We arrived at the park around 9 and the good (lead) climbers started setting up the routes for us top ropers. I was a little nervous, but not so much because I thought I would hurt myself. Actually, I was thinking, I hope I can make it up at least one of those! I think there were six different routes. I did two of them, the easiest of course. I did, however, do the second easiest one twice. I think I'm ready to do better the next time we go out. I realized that while it is more of a mental challenge, it was actually easier on my hands than climbing a fake wall, and there was less strength required.

We were at the park all day, so it was easy to get a nap in there, and then headed back to Beijing around 4:30. We went straight out to dinner (PIZZA!!) and then most of us went home to crash. I went back to the hutong because I thought it would be nice to go there and easy enough. I got home and started getting undressed and... knock, knock... crap. The neighbor was at the door so I had to get totally dressed again and see what she wanted (as if I would understand anyway!). I opened the door and she handed me something to do with the water. She said there were two bills, that much I understood, but when I looked at them I was shocked. One said Y560 and the other said Y180. I freaked out, because that's about a hundred U.S. Dollars for water! I even had a nightmare about it, well, that and the water damage in the house (I'm petrified that something bad will happen and I won't be there).

So Sunday I woke up early and did some laundry. While that was happening I laid in bed and read or re-read The Diaries of Anne Frank. I am planning on using a few excerpts for class, but once I started reading, I had some trouble putting it down again. Like any good war story, it left me really freakin' depressed! I felt like crap the whole rest of the morning.

Luckily, Dan called in the afternoon, and I was reminded why life is good and why I shouldn't be depressed. Actually, it wasn't that deep. He called, I told stories, he told stories and I was happy. It was pretty simple.

Oh, and before I left the hutong I collected a few of the bugs. It turns out they are Rolly Poly bugs or Pill bugs or whatever people call them. It also turns out that Tamara wants some for her science class. Unfortunately, they're still in the school apartment because I forgot them on my way out this morning. I hope they don't die after all the crap I went through to get them here!

Today, I asked one of the Chinese teachers about the water bill. I wanted her to translate so I knew what the heck we were supposed to pay $100 for. Turns out that instead of using decimal points, they write Chinese characters, so Y560 was actually Y5.6 and Y180 was Y1.8. The stupid thing is that if I had really looked carefully, I might have even figured that out before I had all sorts of anxiety!

WARNING: I plead not guilty (for the style and appearance of this entry) by reason of (hopefully temporary) insanity.

sort of freaked out last night for various reasons and didn't write because i didn't have internet access in my apartment and aaaaaaaaaaahhh, they are currently playing really horrible screaching noises over the p.a. system. anyway, i've been uber jittery this whole week and last night was just sort of the worst. i was up well past midnight reading things in sort of a last minute attempt to cram everything ib myp means into my head. needless to say, it was a failed venture and then when i did try to sleep i found it near impossible. i actually had to do yogic breathing to fall asleep.

going back about a week now (time is going by sooooo quickly!!), i didn't do a whole lot on the weekend aside from going to ikea on saturday which was not really fun to say the least. i went with a list of things i thought it would be easy to get there and managed, more or less. i bought dishes and sheets for our king sized bed :-D a cookie tray, and other random things. i had about forty-five minutes to shop and we got there right when the store opened, so i just sort of shot through the store and then didn't really have time to get distracted by things, which was good. what i did buy actually came out to a little over 1000 kuai!! the most expensive items, though, were ones like the italian coffee maker (like the old one except with spare rubber thingies in case dan forgets to add the water again ;-) and the dishes and sheets.

in the afternoon i had planned on going climbing, but i was exhausted and it looked like it was going to rain. i ended up buying some food and going home to eat and sleep. sunday i spent most of the morning doing laundry and discovered the hard way that the exit hose was out of the drain... oops. water was all over the bathroom! and it wasn't clean either, it had all kinds of lint and crap in it. it was fun cleaning that up. the washer and dryer are actually really good though, i'm super happy with them.

sunday evening i went to changping to meet up with john and jennifer. taking the subway to jishuitan, it took me almost exactly an hour and a half to get to changping. i got there around 6 and both of them came to pick me up. it was really hard without dan there. i found i could communicate some stuff, but some of it was just impossible. they were asking about his brother's wedding and practically all i could say was that it was in a big hotel and it was really fun. i tried to explain that it was jewish, but they didn't get it and i didn't know the right words. all of this while i am riding a bicycle was a bit much.

when we got where we were going to eat, john handed me the menu to pick something. i really wished i could have spoken fluently at that point to tell him that we usually just point and see what we get, but that was too hard to say, and i don't really know if he would appreciate how amusing it is to us so i just told him i could only read two things. anyway, we had chuar and some bean things that were really good and we ate some jaozi on the side. we couldn't put them on the plates because they were pork jaozi and we were in a muslim restaurant. that was probably a total faux pas i think, to eat it there in the first place. anyway, it was good food and i'm not sure what we talked about but it wasn't painfully silent. now that i think about it, they may have just talked to each other most of the time, but i was fine with that. we drank a lot of beer, of course, and by the end of the meal i was pretty tipsy.

we went shopping for a bit (by that i mean we went to buy anti mosquito stuff and look at dvds for a few minutes) and then we went back to their place. since their new place is still just one room they set up a curtain between jennifer and i and john. i ought to mention that before i came, i had no idea i'd be spending the night and it was really bizzare to me that john had to sleep on the little bed and jennifer and i on the big bed. it was like some sort of false modesty or perhaps something cultural that i, having had many a sleepover in college and beyond, did not understand.

i brushed my teeth. they have running water, but no place for the dirty stuff to go, so that was interesting. they have the sink set up to run into a large bucket which they periodically empty. of course, this means that they also have no toilet, so we had garbage cans with lids to go in should the need arise in the middle of the night. i managed to hold out, but woke up every single time they had to go because peeing in a plastic bucket is LOUD when there are no other sounds. and jennifer pees a lot during the night!

5 a.m. rolled around and it was time to get on my way. by that point i regretted staying overnight and regretted having to work. but i made it through the day on monday the same way i've made it through most of the week, with horrible jitters and a lot of nervous energy. i'm sort of wondering what's going to happen when i'm not nervous anymore. i might just stop functioning all together and have a breakdown!

anyway, since monday it's just been one meeting after another and frankly, i'm really sick of meetings. i still don't have my room decorated and new kids and parents come to see us on saturday morning. yay. seriously, i will be enormously grateful for the first weekend i have when i don't feel like there are a million things i have to do, none of which are really to benefit me. this whole teacher thing... maybe i meant i wanted to be a professor. we'll see once the kids get here. i do have one kid that i'm already excited to see because he's from madrid. he's apparently sort of a pain in the butt, but i'll deal. anyway, i need to go get food and such so i am off for now.

I hate leaving!

I haven't blogged since I've been home, mostly because I'm lazy, but also because when I have had time to write, I haven't been in the best of moods. I'm nervous about starting the new job and worried about my sister and I hate leaving!

Coming home has been great. I've gotten to see my parents, all my grandparents, some cousins, an aunt and uncle, my brother and sister, my nephew, my dogs, etc. I missed every single one of them so it was nice to reconnect. I have, however, only been able to see a couple of friends, because seeing people all over the east coast becomes a lot more difficult without a car. I'm glad I saw the people I did, but as time is running out I'm starting to feel rotten about not having seen the people I didn't. I wish I could see everybody, but that probably wouldn't be possible even if I did live in this hemisphere.

On a positive note, I did get into the FAST TRAIN program which means that I will be forced to spend some time in the D.C. area next summer and, therefore, will be able to see the majority of my friends. I'm really excited to start school again, too. I just got my textbook for the fall class I'm taking and when I was ordering it, I couldn't stop myself from ordering about five other books on teaching. I read through one of them in about an hour which makes me think I may have been a tad starved of stimulation for the past year. Not to fear though, I'm sure I'll have plenty of challenges this year! I'm not looking foreward to writing papers, but I do think it will be good for me. Over the past four years, my English has slowly declined to about an eighth grade level, so being forced back into academic writing should help a little.

Only a few days before I leave and I feel so unprepared, like always. I have my bags almost packed, but in my head I'm screaming "Noooooo, not yet, please!!!" Unfortunately, I signed my own fate. Six days until take-off.

Slacking

Today I signed in to blogger only to realize that I hadn't published my last blog (probably thinking I would write more) and I hadn't written anything for over a week! I have been super busy, lately, and internet access has been fickle at best at school.

Last week flew by! I think it helped that Dan and I went into Beijing on Wednesday night and so it sort of broke up the week. We intended to go climbing, but it was raining, so we just hung out with Matt and Tamara. We ate too much and drank some wine and watched "Little Children" which was actually a decent movie. It's hard to explain without giving it away, but it's basically about the reactions of people living in suburbia when they're faced with morally unacceptable situations. If you do watch it, be forewarned that there is a slow part somewhere in there.

Friday, I had to run into Beijing to get my passport, mostly thinking I was going to start changing money. I got the passport alright, but changing money was another story. Apparently, China published something saying that foreigners would be allowed to change up to 500 U.S. dollars with just their passport at any Bank of China. So, on my way back to the apartment, I stopped by to give it a shot. It totally didn't work! The woman told me that foreigners couldn't change money. Unfortunately, my arguing skills are limited to "Yes, they can!" which isn't much of an argument, I know. So, I left, really frustrated.

Friday evening, Dan and I went to Wangfujing to watch a movie in English. It is the only original version theater we've found yet, and it only had one movie in English. So, we saw Pirates of the Carribbean III. It was actually better than I expected and excepting a few scenes, I thought it was amusing. Dan and I did laugh out loud at at least one thing, though now I can't remember what that was. After the movie, we went to a bar to meet up with Matt and Tamara. The plan was to have a drink or two and then Tam and I would join Traci and the other Matt at a club. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way because Matt and Traci wimped out and left the club by 1.

The rest of the weekend flew by hanging out with Matt and Tam and Traci and Matt. Sunday we tried out a new restaurant that has the best french fries I've had in a long time. It also turned out to be way cheaper and way less crowded than our regular haunts. We have Matt and Traci to thank, because we will be going back there every now and then.

Now there are only a few days left before I leave. As always I have so much to do and so little time. I hate leaving!

Keep going and going and going...

I feel like the energizer bunny right now, and I don't think the feeling will go away until I get on that flight home. This past weekend was anything but relaxing. In spite of getting enough sleep, I still feel exhausted.

Friday, I spent all afternoon baking. I made two pretty awesome pies, but didn't take pictures of them, and two batches of banana bread. I went into Beijing on Saturday morning, carting way more stuff than seemed humanly possible. I'm not sure quite how the morning hours got away from me, but they did, and soon enough it was one o'clock. Dan and I met at the supermarket to do our shopping for the party and had a hard time figuring out how much stuff to buy. In the end, we only wasted a little bit of food, so we did O.K. A lot of people showed up, which was cool, and in general it was a good time. I think I prefer smaller gatherings, but every once in a while it's O.K. to have a big one. It was exhausting though, and I pretty much crashed after we cleaned up. The next morning, I had to wake up at 7:30 to do the tutoring I had put off. I tutored all morning and then went to the rock wall. Before I got to the wall, though, I made the mistake of eating hot pot (sticks of various things like meat, tofu or vegetables in boiling broth) at a street stand. The food was good but way too spicy! I had heartburn for the rest of the day. I still climbed a little bit, but I spent most of my time laying on the mats at the bottom.

Later, bad weather gave me an excuse to go inside and just hang out for a bit. I love the people there. They're fun and so nice to us. After the storm subsided, they took us to a restaurant nearby, but all I managed to eat was some rice. Stomach still on fire, Dan and I headed home. I passed out at eight o'clock and it felt so good! Today we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get to work, but it was totally worth the extra night in our apartment.

The good life.

It seems like things are really shaping up. I added pages to my passport so that they could give me my visa, and hopefully I'll get that back soon! I also got permission to come late to orientation so that I can go to Jon and Emily's wedding! I almost feel guilty about it, but I'm glad I'll be able to see all of Dan's family now. After knowing about it for over a year, I would have been upset if I couldn't go. To top it all off, I got my flight changed so I'll be coming home a little earlier!

Last weekend, Dan and I stayed at our apartment and had another barbeque Saturday night. We were sort of celebrating his birthday and another friend of ours at the same time. After stuffing ourselves, we went out salsa dancing. We all had a great time, but Dan and I realized that we could definitely use some lessons. Any salsa teachers out there?

On Sunday, we met my co-teacher, Lena, at "Computer City" (a gigantic electronics market). She was there to help us buy an electronic dictionary for Dan's birthday. There were loads of dictionaries on offer, but that didn't make it easy. We ended up getting one that you can write the characters into (as long as you're fast enough... no pretty handwriting allowed) and it shows you a bunch of options for words. You can see the pronunciation and hear the words. It's a pretty cool toy. Needless to say, Dan takes it everywhere now. On the bus, he busies himself by translating the advertisements stuck to the ceiling. Oddly, almost all of them are medical adds. Some of the gems he translated with his new toy were "prostatitis" and "can't have baby disease" (we're pretty sure that last one translates to infertility, but Lena was all embarrassed when Dan said it, so we're still not sure).

Other than that, I've been trying to do more running. I was inspired, in large part, because Trillium (a high school friend who didn't really do sports) recently ran a half marrathon. I don't know if it is possible to get back into shape anymore, though. I mean, I can still run, but it's a 10 minute mile, not 7. In spite of having run 4 mornings out of the past week, I don't feel like I've made any progress! By the end of the summer I'd like to be able to run a few miles without dying, but right now, the fourth lap still kills me. I'd like to blame it on the pollution, which probably does play a part, but it seems I really only have my fat butt to blame.

Ouch.

Dan and I never made it to Beijing yesterday because it was raining all afternoon. Since climbing was out of the question, we decided to be lazy instead. We went into Changping for dinner with Matt and Tamara. The food was mediocre at best and Tamara and I still have remnants of the stomach virus we had last week. It didn't make for a very nice combination.

This morning I felt much better though. I woke up at six and went for a run. It was really nice to be outside today. The rain had made everything smell better and it was actually cool for the first time in about two weeks. Unfortunately, I may have overdone the running.

I am already sore and it's only been about an hour an a half since I finished. One of my co-workers even asked me if I hurt myself because I am apparently walking funny. I had to admit that "No, I'm just horribly out of shape." In spite of that, I think I'm going to try to do it again tomorrow! If I don't I might be too sore to walk.

Falling into place.

My life is starting to settle down a bit. I completed my application for grad school and I've gotten a little more information about what I'm going to be teaching next year. Dan has signed his contract and we're both making our plans for while we're home. Yet, I can't help but feel like I won't be able to really relax for a long time.

I guess I'm pretty nervous about my new job. I know I will do well, but not knowing exactly what's expected of me is making it harder for me to visualize success. It's a bizarre sensation, really. I haven't ever been nervous about a job before. What's especially odd is that I think my perception of the job is different because of the pay, as if they can't possibly want to pay me that much money to do the job I've been doing for four years now. I've had to do massive amounts of planning, creating materials and paperwork before. I've even taught up to 32 hours a week before (which was absolutely insane looking back on it)!

There are many things I'm really excited about, such as having small classes, being involved in an active school, possibly coaching soccer (they don't have a girls' soccer team and it would count as one of the two extra activities required). It's a beautiful school with a lot of resources and a lot of community involvement. Still, it will be a lot of work and a lot of new things to learn. I just hope I don't get totally overwhelmed.

Fear of failure, anyone? Dan pointed out that not only have I never been rejected from any place that gave me an interview, but I've also never been fired. I know these are good things, but they do add to the pressure to do well.

As I mentioned before, though, aside from freaking out about my job, things are going fairly well. Last weekend Dan and I took our village friends out for dinner, which was a real treat.

We met up with them at 7:30 on Friday evening and set out in search of a restaurant. What Dan and I didn't realize is that if you invite people out to dinner, you can't just sit in the normal dining room of a restaurant. You apparently have to reserve a private room. It's not like it costs any more or anything, but it's just expected. There is also apparently no concept of having a drink and waiting for 15 minutes or a half an hour for a table to be ready. Because of this, we spent about an hour driving around Changping looking for a restaurant with an empty room.

Eventually, we found a place. We ordered a bunch of food and a lot of beer. The food was all actually good, but the beer was killing me. I pretty much hate beer now. It might just be because of the way Chinese people drink. Every couple of minutes they do a toast that requires you to down your entire class (small as it may be, it's disgusting). I am sort of exempt because I am female, but I still end up having to drink way more than I want because they keep toasting. In all, though, it was a great dinner. Dan and I went home relieved. Oh, and I almost forgot, we got a housewarming present from one of our friends. It is the best lamp ever! Dan and I were laughing so hard when we got it, but I'm not sure what we're going to do with it now. A picture will definitely be posted soon!

On Saturday and Sunday, Dan and I did some climbing, but mostly we took it easy. We woke up at 6 a.m. on Sunday to go get fried dough, but then went back to bed. It was so nice to do nothing, especially because the next couple of weekends are going to get busy!

Today we're going into Beijing to go climbing and take some more stuff to our apartment, while we're at it. It means I'll have to wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to get back to work, but I'll be glad to go climbing. My fingers have stopped hurting (and peeling) from what I did on Sunday, so that means it's time to go again!

Nothing new...

I don't really have much to report from this side of the world. I got sick on Monday along with the other two girls that were at the barbeque. We still haven't figured out what caused the horrible stomach cramps, because nothing really makes sense. The two other girls are vegetarians, so they ate vegetables and pasta (all washed and either freshly cooked or soaked in vinegar). The two guys didn't get sick, but they ate and drank everything we did and even had double portions of most of it. My dad actually suggested it might be the potato chips, since it is the only thing that all of the girls ate and the guys didn't eat much of. Who knows. There are some leftover chips, so theoretically I could test that hypothesis, but it might not be worth the suffering.


The barbeque mystery, however interesting, isn't actually the reason I'm posting. I just got some pictures from Traci and wanted to post them. They're pictures of Dan and I trying to save a HUGE night crawler from my merciless kindergartners (they tried to rip it in half!!). In the end, Dan managed to convince them there was never a worm there in the first place by chasing them around the lawn. The last one is a good, Chinese style, victory picture. Asians are obsessed with peace... weird, huh?


In other news, I have almost finished my application for George Mason! All I have to do is pay and click send. I love electronic applications! I'm actually really excited about the idea of studying again. It's been FOUR years since I graduated! I'm a little bit nervous, though, since I have apparently lost my ability to write academically. I'm hoping that will come back to me, but if it doesn't come back quickly, I may find myself in over my head.

I signed my contract!!

I am so excited! Even so, I'm still nervous that they will find somebody else they like better and take it away. I'm probably a tad paranoid, but it's just such a good thing, I really don't want to lose it.

I will be working at a real school, with students who care and grades that matter. I will have small classes and good resources. I will be able to get my master's and teaching certificate and even pay off existing debt! I am so lucky, and I know it.

Since Friday afternoon, I spent the majority of my weekend cleaning and buying some things for our new place. I kind of forgot how much stuff we use on a regular basis. Even after my shopping spree, I realized I forgot things like kitchen towels and sink stoppers. Our hutong is looking a lot better now, though, especially thanks to the intustrial strength floor cleaner (which, according to some really strange salespeople is exactly the same as floor wax) and scrub brush.

I wanted to post pictures today, but I forgot the camera this weekend, so it will have to wait until next week. I wish we could go during the week, but it's just really not practical since I have to be back in Changping so early every day. For that reason, we also decided to hold off on the plants for a few weeks. In all honesty, they would probably be fine since it seems to rain more in June, July and August here, but we didn't want to waste money on nice trees, just to have them die on us. Knowing Dan and I, it will probably be a struggle to keep them alive in the first place!

Yesterday, we went to Carrefour and bought a barbeque, and last night we tested it out. Turns out it works, but I'm glad I have a boyfriend who can light the thing. We had a few friends over for steak, for the first time since we came to china, sausages, veggie kebabs, salad, pasta and watermelon. Oh so American, except I had to use chopsticks to eat because we didn't have enough forks! It was good, but today I'm not feeling so well. I'm not sure if I ate too much or just the wrong stuff, or maybe it's because we had to wake up at 5:30 to get back to school on time.

Today, I will sleep. I will write my essay for GMU and I will sleep. I might eat, and I will sleep. I wish I could sleep now!

Too much excitement for tomorrow!

I'm writing now because I might not get another chance to do so until Sunday. It's been a busy week and I can't wait for tomorrow. I will get to sign my new contract, let out a HUGE sigh of relief and move into our new apartment. I will probably spend about two hours cleaning and then I imagine I'm going to sleep the rest of the evening away.

Yesterday was much less stressful because I knew I was still getting my dream job, but I was still so busy. I've been trying to get my grad school application finished which involves a lot of pestering people (to get references and transcripts and such). At work we practiced our Chinese song for the performance tomorrow, and yesterday evening I had to judge a speech competition.

Among the highlights of the competition was a girl using what sounded like foul language as part of her speech. I'm pretty sure her pronunciation was just aweful, but I honestly had no idea what she was trying to say. One of the skits done at the end of the competition was an amusing rendition of foreigners who don't speak any Chinese trying to order food. Think hotdog + China = roast dog. What really made my night, though, was the two middle school kids who sang (if you can call it that) "That's my name" If you're too old that might mean nothing to you, but for those of you who are younger, think "Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay!" And, no, that song is not decent enough for a middle school assembly.

Today it's raining. I actually missed the rain, I think. It sounds so nice and smells so good! I didn't bring my umbrella to work, though.

This afternoon we don't have class, but I'm really not looking forward to more singing practice. We are just so bad at it, so off key.

As a side note, there are some weird bugs here (one of which is currently flitting around my desk). Unfortunately, there are plenty of mosquitos too, and they apparently like my blood as much as the Western variety.

Anyway, it's time for lunch, so I'm going to get some canteen goodness (and maybe a slice of leftover pizza)!

Emotional rollercoaster

I have been up and down too many times in the past few days. We got an apartment (high), but we had to pay 5 months rent up front (low). I got a job (high). I didn't get a contract(low). I got a contract (high). I figured out they thought I had a teaching certificate (low). I got confirmation that I should still have the job (high), but that the contract will change (low). Right now I feel like I've been medicated.

I'm somewhere in between, but I'm exhausted. It doesn't help that I have to learn a really long Chinese song for a performance on Friday. At least they gave us more than one day to prepare though. I have about half of it memorized.

I'm hungry too, but I can't eat too much because I have yoga at 1. I think this weekend is going to be a godsend. I'll have to clean, but I'll get to spend some quality time with Dan. That is to say, time where neither of us is fretting or upset about anything. I need that! We both need that!

One down, one to go.

I still haven't received the contract from BCIS, which makes me worry that they're just buying time and don't actually want me to work there. It probably isn't true, but it's just so good that I can't help but worry about losing it. I've felt rotten all day, mostly stress related, I think.

On the up side, Dan is currently signing the contract for our apartment. YAY! It will be so nice to have a place to spend our weekends. This weekend will be a cleaning marathon, but I'm even excited for that. I just can't wait to decorate!! Pictures will definitely be posted soon.

Chairman Mao.

This past weekend seemed incredibly busy, but, in all honesty it wasn't even. It was just over way too fast.

Friday, I didn't feel well. I still had the head cold I started to get on Wednesday, so I felt pretty bad. I slept most of the day and then went with Dan to the village for about an hour. Only Jennifer was home, but it was good to see her. I really want to help her with her English, but it's so hard. I'm not sure if it's hard because she just isn't talented with languages or because she doesn't study enough or what. It's frustrating because I wish I could just snap my fingers and she would speak English. Of course, then it wouldn't be nearly as good for me to learn Chinese, but I wouldn't feel so useless.

Saturday, we woke up early, like usual. I keep telling Dan I want to sleep in, but I can't even when I try, so it's pointless to have a free day. We had our Chinese lesson and I went off to teach one of my little brats for an hour. Afterwards, I went rock climbing, of course. I'm addicted! I made it up two harder routes and I made it around a corner I couldn't do before... I'm definitely improving (and, of course, I'm kicking Dan's butt)!

That evening we had plans to play majong with friends, so we rented a hotel room and headed to their place. We didn't finish a normal majong game (cause it's like 16 hands if it were cards), but I won more than anybody else. Technically, it might still be beginner's luck because I had only played once before. We stayed there playing until about 2 a.m. and then headed back to our hotel.

Our cabby was awesome. He spoke only a little English, but he was so funny! To be completely honest, I thought there might be something wrong with him at first, but he got us back safe and sound so I'll never know. Dan asked him where he learned his English and I quote him directly:

"1971. Middle school. Lesson one, Chairman Mao. Lesson two, long live Chairman Mao. Lesson three, long long live Chairman Mao. Lesson four, workers, peasants and soldiers love Chairman Mao best!"

Dan and I were laughing so hard, he never got to lesson five. What's possibly funnier than hearing this guy say this stuff is that it's true. That's what they learned in middle school English class. They weren't taught how to say, "Hello, how are you?" And here I thought that my language classes were sort of off.

Sunday morning we had brunch with Dan's cousins. It was a really pleasant morning and the food was pretty good. We just sat and talked for a few hours sipping away at coffee (which I later regretted getting). Then, we went our separate ways. They were off to the silk market and Dan and I went to find an apartment.

The apartment search, up until yesterday, had been a disaster. We had been dragged all over the place to see some of the most disgusting rental properties I have ever seen. Landlords in China don't seem to understand the importance of a good cleaning and a paint job before showing a place. Fortunately, the place we saw yesterday was really nice and aside for some dust, not really dirty. It was as close to exactly what we were looking for as it was possible to get in our price range. It's a hutong house with two rooms a kitchen and a bathroom (sort of). Ok, well, it has a toilet and a shower, but it's tiny and there's no sink in the bathroom, it's sort of in the courtyard. Dan and I will be living a very Chinese life for the next year. The best part of the house, aside from double paned windows that open very easily, is the courtyard--fifteen square feet of joy, and it's all ours. That's right, it's a private courtyard.

What's odd though, is that Dan seems more nervous about taking this place than I am, even though it's everything he wanted. Maybe because it's everything he wanted he's afraid of being disappointed. I don't know. It doesn't really matter though. We're signing the contract today. We have a home!!!

An update... sort of.

I got my "formal offer" of employment for BCIS!!! I'm really excited, not to mention thankful. I still have no idea what they are offering me in terms of salary or benefits. I only know that it is a two year contract (don't worry, mom, I'll be home for Christmas and summer vacations) and I will be doing exactly what I want to be doing.

I can only hope it won't take them another week to send me my initial contract!

Life is good.

A sore throat but no job.

I read some of my brother's blog last night and found it ironic that the first post I saw had a whole lot to do with patience and waiting. I have been "waiting" for two months now.

Exactly two months ago, to the day, I had an interview for a position as an ESL teacher at an international school in Beijing. This is, I should mention, pretty much my dream job. I am, however, slightly underqualified (as in no teaching certificate aside from my TEFL).

So, at the beginning, I was actually waiting to be rejected more than anything. I hoped, but didn't expect to get the job. As the weeks passed, I figured it wasn't going to happen and I applied for a few other jobs. Dan and I had an interview in Shanghai, which was a total disappointment because they lied to us. They said that Dan would be teaching philosophy, but at the end of the 5 hour interview we found out that it was only two hours of philosophy and 18 hours of English or History. Needless to say he wasn't interested.

I also had a couple of interviews in Beijing. One of those interviews was seriously disappointing because it reminded me a lot of my current school. The other was for a Montessori school, which I actually ended up liking. They came in solid second to the previously mentioned international school. They offered me a good package for a job that seems pretty low stress. I told them I would sign the contract today.

So, while the job with the Montessori school was panning out, I received an email from the principle of my first choice, saying that they were going to make me a formal offer. This was last Thursday. I figured that by Friday or Monday, I would have the offer and would be able to inform the other school that I wouldn't be working for them. Apparently, however, the President of the Board of Directors was out of town until yesterday or today. Since his or her signature is necessary before they can make me an offer I haven't seen anything yet.

Hence, my dilemma. I have been waiting so long for this job, which, I'm told, is practically mine. Yet, I'm due to sign a contract with somebody else this afternoon. What do I do??

Well, first I asked as many people as possible what they thought I should do. Most of them told me to lie to the Montessori people to buy more time. A few suggested I should probably just sign the contract because the other school seemed too disorganized (and, they added, I could break the contract if I really wanted to).

Oddly, neither of these was my first instinct (you would think I would try to keep as many doors open as possible, right?). Instead, I called the woman from the Montessori school and told her exactly why I wouldn't be coming in to sign the contract this evening. I closed a door, so to speak.

In being honest, however, I think I gained even more respect from her. She told me that we should keep in touch and that if things didn't work out with the international school I should call her back and she would do what she could to offer me something. I was amazed! I honestly didn't think that she would be so kind and understanding. In taking that risk, though, I got an even better deal than I had hoped for. I have no job at the moment, but both doors are still open.

A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and even though the waiting is still difficult, it is less so. I do have a sore throught, which I'm convinced is stress related, but now i can sort of relax.

Now I suppose I should listen to my mom's advice: If now isn't the time for one thing, it must be the time for something else. I know exactly what I should be doing. So now I'm going to stop blogging and finish writing my essay for GMU.

It's been a while.

The title really says it all. I've been in a writing rut. I realized, actually, that I rarely write when I'm living with Dan, not much on paper and never online. I think the problem is that he listens to me too much. I'm not complaining, I swear, but he is ruining the possibility of a writing career for me! When I can talk to him, I just don't really need pen and paper.

That said, my lack of dedication is also to blame and I apologize to all of you who might have been thinking I died on my way to Mt. Everest. I didn't, obviously, and I do plan on posting back blogs at some point in the near future. That will probably happen around the same time I figure out how to post pictures...

Recently, I've been super busy. There hasn't been a lot to do with school, in part because I realized that what I had been doing before was not only simpler, but more effective. In addition to that, after the February break, I came back to find I had a smaller course load. So, life is easy in that sense, but I've been finding other ways to fill up my time.

For Labor Day, which lasts seven days in China (I love this place), we spent most of our time climbing at a rock wall we found. It's about 18 meters high and has about 10 different faces, each with various routes. In all honesty, I actually can't remember if we did anything but climb that week. I'm addicted. Today I almost made my hands bleed because I was trying to climb routes without points. It's hard, but I love it. Here is where my mom is probably thinking, "Not only does she go almost as far away from home as possible, but she is actively trying to kill herself!" I love my mom!

Lately, I've been stressing out quite a bit because of my job search for next year. I am really close to having it all figured out, but I've just got a few days left to go. It's between working for a Montessori school or an international high school, neither of which would be bad, but I want to work for the international high school. I'm nervous that it's not going to work out, though. They're supposed to make me a formal offer soon (said the principal), but I don't want to count my chickens just yet. Instead, I've tried to occupy myself as much as possible, so that I don't have to think about it until the time comes (tomorrow or the next day).

In other news, my Chinese is improving! I can understand a lot of simple conversation (though sometimes with some serious delay) and read about 30 characters (which isn't much, but it's an accomplishment for me). I would be doing better if I studied some, but I am happy with what I can do so far.

I was trying to think if there was anything about China that I should write in my blog, and there probably is, but I can't think of it right now. Maybe I'm just getting so used to being here that everything seems normal. HA! Right.

There are actually plenty of stories, about Shanghai and Chinese realestate agencies, but they will come in back blogs. I promise it won't take me another three months to blog this time, so check back soon!

Mt. Everest

We're going!! We leave tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. (packed into a Landcruiser with the two French guys we met on the train). We'll be making a few stops along the way, but presumably nowhere with internet, so I'll have a lot to say on Sunday! We'll actually be at Mount Everest base camp on Friday. I've got my fingers crossed that the weather will be clear and nobody will suffer from the altitude, 5200 meters above sea level!! Wish us luck or pray for us, whatever floats your boat!

The longest 7km ever!

Today I decided that I wanted to walk out to Drepung Monastary, in part because it's supposed to be one of the most important in Tibet and in part because I wanted to see if I really was doing well adjusting. I didn't have to convince Dan to come with me, but by the end of the walk he was probably wondering why he had. Let's just say we didn't end up seeing the monastary. We just walked and walked, took a bus and walked some more. We also both got a bit too much sun and we didn't see much other than a gypsy camp and a shanty town.

It was a really uplifting experience. Right. Anyway, we did get to see the monastary on the way back (to be fair, it was hidden by the mountains from the other direction). It looked awesome so we're planning on giving it another shot on Sunday, but maybe we'll try biking instead.

Other than my failed walk, there wasn't much eventful today. I have, however, become a little weary of not blending in. Dan, with his beard and curly hair, doesn't help (pictures will eventually be posted). I can't tell you how frustrating it is that a good number of people (mostly kids) treat us like walking wallets. I'm even tired of people being nice (so many people yell "Hello" or "Welcome to Lhasa" as you walk by). It sure beats the people who just say "Money" but being a celebrity is just not my thing.

Anyway, now I'm exhausted. I expect to sleep like a log.

Lhasa shmasa

I'm alive!

I know you're all shocked, but I made it to 5180 meters above sea level and I didn't even get sick! Well, ok, I felt pretty rotten at some points, but at least I didn't throw up (and there were plenty of people who did). I'm still getting used to the feeling of walking uphill all the time. Lhasa itself is at about 4000 meters, I think, and it's hard to imagine that a couple thousand meters could make such a difference, but it does. It feels a little like having worked out too hard.

The train ride here was, well, interesting. I was definitely glad we had gone all out and paid for the expensive sleepers, but that didn't change the fact that we were stuck in a very small space (with very little fresh air) for two days. The first few (like 12 or so) hours were fine. We got comfortable and went to bed relatively early and I slept well. The next morning I woke up to the praying of the muslim woman next to me (one of the two people Dan and I shared a cabin with). The praying was fine, very quiet and peaceful, and I was ready to wake up anyway. It was her breakfast that was a little on the loud side. Chinese people eat soup louder than you probably imagine possible.

To make a long story short, I went from fine to extremely clausterphobic as the day progressed, and the fact that we ascended at least a thousand meters didn't help. I had a headache all afternoon and didn't feel like dealing with the hordes of people coming into our cabin to visit the matriarch. The other guy who shared with us wasn't a can of peaches either, but at least he wasn't traveling with dozens of family members. To be fair, the woman's entire family was very generous and they were very nice to us, it was just a tad crowded.

Later in the day, both of our roommates got off the train, and we were left with a cabin to ourselves!! I felt better, because we had more space, and worse, because we had less air. There was an incident in the restaurant car with the waitress lying to us, and me getting perhaps just a little too indignant about it, which didn't make things any better. I have issues with people thinking i'm stupid, or that I can't do math, or that a bowl of rice costs five kuai when it says one kuai on the menu (and the menu was in English mind you).

Sleeping that night was hard to say the least. I had trouble convincing myself that I wasn't suffocating. The next day, however, was significantly better and I began to acclimatize. As a side note, breakfast was amusing because it was not unlike the incident in Besancon (where the waitress told me there was no salad when there was). The waitress who had lied to us the previous day told us there was no breakfast, so we had to ask the other one to get service. In the end, we got our breakfast (more or less) as it should have been, but I hope my life never depends on that woman because she clearly doesn't like us.

We arrived at Lhasa at 9ish and grabbed a cab to the center. We were trying to find the hostel I had reserved for Dan and I, but it turned out to be a tad difficult. We were tired and grouchy by the time we finally found it, but it turned out to be nothing like what it promised. They actually lied about the accommodation and used pictures from another hostel. The people there were really friendly though and we might have stayed, except I was dying for a hot shower, and when I saw the shared bathroom, I knew that wouldn't be happening there. A really nice Tibetan girl, who presumably wanted to practice her English, helped us find another place which was close by and not bad.

Today we finally got to see Lhasa! The old town is cool, filled with markets and pilgrims and monks and very few Westerners this time of year. It wasn't cold at all today, so we just walked and walked and ate and walked some more. We had some good dumplings, some yak meat stew, some tortilla type things (they weren't unlike your typical flour tortillas, but filled with herbed cream cheese and vegetables and meat), and I did give yak butter tea a try, but I think it must take some getting used to (it pretty much tastes like you're drinkig melted butter).

Aside from the fact that Lhasa is a lot smaller than I'd imagined (at least the traditional part), the only annoyance is that there are constantly people asking for money. The people here are poor, but they aren't lacking. It's mostly kids that come asking and the occasional monk. I was pretty sure monks weren't supposed to ask for money, but I may be mistaken. It's also worth noting that a fair number of monks have nice sneakers and/or cell phones. Dan played pool with one monk/hustler, who consequently beat the pants off him. Luckily the price for losing was only one kuai.

While we walked the "circuit" some old woman blessed me, or something like that. Ok, really, I have no clue what she said to me, but she was smiling and put her thumb up as she said whatever it was, so I have to imagine it was good. Or, maybe she was smiling at the thought of my eternal damnation and thumbs up in Tibetan means "up yours," but I have my doubts.

Tonight we went out to dinner with two French guys with whom we're trying to orchestrate a trip to Mount Everest this week. It was amusing because we went to the only restaurant in the Lonely Planet guide that was open, and so did every other foreigner in Lhasa. I haven't seen that many Western faces in one place in a long time.

And now it's time for bed. Dan and I have to wake up early to help bargain for our trip. I am getting sort of tired of bargaining, but being on a budget makes it a necessity. It's funny, though, that a theoretically communist country has one of the most capitalist economies (at least on a micro level).

On vacation, I'm off to Tibet!

So, as several people have pointed out. It's been a while. I have been lazy, but I have also been cursed by unbelievably slow internet as you can see from my January 1st entry that has finally been published.

I have been on vacation for nearly a week. It's been wonderful, but I am so ready to get off this campus, and tonight's the night!

Last week we bought tickets and permission (yes, you buy permission in China) to go to Tibet, and tonight we are finally leaving. We decided to take the train to Lhasa even though it would have cost about the same to fly and the train takes two days as opposed to 6 or so hours by plane. But, come on, it's a train. We thought it would be fun, at least one way, to be able to see the Chinese countryside.

We leave at 9:30 tonight and arrive at 9 p.m. on Saturday, which reminds me I still have to call about a reservation for a hostel! We'll stay there a couple of days, but then we're not really sure where we'll go from there. It sort of depends if Dan can handle the cold or if either of us gets mountain sickness or any number of other ailments. We could try to get over to Nepal or maybe just to a warmer part of China. It will be a surprise. Our train tickets are one way, so who knows how we'll be getting back here, but we have until the 18th to do it!

I will do my best to blog along the way, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to. If I fail, you have the right to deny all knowledge of me. Either way, I promise to post a big one on the 18th, which is, consequently, the lunar new year so I will probably be making a resolution of some sort.

Wish me luck!

Bad, bad Becca.

I have a valid excuse for not blogging, I swear! According to all of my sources, the reason we haven't had access to any foreign websites recently is because of the earthquake in Taiwan. Apparently some cables were snapped, seriously impeding telecommunications between Asia and the U.S. It's sort of freaky to think about how little it would take to cut us off from everybody we care about, so I'm going to change the subject.

There have been many blogworthy moments in the past two weeks, but I'm sure I won't remember them all. The weekend before Christmas was a mad rush, though I'm not really sure why. We stayed in that Saturday, but I don't get the impression we rested much and Sunday we left early for Beijing. We spent most of our morning in the cafe where we have gone a lot lately to fill up on Western style breakfasts. Although both are edible, eggs and toast certainly beat boiled cabbage and fried peanuts for breakfast.

Later in the day we headed towards Tianamen Square because we had plans to meet a friend at 6 p.m. As a brief preface, this is a friend that loves to walk, you'll soon understand why this is important. He had given us a card for the restaurant and told us it was "10 minutes away" from Tianamen. So, we started walking. We walked to Wanfujing and thought it would be a block or so north of there. We walked and walked and walked right out of that neighborhood asking, every five minutes or so, where the restaurant was. Most people didn't know and a few people just told us to keep going straight. To make a long story short, it took us from 5 p.m. at Tianamen until 6:30 to arrive at the restaurant. Only then did we find out that it was 10 minutes from Tianamen by bus. Next time I'll ask.

The food was odd, but most of it tasted good. What made the meal interesting, however, were the dances and other performances during dinner. It was an "imperial" restaurant. All in all it made for a nice evening.

Christmas was average, as usual. Without family, it just isn't Christmas. Dan and I exchanged gifts and then went downstairs to make brunch with all the others who were around. It was a decent brunch, but it was rushed because there were people going to the Great Wall for a walk. Dan and I stayed back, partly because he has a hurt ankle, and partly because it just seemed like too much.

The next day, I played hooky and Dan and I went into Beijing again (Dan actually doesn't work on Tuesdays anyway). We went to Tianamen Square and started walking north. We were aiming for Beihai park, but were distracted by Hutongs, the old dilapidated villages that have been preserved. The Chinese seem very good at letting buildings go for a long time and then "preserving" them just as their about to topple over. It seems more romantic I guess.

When we finally got close to the top of the park, we saw another park which looked interesting. We went in and climbed up a small hill (which is apparently the highest point in Beijing (not including tall buildings), hoping to get a view. It was, unfortunately, a little too cloudy to see much of anything, but we'll go back on a clear day and take pictures. So, we walked from one pagoda to another until we were back at the bottom of the hill. It was getting late, so it was time to go back.

The following day it was back to the daily grind, though when a week only has three days it's a lot easier to handle! I take that back, it was three and a half days because they made us work Saturday morning, but it was still o.k.

Yesterday, we went into Beijing with Michael and Naomi just to walk around. This time we went to Hou Hai park (just North of Bei Hai) and went chair skating on the lake. They literally put blades on chairs and give you two poles with screw drivers welded on the end to push yourself around. Two of us fit on one chair so Dan and I raced, and beat, all the little kids that would take us on. This, however, led to a snowball fight (Dan against about 12 little kids). Unfortunately, I don't think he can claim victory.

We walked around a lot more after that. It was a beautiful, albeit cold, day. By the time we got back to Huijia, we were all pretty exhausted and the rest of New Year's consisted of Boggle and movies. I feel so old!