我的午饭不是鸡胸肉

In an ideal world, after living in a place for a year and a half I wouldn't experience culture shock anymore.

But then again in an ideal world Jim Halpert would have asked me to marry him a long time ago, and I'd sing like Norah Jones.  Unfortunately none of those things are true, and the culture seems to be shocking me more than usual this week as Christmas approaches.  There's an abundance of other emotions which could be contributing to my lack of patience, but regardless I'm finding it more difficult to retain my usual degree of joyfulness.

Today I went to the knock-off KFC across the street from our favorite grocery store, hoping to find some peace of mind in a big hunk of chicken.  I've been there once before, in fact it's the very restaurant which provided our succulent Thanksgiving chicken.  I located the characters which supposedly represent "chicken breast" on the menu, and ordered one while bragging inwardly about being able to read two words in Chinese.  I was beaming with pride as I sat at the table and waited for my coming victory bird.  As the employee advanced toward me armed with a flat piece of meat that was about ½ a centimeter thick and broader than my head, my pride morphed into astonishment and a few other indescribable feelings.  I'm still quite bamboozled about what I actually ended up eating.  It had the look and texture of chicken, but smelled like fish and had a strange fishy chicken flavour.  At first I thought such an event would worsen my culture shock and reduce me to tears but in fact it had the opposite effect.  I was so flabbergasted with by my mystery meat that I just kept repeating, only in China in between giggles.  When I go back to the U.S. I'll get exactly what I order most of the time.  What's there to laugh about then?

 

"Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive."

沃尔玛

宜昌市有一个沃尔玛!

When people look back at the 21st century at all the great achievements, it may look something like this:

On October 23, 2001 Apple Computers publicly announced their portable music digital player the iPod.
In 2003 scientists announced the Completion of the Human Genome Project.
In 2005 Youtube was invented.
On December 1, 2009 Walmart opened in Yichang, China.

Some people might consider it a tragedy that conglomerates spread their tentacles to every edge of the globe, and in theory I'd be inclined to agree.  However, holding an opinion about an abstract idea and finding that idea take shape in real life can be hard to reconcile.  It was impossible not to be ecstatic when we discovered treasures like aluminum foil, ziploc bags, Christmas wrapping paper (last year we used hearts and other less festive designs), pizza, candles, paper towels and many other jewels.  Walmart (沃尔玛) in China is by no means synonymous with Walmart in America.  It retains its very Chinese feel, but does house items no one else in China seems to have.

Even the music seemed like an attempt to integrate the two countries.  They were playing English songs, but kept the widespread Chinese custom of being stuck in the 90s, reminding us of greats like "I Believe I Can Fly", "All My Life", "End of the Road", and many other songs I'd forgotten ever existed.  I sang along to "No Woman No Cry" as I surveyed the shark on ice right next to the pizza and fought through the crowds to the tune of "Back at One" by Brian McKnight.  Eventually I got tired of elbowing my way through masses of people and made my way to the check out, but you can be sure I'll be frequenting Walmart many more times in the coming months.  And thanking the stars daily for some corporations brave enough to spread all over the world.

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
- Charles Kingsley

时间过得真快！这是我在这儿的第二个感恩节！

Picture yourself cozily snuggled under the covers Thanksgiving morning.  You stayed up well past midnight baking pumpkin bread, and are infinitely proud that it didn't burn in the toaster oven.  It's 7 am.  Even the rooster who is about to become someone's dinner hasn't stirred yet.  He's saving his voice for the first glimpse of our mutual friend, the sun.  As you rest deep in the folds of your pillow the sound of a cell phone begins to disturb the silence.  One eyelid cracks open but you decide the phone is too far away to bother turning off.  You'll just go back to sleep and pretend that the day started peacefully.  Dreams begin once more to flit across the screen in your head.  That's when the sound repeats itself.  It rises from a mere nuisance to a genuine annoyance.  Mentally you calculate the amount of effort required to shut the darn thing off.  Deciding once again that the effort is not worth the reward, you put another pillow over your head.

Another hour passes with you caught between blissful sleep and vexed awareness.  Every couple of minutes a new text message has sounded bringing you to the brink of despair, but then the cell phone reaches capacity and overloads its ability to receive new messages.  You breathe a prayer of thanksgiving and snuggle deeper under the warm layers.  Then the phone comes to life again.  This time someone is calling you.  Wondering why people must rise so early when sleep is a perfectly attractive alternative, you subject your toes to the cold floor in search of the source of all your frustration.  A bright and entirely too cheerful voice greets you from the other end, inquiring as to whether you will be teaching class that morning.  Trying to put every ounce of sleepiness into your voice you croak out that, as you pointed out in class numerous times last week, there will be no class because it is a holiday.  Just like you wrote all the way across the board in an effort to avoid this very situation.  Hoping the student will feel bad for waking you up, you yawn in the middle of the sentence and trail off at the end.  She seems to get the idea that there will not in fact be class that morning and you hang up and jump back under the blankets, only to discover that all the warmth has fled during your brief absence.

Purposefully ignoring the ten or more text messages wishing you a happy Thanksgiving day, you make your way outside to greet the rooster who has finally realized his calling in life and is cheerfully crooning his own death march.  You wander down the row of farmers, perusing the array of vegetables spread out on the ground.  A pumpkin catches your eye, along with some eggs that are destined to fulfill their higher purpose of making enjoyable food.  Too tired to bargain earnestly, you give the farmers a bit more than average for their wares in a gesture of generosity on such a special day.  You spot sweet potatoes farther on, and eye them expectantly.  Just knowing that these things are going to complete all of your culinary longings in a few hours makes your stomach leap with joy.  You bargain for the sweet potatoes, all the while wondering just how to say 'sweet potato' in Chinese.  Little did you know that you were going to have the chance to learn the word for good later that day.

You return to your kitchen and begin packing up every possible ingredient or tool that could be needed to prepare a tremendous feast, and cart it over to your friends, Zagg and Shmelizabeth's house so that you can cook together like a real family.  You correctly assume that this will stave off some of the longing for your own family and make the holiday seem festive.  When you walk in the door at Zagg and Shmelizabeth's the fragrance of holidays washes over you, brightening your mood as much as the table full of snacks that await the hungry cooks.  Tears well up in your eyes when you spot cinnamon rolls, the one thing you had mistakenly assumed you'd have to live without this year.  Sighing with deep satisfaction you add your meager snacks to the collection already laid out.  Zagg and Shmelizabeth are already elbow-deep in flour as they work to prepare a feast that will probably go down in the history books as one of the greatest.  You roll up your sleeves and join the fray eagerly.

It's only a few hours before the first morsel is scheduled to be eaten.  You've been busily mixing and boiling and measuring and singing.  It's time for the sweet potatoes to achieve greatness.  You start to peel one and disaster strikes.  Your eyes must have gone bad.  The sweet potato is strangely white under the layer of mud.  Frantically you peel some more.  The potato somehow managed to morph from a sweet potato into Mystery-Vegetable-39.  You've never seen such a deceitful root.  Lamenting loudly that there will not be sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving dinner, you guilt Zagg into buying some of the non-mutant variety while he is downtown purchasing 'Turkey' (which oddly resembles six tiny chickens).  He graciously agrees and sets off in pursuit of these very necessary food items after you look up the proper term for sweet potato so that no more mistakes will be made.

With two burners, one toaster oven, and three cooks the food takes longer than expected to come to completeness, but eventually everything is spread out in a glorious display before your eyes.  Zagg came to the rescue, and the sweet potato casserole was finished in the nick of time, along with a variety of other things, the likes of which you may never see again in this life.

Everyone sits down to give thanks for the happiness that awaits them.  It is decided that each person will tell what they are thankful for, but you find that when your turn comes you are so overwhelmed with thankfulness, not a single word squeaks out.  You try repeatedly to tell the other people in the circle how much they mean to you, how they are the most wonderful people you've ever been blessed enough to know.  Every time you try to say these words nothing is able to come out of your mouth, but abundant moisture escapes your eyes.  After causing all the females in the room to produce waterworks too, and making the only male as uncomfortable as possible people begin to realize that you are not going to be able to formulate a complete sentence for a long time, and they commence eating promptly.  You shrug and try to show your gratitude through your appetite.  You never manage to tell your friends that they are what you are grateful for this year.  That without them so much sunshine would be missing from your life.  That they have blessed you beyond measure.  You want them to know, but can't express yourself without crying.  They are not just friends, they are family.  You have so much to be thankful for.

"Oh to grace, how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be.
Let thy goodness, like a fetter
bind my wandering heart to thee."

 

星巴克星冰乐咖啡

Before I came to China I had never...

the list of possible endings for this sentence is nearly infinite.

I've never felt fat before in my life.

Then along came China.

The last thing I was expecting when I sat on that flimsy little red stool was for it to splinter into dozens of tiny pieces and deposit me unceremoniously onto the cold, hard floor.  I am glad there was a large, mirthful audience there as witness to my obvious obesity.  Most of the Chinese girls I'm acquainted with seem to suffer from near anorexia and now I know why.  It's because the chairs are designed to hold exactly 40 kilos, and not a fraction more.

You may wonder how I got to be the rotund woman I am today and I'll tell you exactly where the blame should be placed.  On the shoulders of the foreign affairs office at Three Gorges University.  Every year they give the foreign teachers a box of moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, which was October 3rd this year), while knowing full well that we all hate them.  Even Chinese people don't really like moon cakes.  They just eat them because that's what you're supposed to do on Mid-Autumn day.  I was looking forward to my giant box of moon cakes again this year, just about as much as I was looking forward to my overnight stay in the Lodi train station.  Then...in a surprisingly wonderful turn of events our school blessed us with gift certificates to Eliville instead of moon cakes!

Eliville is the glorious location of the things you see in this picture, and I finally got around to cashing in my 100yuan gift certificates today; since Thanksgiving is this week I figured I might as well get in the gluttonous mood ahead of time.  So rather than mysterious, strange-flavoured round "cakes" I got to enjoy chocolate cake and a frappuccino.  Which is why the stool collapsed under me to the delight of my friends.

Now the sun is shining so I believe I'll go run off some of this extra weight in a game of football!

"When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

这个周末 下雪啊!

It's started already.  The cold has crept into every nook of my not-so-well insulated apartment, causing me to groan and grumble with each draft.  I was so appreciative of the change in temperature for a solid week, and proud of my tolerant attitude to boot.  Now that the arctic weather has made itself at home I'd rather uninvite it.  From here on out it's going to take much more willpower to muster up a pleasant disposition when I have to brave the elements in order to go to class or find food.

This morning I noticed small white crystals gathering on my coat, before they had quite grown into full-fledged snowflakes, and someone above has been spitting them all day, but they seem to have prematurely fled their cloud homes, and are all melting before they reach the ground.  At least it's an attempt at snow, which has only increased my holiday mood.  I'm more than happy to be sitting in my cozy jia (home) with a steaming cup of tea and a burning candle that hints at jollier days to come.

Our benevolent university invited the foreign teachers on a weekend outing to some "scenic spots" this weekend, and never wanting to miss an opportunity for adventure I bravely signed up.  We did stop at some interesting places Yichang boasts of, and thanks to my handy dandy travel card, entrance was free.  I won't pretend to remember the names of all the places we stopped at, nor would you understand them if I did.  The first morning was so cold I was reprimanding myself continually for agreeing to go, although we did see some interesting things.  Once sight in particular that stands out in my memory was a cave that seemed to go on forever.

We descended countless stairs into the heart of the mountain, deeper into the cave than I thought possible, until I felt like I was in a scene from the Lord of the Rings.  At the very bottom, the cavern opened up to reveal an underground lake, and we got in boats that threatened to tip us with the slightest shifting of weight, and rowed to the other side of the mountain, where we came out a tiny hole opposite where we started.

Sunday morning we stopped at the most highly anticipated site of the trip, Chaibuxi, where we hiked around what was supposedly a beautiful gorge.  Since we were in a cloud, the visibility extended about 20 feet in any given direction and I cannot be counted upon to verify the authenticity of the photos advertising its beauty, although I suspect they have been photo-shopped generously.  This much I can say:  I can vouch that it is a foggy, cloudy place; and therefore mysterious in its attraction.

Our friend in the foreign affairs office had sent us a detailed, descriptive, and mendacious itinerary, telling us that we would be stopping at "Place 1" at 10am, "Place 2" at 2pm, etc., and falsely leading us to believe we would arrive home by afternoon.  I don't know why I'm regularly surprised when time schedules mean absolutely nothing in this country, but I was fooled yet again by their deceitful ways.

We stopped at a middle school in the countryside past Yidu to donate some gym equipment, and of course such generosity necessitates a long, drawn-out ceremony in which all parties involved say lots of complimentary things about each other, pose for pictures, and everybody gets to benefit from the frosty wind turning their limbs into icicles.  After such compliments were paid, we were invited as foreign experts to spend 40 minutes with a class of 12 year-olds, which we were completely unprepared for thanks to the predictable lack of warning.  So Jessica and I taught our class to sing "You Are My Sunshine" and I have to admit, it came close to making the whole trip a favorable affair.  They then taught us a Chinese song (两只老虎) and surrounded us like teenage girls at a Miley Cyrus concert, trying to get autographs.  I've never felt so much like a celebrity in all my life, nor had so many notebooks and pens shoved in my face at one time.

We finally got back on the bus and aimed it towards Yichang again, well past our originally stated arrival time.  As our bus trip stretched on for months...I mean hours, I passed the time by staring out the window and playing Name That Tune on my iPod.  As long as I live in China I'll never tire of looking at the patterns created by the terraced fields in the mountains.  Farmers here take advantage of every inch of ground available to them, inadvertently turning their fields into a work of art.  As rain-streaked as the windows were I'm afraid I can't provide proof, but believe me when I tell you they were exquisite.

"One can solve a math problem. One can contain a chemical reaction in an equation. But one never 'gets' beauty - one stands (or falls) in front of it astonished, amazed, open-mouthed, speechless, and humbled."

-Brian McLaren

今天是十一月十一号，光棍节

Sometimes I'm quick to point out the faults I see in China but I'd like to be equally generous at pointing out the virtues.

In America we have this awful excuse for a holiday known as "Valentine's Day" which is actually an excuse for girls everywhere to demand absurd presents from their significant other, and get irrationally upset when their expectations are not met.  It's undeniably annoying, and not just for single people.  My miserliness may be more extreme than most, but I feel safe in saying that the consumerism attached to Valentine's Day has blossomed out of control.  People are expected to spend more every year than they did the year before and the limits seem boundless.  It's sickening.

Chinese culture, by contrast, has invented a wonderful alternative.  November 11th, because it is 11/11 has become known as "Singles Day" or "Single sticks day."  It was started by some college students in Nanjing in the 90's and has spread far and wide as a time to celebrate your single-ness.  Last year one of my students gave me a present for 光棍节, but this year I just got text messages that said things like, "happy single person's day!hope u can find your mr right soon my beautiful teacher"  People eat four yóutiáo, a deep fried bread stick that represents the four ones of the day.  Several of my students celebrated by going out to eat and making sure that each person paid for themselves, as opposed to the tradition of taking turns buying dinner.  I think I'll celebrate by living vicariously through a fictional love story created by Jane Austen.  I would not be disappointed if we adopted this festival in the West, and replaced a much more obnoxious holiday around February 14th.

"Only the deepest love will persuade me into matrimony which is why I shall end up an old maid."
-Elizabeth Bennet

我们的小乌龟

At times my heart is touched by strange things, like the livelihood of a tiny little turtle.  Jessica and I have a turtle, recently christened Nuwanda, who brings us endless entertainment; but Yichang turned cold this week, and I started to fear for Nuwanda's life.  He looked like he was either going into hibernation, or might freeze to death in his little bowl of water, so I joked about putting him under the heat lamp in the shower so that he could feel some warmth.  After walking by his bowl a few times and seeing him pressed up against the edge with his eyes closed in what looked like desperation, I couldn't harden my heart any more.  I realize that I'm a total pushover, but I have relocated Nuwanda to the bathroom and set up an abode complete with permanent sunshine for him.  The change in his personality was unmistakable, he started swimming more, eating more, and in general looking alive.  Today was the crowning glory though, when we noticed that he was sunbathing without shame.  He stretched his legs out as far as he could, lifted them in the air, and looked as blissful as a turtle can look.

"Parrots, tortoises and redwoods live a longer life than men do; Men a longer life than dogs do; Dogs a longer life than love does."
-Edna St Vincent Millay

*There's been some debate on whether Nuwanda is technically a turtle, terrapin, or tortoise, so to avoid confusion I may switch to the Chinese: 乌龟

今晚我很高兴

I felt the first frosty bite of fall this morning as I crunched leaves all the way to class.  It's scent is even wafting through my apartment, because I've been snatching up every pumpkin that shows itself around the market, to ensure enough pies to last all the way through November.  The changing of seasons is sure to invigorate the most dull life, though in a few weeks I'll almost certainly be complaining about the ache in my fingers and the insatiable shivers cold weather brings.  Just when I begin to feel that life is mundane the weather shifts and sends a spark of newness through every day activities.  I'm enjoying the crispy air but to please my concerned Chinese friends, who are convinced that I'm never wearing enough clothes I've begun bundling up in lots of layers and scarves.

My bones may ache from the cold but my heart has been thoroughly warmed again and again.  Tonight I felt like I might burst from happiness as I sat around and chatted with my friends about the kind of love that would inspire someone to sacrifice their life for others.  We talked for hours about what it means to be selfless, and how we can love others more fully, and our whole group came to the conclusion that we want to do more.  To that end, we have proposed an outing or two, to a school for disabled children, and we're going to play with them and teach them English.  I hope it works out!  I've been really wanting to do something like that but didn't know how to get started.

"When God created October he said this is when we are going to play college football."

-Beano Cook
[I know it's not October anymore, but it didn't feel like football weather til just now.]

Snail mail fails

For those of you faithfully following my blog, here is the conclusion of the package story (from Australia), as promised.  After many phone call battles with China Post and a few letter exchanges, I was able to convince them to send my package to me, from Wuhan, without charging the 1100yuan in taxes or the 3yuan/day holding fee.  There was great rejoicing.  When I got the box, it looked like they had played kickball with it a few times.  I've never seen a box so beat up, but the treasures it contained were only mildly destroyed.  It was missing a bag of coffee, three muffin mixes, and one package of brownie mix, but everything else arrived, albeit not in one piece.  Three cheers for China's mail service!

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same."
-Carlos Castaneda

星期六的事

Lesson number one from today:
When you plan a Halloween party for 7pm expect a house full of girls at 3:30.

Lesson number two:
Eat dinner before the girls show up at 3:30 or you will be doomed to hunger pains for the next 6 hours.

Lesson number three:
Expect your house to look like a war zone after said party because the "worm cake" will be irrevocably ground into the floor.

Lesson number four:
Plan enough Halloween costumes for 7 people besides yourself, because they will show up expecting you to create one for them.

For those of you who are wondering, my Grandma had surgery today, and she's doing fine, everything went well, and she'll be in the hospital for a few more days.  I cannot thank you enough for the prayers and encouragement this week.

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless."
-Calvin (& Hobbes)

Please pray for me and my family.  My grandma had a heart attack, and is having triple bypass surgery this weekend.  She needs your prayers for safety and we need your prayers for comfort.  I wish I didn't have a heart so that I wouldn't hurt so much.

银行, 吉他, 豆腐

When I start to get over-confident in my ability to perform every day functions in China life takes a sledgehammer to my confidence.  For example, I went to the bank to Western Union some money home so that I can pay those pesky student loans and possibly buy a plane ticket for winter travels.  Last year my first Western Union adventure was one of the biggest headache inducing expeditions I've had, but I was naively expecting it to be a piece of cake this time around.  They wouldn't surprise me with the irrational requirement that I have to have the ID card of a native even though the money has nothing to do with any Chinese citizens.  I was fully prepared, walking past the largest, fanciest branches of the Agricultural Bank of China.  They wouldn't fool me by their size or grandeur.  The western Union was hidden in a smaller, farther branch I knew.  When I got to the location of the bank I gazed upon a pile of rubble and mentally gave myself a few swift kicks in the rear for thinking any building here is safe from the sudden demolitions ravaging Yichang.  Buildings are destroyed and replaced overnight on a regular basis.  So a quick errand once again became an epic battle with the streets of China.

 

To make a long story short, I was victorious in sending all my money to my mom--which incidentally did not bring with it the sense of accomplishment most victories in China do thanks to my now-empty bank account.  Katie-1 China-0.

 

Tonight one of my friends called and asked me if I wanted to come to a guitar class with him, to learn from a "Guitar Master," and since I've had a guitar decorating my living room for the last 8 months I felt it was about time I used it.  At first I had to endure 10 minutes of the kid next to me extolling the brilliance of Avril Lavigne and I was wishing I'd said no to the invitation, but soon I met some kindred spirits.  On my other side a student started playing some Dylan and from there I met some people with good taste in music, and am therefore exceedingly glad I went, not to mention there's a chance I might come out of this with the ability to play a song or two.

 

I'll leave you with a story from lunch:

"Hey Katie," I paused with the noodles halfway to my open mouth and glanced at Utopia from the corner of my eye.  I held my breath in anticipation of his next sentence.  He lifted his eyebrows in excitement and proceeded, "I want to be a business man someday and I will sell tofu in America.  And when I sell tofu in America, I will give you all the tofu you want for free!"

 

It's all my dreams come true.

我得了感冒

For the last three days I've had a head cold that is proving to be more relentless than I first thought, so I canceled all my activities and spent the day in bed.  I was too lazy to even get myself something to eat, but my wonderful roommate bought me a milk tea and fried rice.  I probably would have shriveled into nothing if it weren't for her.  Then she washed all my dirty tea mugs, because I hadn't wanted to get my germs all over them by washing them.  I'm feeling very loved.

"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters."
-Mother Teresa

阳朔的华，山

Story time

Once upon a time, there was a Sammie.
Once upon a time Sammie sent her favourite sister a package from Australia.
That sister was so happy she danced the whole way to her foreign affairs office.
Alas, her foreign affairs officer gave her a measly envelope.
Inside that envelope was a jigsaw puzzle.
A jigsaw puzzle made of Chinese characters.
Her task was to decipher the characters and determine the reason she got an envelope not a box.
She declined the mission and handed the paper back with with a pout.
Her foreign affairs officer translated for her.
He told her that her package had been WITHHELD in Wuhan for an unkown reason, probably due to the Australian contraband inside．
He also said it will be very complicated to get it back．
Even he does not know how.
They will charge her 3yuan per day to hold her box from her...
Until she provides a list of what's inside, and a million other ridiculous things.
A list of what's inside a box she's never seen.
Will the story end happily ever after?
To be continued...

我的英文名字

Hello Kitty.

That's what the teacher said to me when she shook my hand and thanked me for coming to the English speech contest at Yiling High School.  I understand that my name is sometimes hard for Chinese people to pronounce, so I tried not to cringe too obviously until I saw the giant sign marking my place at the judges table.  For the rest of the evening I was introduced as "Kitty" in front of hundreds of high school students.  Yes, my mom really hates me that much.  She named me Kitty, so that people could greet me by saying, "Hello Kitty!"

The sad part is, I'm pretty sure my student thinks that that is my name.  She's the one who asked me to judge the contest.  Last week I got called "Kite" repeatedly by one of my students.  I think the next quiz I'm going to give will have one question:
1.  What is my name?

Pass or fail, muah ha ha.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

阳朔和桂林

I've almost convinced myself to seek help for this problem that I have:  I cannot leave home without at least four books in hand.  My vacation was scheduled for seven days and I nearly brought a book for each day.  During my 24 hours of traveling to get to Guilin I began to pat myself on the back for loading myself down, no matter how cumbersome they were otherwise.  The morning before I left, my good friend ZhangXiaQing came over to tell me that she wasn't going to be able to come along because her mom was afraid she would get swine flu while traveling.  So what had at first looked like a fun all-nighter with a friend began to look more dreadful.  It started with a train ride on a hard seater from 7pm to 2am.  While I dread spending all night on a hard seat, from the very beginning this train had a different feel.  It was subdued, like China took some time off and had a glass of wine instead of it's usual crack.  The guy across from me was polite but not nosy, instantly endearing himself to me by not overwhelming me with questions or cigarette smoke.  It's like everyone had been muffled by the festivities of the National Day celebration in the morning, and had no energy left to be annoying.

Around 2am I arrived in Loudi to wait for my next train.  At first I had decided to ignore the shouting taxi drivers and hawkers who swarmed around me, pretending that I didn't speak either Chinese or English but instead risked the inevitable sales pitch to ask if one of them could take me to the McDonald's in town so that I could get a cup of coffee.  Unfortunately he said they were closed, so I hopped over a conveniently placed shrub outside the train station and settled down against a tree to read for the next 7 hours.  I thanked the shrubs for their ability to hide me from inquisitive eyes.  I think I like China better at night.  At night you can't tell that smog is shrouding the nearest buildings.  At night old people dance in the town square and don't care who's watching.  Fireworks still pop and horns still honk, but they seem somehow softer, as though blanketed by the darkness and unable to travel as far.  I laid there and listened to the tunes played by the combination of taxi horns.  Each one plays a different note and to a different rhythm that forms a living musical.  Loudi's is livelier than Yichang's.

At 6am after finishing 1 1/2 books I decided to try for Mackers again but the next taxi driver told me there wasn't one in Loudi.  I think he was lying but I resisted the urge to try all of the taxis around.  I went inside when my eyes stopped functioning, to wait the next two (I thought) hours before falling blissfully into a bed.  Waiting in the train station after being awake all night wasn't the most miserable I've ever been, but it definitely makes the top ten list.  When the sign above the train entrance repeatedly flashed messages about the newest delay I started to think I was never going to get out of Loudi, and that's when CCR seemed prophetic. 

If I only had a dollar, for every song I've sung.

And every time I've had to play while people sat there drunk.

You know, I'd catch the next train back to where I live.

Oh Lord, I'm stuck in Lodi again.

Oh Lord, I'm stuck in Lodi again.

At almost 11am I finally was allowed to elbow my way to the train where I found my bunk and lost consciousness for the next 6 hours or so.  Upon arriving in Guilin I met two other American teachers and we hopped on a bus to Yangshuo, where we eventually located our hostel...above a night club.  I had fun falling asleep to rock music but was thankful for the ability to sleep in the next morning.  Eventually we got around and headed out to the 漓江 Li River and hired a bamboo boat to float down the river, so that we could see some of the gnarly hills lend their beauty to the country.  It's easy to see why it's such a famous tourist spot.

Yangshuo has some of the best shopping I've yet seen in China, though I haven't been to the famous Silk Street or Pearl Markets in Beijing.  We were a little disgruntled at how much we had to bargain for everything though, including a simple bottle of water.  The city was so foreigner-heavy that the locals assumed we were suckers just like the rest and tried to double the price of water and food, in hopes that we wouldn't know any better.  Once you started speaking Chinese they toned it down a bit though, and through my impressive skills I managed to get lots of cheap things.  We filled our days with a lazy kayaking trip through some of the most unique scenery on earth, a mud bath and hot springs excursion in a very underwhelming cave, and getting lost on what was supposed to be a 13 mile hike to Xingpping.  We stumbled across farmers knee deep in the fields, which in my opinion was more interesting than the highly-populated trail we had been looking for, and were honored to try to chat with the locals who gave us fruit and told us we were thoroughly lost.

I'm afraid I may be losing some of my extensive reader base due to over-exuberant typing, so here is the last highlight of the trip:
We accidentally discovered a little hostel that served coffee and ended up chatting with the owner for over an hour about his life, and how he became a follower of our king.  It was one of the most encouraging conversations I've had.  All in all, it was a great week with great people.  Pictures will follow.

"If you don't get to a beautiful place every couple of years, you get to thinking everything is urban, as though when God made creation he just made some medium-sized buildings, a bowling alley, and a burger place."
-Don Miller

周年

宜昌有名的人

The mayor and party secretary of Yichang
and the fanciest meal I've ever been to.

星期六的照片

The platform we sat on in Yiling Square.

今年是中国的六十周年

It feels strange to say that this is the 60th anniversary of a country that boasts of a 5,000 year-old continuous civilization, but October first marks the 60th year of the People's Republic of China.  I'm sure you all know what that means:  FIREWORKS!  The celebrations are enormous, and yesterday the humble city of Yichang and its one-million plus residents all lined the streets downtown to watch a parade, dancing, and all kinds of fantastic shows.  As "foreign experts" a few of us foreign teachers received VIP cards and sat on a platform overlooking the parade, with the mayor of Yichang and the other important officials in attendance.  After the parade, we were taken to the only five-star hotel in Yichang where we ate dinner on the 39th floor.  We would have had a spectacular view of Yichang had the sky not been so murky.  The Party Secretary of Yichang toasted us and told me to "ganbei"* after he emptied his swallow of wine, and I didn't finish mine in one gulp.  After eating I tried to sneak pictures of the many 白酒 Baijou Faces I saw, after watching some newbies try it for the first time.  Baijou is the Chinese rice-liquor that burns your taste buds off on the way down, leaving each person with a distinct expression of being kicked in the stomach.  I tried to catch these on camera each time someone new tried the stuff.  Six hours into the celebrations the real fun began, as we traversed down to the edge of the Yangtze (长江) River to watch the fireworks display.

We foreigners had been "asked" to sing as a part of the celebrations of Communism's anniversary in China on the same evening but I managed to avoid the obligation due to the Foreign Affairs Office's generous invitation to the aforementioned festivities.  As much as I love to celebrate the birthday of their nation, I didn't feel quite right doing more for China's anniversary than I usually do for my own country's.  Alternating between being scared out of my pants and oooooooing over the explosions that lit up the Yangtze with colored patterns I sat there contemplating the beginnings of our respective countries, and wondered that both nations have come so far from where we began.

"This summer when you're being inundated with all of this bicentennial Fourth of July bruouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating--and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."
-Dazed and Confused

*bottoms-up

好吃

I have no idea if this is going to work since I can't stinkin see my own blog OR watch videos online anymore, but I'm trying. So here is a eulogy to cheeseburgers that speaks volumes.

什么?

This is an email I got from the Foreign Language College this morning.  Good luck deciphering it:

Hello, I am here to inform you of the good news. we will have an eight-day holiday for celebrating the Chinese National Day and Mid-autumn Day; that is from Oct. 1st  to Oct.8th, among which Oct.1^st, Oct. 2^nd, and Oct.3^rd are three lawful holidays. On Oct.4 th. ,we will enjoy our Sunday as usual. On Oct. 5^th we will enjoy the Saturday of Oct. 3^rd. Oct. 6^th is Mid-autumn festival. Sept. 27 and Oct. 7^th will change their roles; that is On Sept. 27^th we will have Oct. 7's class,(Wednesday's class), and on Oct. 7^th we will have Sept. 27's class(Sunday's class). Oct8th and Oct. 10 will change their roles; that is, on Oct. 8^th we will have Oct. 10^th's class(Saturday's class), and on Oct. 10^th we will have Oct. 8^th's class(Thursday's class). The rest days go smoothly as usual.

"I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol."
-Alexandre Dumas

第一天,第二年

When my alarm went off bright and early this morning I was excited to begin the day.  I got up extra early so I could run down and buy some food from the farmers outside and still not be rushed for my first day of classes.  I left the apartment at 7:30 in order to follow our instructions to arrive 20 minutes early to class on the first day.  I had to wait a few minutes before someone came to unlock the door, but was still anxiously awaiting my new students for the year.  Last year I was ecstatic to find my English majors in the classroom 30 minutes early with their books open, studying.  I wasn't quite that hopeful for today's class since they are the somewhat spoiled students who will be traveling to England in two years, but I expected to see a few of them within the last five minutes before class started.  At 8:15 I started to wonder if I was in the right building.  At 8:20 a guy came in to tell me that the school had decided my class would not begin until the 3rd week.  I'm so glad they decided to tell me.

So I went back to my apartment, studied some Chinese, and drank some tea until it was time to leave for my 10:00 class.  I showed up to that class twenty minutes early as well, and was confused by the lack of students once again.  There were students exiting, but none entering.  One cute girl came up to me, curtsied, and said, "Welcome to Yichang."  And then she skipped off along her way.  It reminded me again of how much I love my job.  About five minutes before that class begin I was still trying to figure out the newest lack of students when a man came in the room again.  This time it was to tell me that the school had mistakenly put the wrong classroom on my schedule.  I dashed up the stairs in time for class and the fun began.  I had my students introduce themselves and they were given some time to get to know me as well, and I was asked three times if I have a boyfriend.  One student stood up, pointed out the five boys in the class and said, "There are five of us, so I think we all have a chance."

This afternoon Jessica and I ventured downtown to try and buy a wireless router for our apartment so that we wouldn't have to take turns using the internet, and I apparently forgot that nothing is as easy as you think it's going to be.  A few hours worth of extraordinarily confusing directions later we emerged with a new router and absolutely no idea how to set it up.  We spent even more time following the directions repeatedly hoping that eventually they would magically work, all the while knowing that we were doing something wrong, when Jessica's overly-helpful friend Kiki called to see if we were making any progress, and after hearing our dilemma she sent her brother-in-law to our apartment (at 9:30pm) to help us.  We felt so bad for making a complete stranger come to our rescue but there was no talking either of them out of it.  Soon his girlfriend joined him, and they squatted over my computer trying idea after idea.  The next thing I knew another classmate of theirs showed up to lend a hand, and we felt completely helpless.  The students stayed out until they were late for curfew but finally got our internet working at 10:45pm.  I can't imagine the depth of kindness in their hearts to make them spend their entire evening helping strangers set up internet.  The frustrating part is knowing that I won't be able to thank them enough for such selflessness.  I'm so blessed by the Chinese people.

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself."
-Henry Miller

从北京到宜昌

Sammie and I arose at 6:45 so that we wouldn’t be scrambling around trying to do everything at the last minute.  When we got to the Sydney airport and went to the Malaysia Airlines counter to check in we were told that we owed $600 in excess baggage fees.  I knew my bags were a little overweight but I didn’t think that it deserved that kind of honor.  One bag weighed 21 kilos, and the other 28.  After arguing with the lady at the counter I learned, to my horror, that she meant I was only allowed 20 kilos TOTAL, not per bag.  That’s like a pair of shoes and two pairs of jeans.  Sammie and I scrambled over to an empty space and started throwing things out of my bag right and left, after wrenching open the broken zipper and praying that I wouldn’t ruin it beyond repair.  We threw all the books and heavy things we could manage into my dirty laundry bag and I sent those home with her, so she can ship them to me by boat later, and made our second of many trips back to the ticket counter.  Eventually we got my bags down to a fee of $325 and I gave in and paid it because I only had about 10 more minutes to dig through them, and to live in a place for a year, it’s miserable without certain things like warm clothes.

Upon arriving in Malaysia I finally located my gate through all the construction only to discover that it had been changed from C16 to H10, so I had to hop on a tram to get to the other building, which was no trouble since I had four hours to kill.  My online itinerary listed my total travel time (including layovers in Kuala Lampur) as 8 hours and 30 minutes.  My first flight was 8 hours and 5 minutes, plus another 4 hours in Malaysia before a six hour flight to Beijing.  According to the website I was to leave at 2pm Sydney time, and arrive at 8:30am Sydney time, yet only travel for 8 ½ hours.  I wonder what kind of education you need to figure the math for that company.

Descending into Beijing I watched the world go grayer as I bid farewell to the sun and felt my spirits fade with the colours.  Getting through customs and on a bus to the train station was much easier than I had anticipated, which is not something I get to say often living here.  I was feeling really proud of my Chinese-speaking abilities because I communicated quite well while in Beijing, but I realized when I got to Yichang why I was able to understand people so easily.  They were actually speaking Putonghua instead of some hick mixture of dialect and Chinese.  As soon as I got to Yichang I lost my ability to understand what people were saying to me.

I made it to the train station and was reminded yet again about the kindness of Chinese people.  Two girls stopped what they were doing to help me drag my bags to the ticket counter when they saw me struggling with all my earthly possessions.  They didn’t speak any English but still helped me buy my train ticket and lug my junk around.  It warmed my somewhat exhausted heart.  I was really bummed to hear the guy at the ticket counter say that they were all out of sleeping tickets, but I bought a sitting ticket anyway because I had to teach Monday (I thought), with hopes that I could bribe someone on the train to sell me a sleeper.

If you’ve ever ridden on a train in China you know that the chairs were specifically engineered (by a fella named Lucifer) to provide the utmost discomfort.  22 hours of everybody trying to outshout/outsmoke each other can really drain the energy you began with, if there was any.  Then there are the people who all think that everybody wants to listen to their music…at once.  I got so desperate for sleep that I tried to lay down on the floor, which ranks in the top 25 filthiest surfaces since time began.  Even that degrading effort was wasted, so I settled for wondering who came up with koo-koo-ka-choo first, the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel?

As tired as a person can be, I fell into my apartment a full two days after I left Australia and was greeted by air-conditioning, ice cold water in the fridge, and candy on the table.  It pays to give my friends the key to my apartment when I’m gone!  My friends Zack and Elizabeth knew the perfect way to lift my spirits after a grueling journey.  I got my teaching schedule and found out I have another week to get ready, so I didn’t have to rush home from Beijing quite so fast, but it will give me time to kill all the cockroaches and catch up on some rest.

“It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne

Angels Among Us

On my birthday a sweet friend from our church called and asked if she could take Sammie and I out to lunch, but first she needed to run some errands and wanted our help. We happily agreed and met her at 10:30 that morning, looking forward to soaking up some joy from a Spirit-filled lady. We got in the car and she turned around with a big smile and said, “We’re not going to the school. We’re going shopping.” And she handed each of us an envelope full of money collected from many anonymous and loving people at our church.

I was so stunned I could hardly even react other than to gape open-mouthed. My previous post about a vacation gone awry explains why she, and many others, felt like doing something nice for us, as they knew we would need to replace the stuff that got chewed on or stolen. It’s been several days and I still can hardly accept how generous they’ve been to us. Such amazing love knocked me speechless. Truly, this has been the worst summer I’ve ever lived through but our family continues to be blessed. I can hardly begin to name all the acts of kindness and expressions of genuine love that have been bestowed on us, I only know that I’ll never be able to repay it all. It’s humbling.

Several times this summer I’ve complained about not having enough time to see all the people I love. There are so many people I wanted to see and hug, but was unable to. But as tears streamed down my face at least once a day, a few of them spoke not of pain—but of healing. It occurred to me that it’s a blessing that I have so many friends, I can’t see them all. So many precious people in my life make it worth opening my eyes every morning.

“I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us, from somewhere up above. They come to you and me—in our darkest hour; to show us how to live, teach us how to give, and guide us with a light of love.”
-Alabama

我的东西

Of all my possessions, very few would catch the eye of any potential thief. Most are monetarily virtually worthless. So, theoretically I shouldn't be terribly distressed if something happens to my material possessions...

Thursday evening before our much-anticipated trip to Colorado, I was at Target with Sammie and somehow managed to lose my car keys in the store. We searched for half an hour and eventually resigned ourselves to the knowledge that we were stranded, and ashamedly called my mom to have her rescue us. I wasn't remotely upset about the episode, knowing at the most it would cost me 2 hours and 5 dollars worth of headache. In the long-run, it wasn't a terrible setback.

Unfortunately that event seemed to set a minor precedent for the rest of the week. After a few blissful days in cathartic scenery with old friends, we set off for our first family outing. Sammie and I had high ambitions of climbing at least a few 14ers, if not the full 5 we set as a goal. Mount Princeton was the first objective inviting us into his lair. We camped along the folds of an eternal stream in the only mildly steep site we found that didn't threaten to eject us from the side of the mountain. Early the next morning we set out in pursuit of his elusive peak. Many excruciating hours, and a hail storm later we finally descended to the previous night's haven only to discover that all was not well in our camp. A bear had visited these trespasser's belongings sometime during the day, and destroyed several vital tools, while mysteriously leaving some intact. He ripped my pack to shreds, chewed my Bible beyond use, and wreaked havoc on tents, sleeping bags, etc.

A few more decent days passed, allowing us to laugh about the damage done by our bear friend, when catastrophe struck again. After spending the night with a cousin in Aurora, we packed our bag and hauled it outside to be loaded in the car. Went back inside to get the keys. Came back outside to a street, a vehicle, and no bag. Somebody who thinks they are getting a good steal is going to be kicking themselves when they realize that all they have is a junk bag full of dirty, nasty laundry, and toothbrushes and other utterly valueless yet necessary items. So Sammie and I had to go to Walmart in the middle of the night to try to find something besides a T-shirt and running shorts (literally the only thing I had left) to wear to our friend's wedding the next morning. I managed to get a skirt that wasn't quite falling off of me, and wore my chacos to the wedding.

Though I left with two full bags I returned home with almost nothing. I doubt seriously that anybody benefited more than a dollar for all the stuff they got, yet it was almost irreplaceable items for me. My Bible with all my notes--and bear slobber-- was among the missing, along with lots of other valueless yet special things. On the bright side my copy of 1984 now has teeth marks in it.

Renunciation of objects, without the renunciation of desires, is short-lived, however hard you may try.

-Nishkulunand

高山

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changin fast and it don't last for long

But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the skyThe shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake
And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land
And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

哥哥

Clifford somewhere in Thailand

In Egypt

Off the coast of India

It seems fitting that Pink Floyd provided the backdrop as I rounded the corner on 24^th where my brother lost his life.  If it hadn’t been for him I might never have learned to appreciate good music.  It was he who introduced me to The Wall, Led Zeppelin, some of the Beatles lesser-known masterpieces, and the Who.  I remember with painful clarity the first time he made me listen to Queen’s Greatest Hits on the way to Michigan: me grimacing in pain and begging for a shorter CD.  I never suspected it would later become my favorite album.  We used to have radio wars right up until he left for the Navy.  By the time he came home, I had surrendered to the classic rock craze thinking we’d finally agree on something, only to discover that he’d started listening to country while he was away.  I guess when siblings fight at home it doesn’t affect how much they miss each other later.

I’m still having trouble believing that it’s real.  Because I hadn’t seen him in 10 months I’d almost adjusted to our irregular,  infrequent communication.  It’s hard to convince myself he won’t come walking in here with a silly grin and some redneck story to tell me.  Reality is getting harder and harder to avoid though, as we acquired his beautiful dog and read over the will.  The part where he left me his music collection brought a fresh wave of pain, so acute I almost couldn’t breathe.  I didn’t know I could hurt this bad.

My purpose for today’s post is to thank everybody who has been my lifeline over these past few weeks.  Without the love and prayers of so many of you I don’t know how I would have kept going.  I don’t regret going to China but being on the other side of the world from my parents during this time was truly agonizing.  I’m infinitely grateful for all of you who called, sent messages, prayed, and hugged me.

"I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers.  It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.  Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at."

-Maya Angelou

我喜欢看书

I'm watching the smoke curl from my mosquito-repelling coil, and wishing the insects were as quick to clear the room as the students are from campus.  The University has turned into a mass exodus.  Everybody lit out of here like there was a fire under them, in a rather soothing turn of events for me.  I finished teaching over a week ago, got all my grades completed quickly, and am currently trying to work on something I have yet to master:  patience.

If everything goes as planned I'll leave Sunday afternoon for Beijing, spend a little less than a week, then get ready to go back to America in a gratifyingly small number of days.  Mostly I'm spending my days reflecting on this year and counting the number of seconds until I get to see my sister.  Looking back over this year I can see an uncomfortable number of things I wish I had done differently, but am rewarded by the realization that some things could not have been better.  I know that when I get back, people are going to want me to tell them what my year has been like and I feel frozen in an inability to convey anything real about the vast and unexplainable China.  I can find words, but not sentences they could fit.

I've turned to reading to recuperate, under the illusion that every breach in my life can be patched with a good book.  So far I have not been disappointed.

"We read for those important moments when literature gives us words for what we are: the words for what we did not know we were.  In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.  Like the night sky in the greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see.  Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."

-C.S. Lewis

糖醋

This is us learning how to cook tang cu li ji

和平公园，二零零八

Yesterday one of my favourite students, Vanilla, invited me to go roller skating with her and some of her classmates.  I haven't been roller skating since I was in about...6th grade so I was pretty stoked.  Unfortunately when we arrived, the place was closed, so we settled for playing in the sprinklers at Peace Park, and eating ice cream in the shade.  We stuck our feet in the Chang Jiang (Long) river and somehow emerged without a disease, so I guess it's not as dirty as it looks.

The relaxing afternoon was followed by one last trip to the Indian Canteen for the year.  Then this morning our Sunday group went to our favourite place in Restaurant Row: Er Ling Ling Ba (2008).  The lovely sisters who run the place agreed to teach us to make some of our regular dishes, so Elizabeth and I stepped into the kitchen (which incidentally is smaller than most people's bathrooms) with our notebooks and camera's in hand.  We watched him create five Chinese wonders and hastily scribbled instructions in the hopes that we can cook them for our families this summer.  We had to occasionally call Emma in to translate, but for the most part managed quite well.  So this summer if you'd like to try some authentic Chinese food expertly cooked by yours truly, give me a call!

"What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?"

-Lin Yutang

晚饭和好朋友

The only complaint I could possibly have about yesterday was the bananas mixed with mayonnaise.  Could there be a more disgusting dish?  I spent all day preparing a feast with my friends Sabrina and James, getting ready for an end-of-the-year party with nine of my friends.  We were grocery shopping together and Sabrina suggested a salad.  I had my doubts about her idea of a salad but went with it for the sake of adventure.  She bought a jar of mayonnaise.  I was wondering what was next but kept my mouth shut.  When we got home she asked me to make the salad and I gave her my most confused look and said, "But I don't have anything to make a salad with."  I used my carrots in the chicken and dumplings, and didn't have any lettuce.  That's when James came to the rescue.  He had bought a bunch of bananas, and they proceeded to cut them into pieces and coat them with mayonnaise.    I couldn't even hide my look of disgust, no matter how hard I tried.  No one else seemed to share my revulsion and the whole dish was gone by the end of the night.

I tried to forget how much they loved the "salad" when they also complimented my cooking, and convince myself that my food really was delicious.  But you just can't go wrong with food and friends.  There's no way to ruin that combination.  My oven has become a serious health hazard, and I couldn't even turn it on yesterday (which is probably better than the ball of fire it sometimes becomes) so I improvised and made cobbler in the microwave.  Surprisingly it turned out great.  When we had all stuffed ourselves to the bursting point we had to play the Chinese version of Paper/Rock/Scissors to decide who had to finish the dishes.  My apartment never feels more like a home than when it's filled with laughter and the smell of good food.  It was a great way to finish our semester-long study group.

"Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

-Harriet van Horne

这是我第十个月在三峡大学和我还喜欢我的工作

I realized today that I've had the same job for 10 months and I don't hate it yet.  That's got to be some kind of record for me.  I actually still look forward to going to work in the morning.  I'm wondering if it's because I'm getting more mature or if I've finally found something I enjoy.  Probably not the former.  What a joy it is to get paid to do something you love.  I gave my last final today and was actually sad to say goodbye to my students.  I probably know less than half of their names but I know and love all of their faces.  Now to grade papers...the least enjoyable part of my job.

This week probably marks the last week of studies since the students are busy with their other exams, and I shall be off to Beijing soon and other adventures.  I feel really good about where we left off though, and expect to see good things in the future.  Several of my friends are graduating and moving to other provinces or countries soon, so we are all going to get together and cook one last time.  I hate goodbyes, in case I haven't said that enough times already.  But on the bright side I'm incredibly excited to see where their lives take them.

Also...fruit lady had fresh peaches this morning when I went by her stand and you know what that means...PEACH COBBLER.  Yum!  I love my life.

If only there was some way to get some home-made ice cream too...

"I say if you're not obsessing about something, you might not be into it quite enough."

-Chris Thile

外国语学院毕业生

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday

And the doorbell is ringing again

There's an old man at the dumpster

Digging for plastic and tin

The doorbell plays me a melody

I sure wish they would go

It's loud and it beeps and I still want to sleep

While I can pretend I'm not home

La la la, de de da

La la, de de da da da

I sing a song for the mystery man

Sing them a song, "Goodbye"

Well, I'm not in the mood for company

And you've got me feeling uptight

Now the man at the door is a friend of mine

It could be one friend or three

And I'd like to joke or to buy them a coke

But right now it's just to early

I sigh, Go away, you're killing me

As the smile runs away from my face

Well I'm sure that I could dream some more

If they would just leave this place

Oh, la la la, de de da

La la, de de da da da

And that's what happens when you ring my doorbell at 9am on Saturday.  I'm singing Billy Joel all day and end up with some words of my own.

Speaking of singing, if you know me at all...you know that I am the worst.  I love singing, but nobody else loves my singing.  Until....China.  Tonight was a graduation party for the Foreign Language College and some students of mine begged me to join their group and sing with them.  I reluctantly agreed, thinking if there were six of them and one of me, no one would have to endure my voice.  I also was not made aware that a thousand people would be in attendance.  I love my students and I thought we'd have some fun together.  Fun, is the one word I cannot honestly use to describe today.  Funny; however, fits perfectly.  The powers that be decided to cut our group from seven to three this afternoon, thereby increasing the likelihood that the poor audience would have to hear my voice amongst the din.  Think of the most annoying song you've ever heard.  Then, picture me singing it with two other students in front of hundreds of screaming fans.  Did I mention that we forgot the words?  (Partly because I learned the song last night).  In case you were wondering, we performed "Big Big World" which is an English song that's immensely popular here and totally unheard of in America.  I hate it.  My fondness for the song aside, it was an event I will never forget, and the performance as a whole was totally enjoyable.  I laughed continuously and I'll try to post some videos to facebook soon.

All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out.

-Mark Twain

在美国

Oops I sent this to the wrong one:

Things I'm looking forward to about the upcoming escape to America:

10. Being able to see my blog instead of hoping I actually posted this.

9. The absence of squatty pottys.

8. The presence of toilet paper and/or soap.

7. When I order something at a restaurant I can expect to get exactly what I ordered and not a surprise.

6. If someone bends over my shoulder to see what I'm reading I will know how to tell them to back off and not feel bad about it.

5. I will be woken up by sunshine and birds rather than fireworks and rain.

4. When I order salad I'll get something besides apples in mayonnaise.

3. Not watching people pick their nose in public.

2. Expiration dates in the future.

1. If I cause an accident because someone was staring at me I can chalk it up to good looks rather than white skin.

"We realize that what we are accomplishing is a drop in the ocean.  But if this drop were not in the ocean, it would be missed."

-Mother Teresa

在凤凰的胶片

黄瓜

Cucumber flavored ice-cream.

That's all I have to say.

凤凰

**This post is my first slap in the face of the Great Firewall.  Brought to you in part by Sammie and friends.

I've had my fair share of sitting on a train all night with my earplugs stuffed in my ears.  It's definitely not my favorite activity.  But usually the end result makes it worth enduring the pain.  This particular time I got lucky and was able to stretch out across a seat for three in a semi-dark compartment and sleep for about half the night.  It's a rare train that has so much empty space and I'm thanking heaven for it.  I only got woken up three times by security guards who wanted to talk to me with the pretense of telling me to take care of my *dongxi and watch for thieves.

At 7am as we descended from our cozy train we were greeted by a strange burning orb in the sky that seemed to emanate heat and hurt my eyes.  Legend has it it's called 太阳 and the ancients saw it quite often.  It was accompanied by a lack of wetness in the air and seemed to turn the sky from grey to blue.  No one can remember the last time it appeared from behind the protection of clouds.  (Seriously the locals did tell us it had been a solid month since they had seen the sun)  The next thing to assail my senses was a middle-aged gentleman who yelled "I LOVE YOU!!" repeatedly after me in an attempt to get me to take his taxi the rest of the way to FengHuang.  I'm relatively certain it was the only English he knew.

FengHuang means Phoenix when translated and is the site of a novel written by a famous Chinese author, and so has recently become a popular place to travel, but is not yet so touristy as to be annoying.  Everything was still moderately authentic and absurdly cheap.  Our hotel was not the cheapest in town and only cost me $3 (American) per night.  I went with two friends who I've been studying with and we had a delightfully relaxing time wandering around the old-style town and shopping.  In the afternoon when my Chinese buddies were taking their siesta I sat by the river to enjoy the sunshine and wrote.  Naturally I aroused the curiosity of the fishermen nearby.  A few bent over my shoulder trying in vain to read the strange characters I wrote before giving up to ask me instead.

My two friends decided to speak with me only in Chinese for the weekend which gave us quite a few laughs as they had to speak idiot speed and I made a number of ridiculous mistakes.  We went boating on the river, and our guide made up a song for me as we paddled around.  The only part I understood was, "Welcome foreign friend" but I video-ed the whole thing for later study.  He had such an obviously joy-filled life and it's small wonder with such a job.  All day every day he boats down a beautiful river singing at the top of his lungs.  I can think of many worse ways to make a living.

Traveling is inevitably adventure-filled but I think I'll keep the stories to a minimum so that I have time to tell you about our return.  We took the train from 3am to 9:30am back to YiChang and I taught class with a pretty substantial headache which was alleviated that night when one of the girls I traveled with made the decision to give her life to our Dad and take the plunge.  We actually had two new births in the same night, so be praising his name!

"The less routine the more life."

-Amos Alcott

*stuff

A Message From Down Under

And now a brief message from Katie's favorite person in the world:

Katie would like to inform you that her blogging privileges have once again been revoked for an unkown period of time. She offers her deepest apologies for any undue anxiety that may cause you and asks for your patience despite deep interest in her day to day activities. She looks forward to being able to entertain you once more with captivating tales and profound wisdom. Until then, Adieu.

我能用左手吃饭

Occasionally I like to challenge myself, you know, just to prove how talented I really am.  I've gotten pretty good at using chopsticks, in fact they feel more like an extension of my hand than a foreign utensil.  So I decided I'd better step it up a notch.  I mean, anybody can use their right hand, but only a real pro could eat left handed.

So I was making chocolate bread this morning for my evening study group, at the request of James and I went to light my oven...The one that had the minor explosion several months ago.  I lit the fire and it went out after a few seconds, so I reached back down in the bottom and sparked the lighter a second time.  BIG mistake.  A ball of fire the size of my oven came rushing at me, removing all the hair from my arm, some from my eyebrows, and nearly incinerating my hand.

Since then I've been alternating two wet towels between the freezer and my charred right hand.  At lunch I was either about to cry or cut my hand off, so rather than eat I went and got some Chinese medicine to put on it, which looked like poop and smelled worse.  That's when the challenge began.  It's nearly impossible to eat with your right hand when it's smeared with poop sauce and balancing an ice cream bar from the nearby vendor.  I can now say I've used chopsticks with my left hand but I wouldn't exactly call it a success.  Not much food made it in my open mouth.

While the medicine was supposedly healing my burn I was whining non-stop about the pain so Zack took me to get some pain killers too so that I could be comfortably numb.

"There is no pain, you are receding.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin."

-Pink Floyd