Living, For Once, in China

Today was an extremely good day. I don't know what happened, but somewhere during the last few days I actually got over the biggest chunk of my homesickness and culture shock-related misery; it's too late, for sure, but I want to enjoy the rest of my time here as much as I can. I'm getting so used to the life here that it's a little strange to think that we'll be leaving in less than two weeks, and that we won't be coming back. I've gotten used to the shower filled with tiny bugs, to the tiny washer machine and the clotheslines on the roof to dry our clothes, to rocking out til the early morning with Joyce to the greatest hits of, uh, the Backstreet Boys. I have not gotten used to the food, however, as my stomach decided to throw me a super curve ball today, meaning I spent a good part of the latter half of it not straying too far from my bathroom, but otherwise life is good!

Today was one of our older student's birthdays, so Joyce and I went over to her house. I had such a good time! I have some pictures up here, on pages 2 and 3, if anybody (Mom?) is interested in seeing.

In other news, the whimpered out "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO BECAUSE I KNOW I'VE COME TO THE END OF THE ROOOOAD" part in the song End of the Road by Boyz II Men still makes me crack up every single time. (OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. HELP ME OUT A LITTLE BIT, BAAAABY.)

An In-Progress List

Joyce and Melissa's China Playlist

• Don't Stop Believing, Journey
• End of the Road, Boyz-2-Men (or however it's spelled)
• All I Have to Give, Backstreet Boys
• The Gaston Song, Beauty and the Beast soundtrack

More coming soon.

(Did I mention we now are in possession of a loud set of speakers?)

One Month!

Wow! I've officially lived in China for one month today. This is a little ridiculous (my new favorite adjective), but I feel good today. I thought two days into this trip that I'd have to hightail it home, but it's been a full month now, and while I'm still battling numerous stomach bugs and insect-bugs, I no longer feel that intense compulsion to get the heck out of here. Also, despite how slow time seems to go while experiencing it, I am a little shocked that it's already been a full month -- I guess time flies, and I know these last two weeks will fly by even faster than I'm expecting. (With or without net.)

This trip has been a definite test of character, to be sure. It's stripped me down to my very basics, it's taken away all the vestiges of power that I meekly claim in my home country, it's made me try to rebuild myself from the ground up. These aren't the most comfortable of things, to be frank, but I think I'm learning more than I let on -- even if all it seems I've learned from day to day is how to ask for food and how to not fear crazy guys in rickshaws and motorbikes while peddling my (already falling apart) bicycle to the south campus.

Mosquito bites turn into bruises if they're nasty enough. This is another lesson I've unfortunately learned. I look like I was the victim of some violent right-leg-offender's most recent kick attack, but really, it's just those damn mosquitoes leaving their lasting mark.

There's so much I want to write about (even though a lot of it may, admittedly, be things many people have expressed great lacks of desire to read about), but it'll have to wait for later, since I am hungry and need to find myself some food.

Take care, and I'll be around in a while.

Sick of being sick

In three days, it will have been a month since I left America for China. For the 27 or so days I've already been here, I have been absolutely nothing but sick, sick, sick. I'd go into the details, but let's just say that I've been alternating between one, erm, toilet problem to another at a fairly rapid face. Try as it might, my stomach just can't adjust to any food here. I've heard multiple stories of foreigners coming here having to spend weeks in the hospital from the food. I'm not that bad, thankfully, but good God, fatty, crappy American food is going to be like heaven to come home to.

I'm sick of being sick, because that means that I spend most of my days not straying all that far from the toilet. I'm sick of being sick because I know people assume I'm using it as an excuse, when really, the times I do decide to throw caution to the wind and go out and try to live a little, I always end up rushing back home because I need to use the toilet so bad. I'm sick of being sick because it drains me of my energy, makes it difficult to sleep, and just hurts. I have seventeen more days here, but I know I'm going to spend most of those either in my room or feeling paranoid about how close I could find a western toilet to wherever I'll be, and that's not fun at all.

Today we had to teach some little kids, and it was kind of a nightmare, because I don't speak Chinese and the kids were all at different levels and, surprise surprise, we weren't given any sort of plan at all. I need to find a generic plan that will be easy for the real little ones without being boring for the more advanced students. Sigh.

Our AC is broken.

We lose net around July 10th, so if I disappear in a week, please don't worry too much about me (if you're inclined to, that is). Til then, all I want to do is plug the Firefox plugin "Tor" (Google it), because it has absolutely destroyed the Chinese firewall. I can visit websites again! If I don't get sick first.

A Little Over Halfway

I'm always writing fairly depressing entries in here, which is pretty disappointing to me. I'm not always so gloomy and down -- it's only when the minutes seem to drag by like hours and I am either bored with absolutely nothing to do or being forced into doing something against my twenty-three years of will that I get upset, and both of these feelings seem to be par for the course lately. (You can thank part of that on my digestive tract, which has hindered many of my efforts to Just Get the Hell Out and Do Something, Melissa over this past week or so.)

So, I wanted to write something a little more upbeat, both for my sake and for everybody who's been following this little blog thing of mine. This might not be the deepest or most profound entry, and some of these discoveries I've made may not seem like the big, Earth-shifting ones a journey to a foreign land like this one is supposed to inspire, but eh. Anything is better than nothing, and, frankly, I get sick of really self-important people pretty quickly.

...

...wait, we have fucking cockroaches in our room now?! Okay, this is not cool. (But, for what it's worth, I actually walked over and killed the damn thing instead of screaming and crying as per usual, so that has to count for something. Something. Maybe even a little something? They better not be in my clothes, though, or I am going to have the largest hissy fit this side of... Singapore?)

(WHY cockroaches, WHY?)

Okay. Enough with the roaches. Lessons I've learned from China after 3-and-some-odd-weeks:

• I really want to get serious about cycling again. Not soon, because America, unlike China, does not have decently built bicycles for 20 dollars, so hence I can not get a dispensable one in the US like I managed to here. However, maybe when I return to Japan for my planned year-or-two stretch I might be able to start training. This has nothing to do, really, with fitness or anything like that; bicycling is just pure fun to me, and I really want to take a long trip via bike sometime in the distant future.
• I prefer Blogspot to LiveJournal. Hahaha. How much of this has to do with the fact that my mom can comment on my entries here has yet to be figured out, but I'm sure it's a pretty significant part. The lack of Blogspot drama is also quite major, though, I have to admit.
• ...WHY COCKROACHES, WHY, WHY, DEAR LORD, WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?
• According to this torrent of "Top 250 Hits of the 90s" I mentioned in my last entry here, Savage Garden is responsible for quite a few of the 90's top hits. Also, some songs are much, much younger than I thought they were, which somehow makes me feel real old. I'm not sure how that works, but there it is.
• Mosquito bites can and will bleed if you scratch them too much. Also, I am pretty allergic to Asian mosquito bites, as one bit my thumb yesterday and the thing has swollen to even thicker than its usual plump proportions.
• I want to teach Japanese. I want to just speak Japanese, really. I want to do everything in my entire life in Japanese, because I love Japanese, because I realized early on that for every thought I want to express in Chinese (and can't), I can come up with at least three ways to say it in Japanese, and this is extremely frustrating. I need to be there. Soon. (Or home. I will speak to Japanese people at home. I mean it, this time.)
• I need to stop being shy when I feel like the weakest person in a crowd, because I thought I was over that BS, but apparently not. I think I need to feel like I have authority or I shrink like a withered flower. When I don't feel I have any authority -- like, when I'm the token white girl from America who doesn't speak Chinese in a second world country -- I feel awkward and grow silent. This needs to stop.
• ...the cockroach I killed is gone, now. DON'T TELL ME IT WAS STILL ALIVE. I am so upset by this that I need to end this post, because I no longer feel happy and positive. Look at how easy I am to change, hahaha. (There better not be any more. I knew we shouldn't have left the door open so long today!)

I'm homesick. This post isn't helping. This is ridiculous. I want to be better than this. How can I expect myself to do anything if I can't even see this through?

Blah. In good news, though, I found out that the student center on campus is practically a miniature shopping mall, and I was able to buy some very strange sliced bread there. Maybe if I go shopping a lot, I'll feel better, huh?

Try to Keep Your Head Up to the Sky

I've been downloading a collection of the "top 250 songs of the 90s" off of BitTorrent, and the first song in the compilation is Des'ree's You Gotta Be. Listening to it brings me back to 1995, when my hair was even wilder than it is now, and my glasses took up half my face; I used to fall asleep with the radio on, and the blissful hour or so before my body finally plunged into sleep was my favorite time of the day, since I could just lie there, in the (relative, thanks to my night-light) darkness, and dream up scenarios for each of the songs that would be played.

You Gotta Be was one of Lunar's songs. I'm not particularly sure why it was one of Lunar's songs, but it was, and my mind would become filled with images of her adventures whenever the song came on the radio. More than that, though, it was one of my songs, because, as campy and awful as it may be, there was something in the song that part of me needed even twelve years ago.

Today's been a bad day for me. To be honest, the past few days have all been bad days for me, and while most of the time I can't pinpoint exactly what is wrong (save my current, erm, physical issues), I just haven't felt as happy as I know I should be. There's nothing wrong, there's no real reason for me to be depressed, but all I want to do is hide away in my air-conditioned room and be left alone.

This is dumb and this is pointless, because 19 days is really not all of that long a time (we board the plane early morning 20 days from now, so 19 more full days is a valid count, I think), but in my current state it feels like forever. (Although, I admit, writing it out like that did put it back into much needed perspective. Thanks, BlogSpot.)

I haven't felt so constantly depressed in well over a year. I've been thinking about it, and I really do think it comes down to two things: my inability to take care of myself here (because of both bureaucratic reasons and linguistic ones) and my lack of decent friends. I'm not looking for real great friends, because that's being unrealistic, but just somebody I can talk to for an extended period of time without feeling stupid, annoying, or frustrated. I'm sure being antisocial isn't helping any, but today it's just been hard to find the energy.

It makes me realize that the two things most important to me are my independence and my loved ones, because, seriously, life sucks without either. If I had the ability to converse or a close friend here, my experience would be much different, I think; I'm an explorer at heart (blame my star sign) and I'd love to be able to really relish this. And on some days I can, even with my broken Chinese and my awkward conversation.

But today, I just feel like crud, and this endless stomach bug is not helping me any.

Maybe 23 year old Melissa needs this song too, huh?

Listen as your day unfolds,
challenge what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted,
don't be shamed to cry
You gotta be..

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold,
you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough,
you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm,
you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know
Love will save the day

Stephen King's Wizard and Glass and Other Stories

This is unrelated to China, and I don't know if anybody will care to read it, but oh well.

I finally finished Stephen King's Wizard and Glass today, after trying to force myself through it for over a year and a half now. WaG is the fourth book in King's seven book "The Dark Tower" series, which my mother asked me to read back in January 2006. I sped through the first three books, as the first one is very short and the second and third are actually startlingly good (this is high praise from somebody who normally does not dig Stephen King's general writing style), but I skidded into a full halt with Wizard and Glass, and it took knowing I'd have a month and a half of fairly carefree time in China to finally push me through it.

WaG starts out strong. The first part of the book is the ending of the previous book's cliffhanger ending, and it features some of my favorite storytelling in almost any book, ever. However, Wizard and Glass drones its way through the exceedingly long mid-section of the book, which consists of approximately five hundred pages of background story for Roland, the series' main protagonist. The story is long and complex, and while it definitely picked up in the last two hundred or so pages of its telling, the first three hundred were almost torturous to wade through.

I think this is because the Dark Tower series is Stephen's little lovechild. In his introduction to the books (and in many of his afterwords), he mentions how the story has been haunting him, piece by piece, since he was nineteen years old. It took a decade between book three and book four, and he admits in the afterword of WaG that after a point he couldn't tell if the book was good or bad anymore, but just that it needed to be written. While I do have some major issues with his writing style, I admit to a bit of fondness for King due to his extreme honesty when discussing his relationship with the story; most of Roland's back story took place when Roland was fourteen years old and in the throes of early teenage love, and King admits that he really faltered when trying to write it, because he'd been so far removed from that feeling for so long that it was hard to try and reclaim. Indeed, I think most of my problems with those three hundred or so pages had to do more with my inability to take the characters seriously than anything else. I thought that King's writing was unnecessarily flowery and reeked of amateurish effort; it took a while for me to realize that this was precisely the effect he was going for, because what is teenage love but overly dramatic and stupendously meaningful? Especially in a romantic age such as Roland's, could one's first (and ultimately tragic) love be anything but melodramatic?

By the end of the story, I understood why it had to be as long and drawn out as it was; I remember asking my mother (please tell me you, at least, are reading this!) multiple times if I could just "skip Roland's past" and get back to the story I was interested in -- the one of Roland's present, with Eddie and Jake and Susannah. She hesitated to tell me I could, and now I know why. By drawing up the story to such dramatic heights, the force of its savage ending completely explains why Roland acts and feels the way he does about so many things. I knew what was going to happen (it is hard not to if you pay attention), but I still found myself teary eyed at the end, heartbroken (as I am want to be) over the tragedy suffered by young Roland. It was an absolutely chilling story, and King's intended effect hit dead on -- Roland went from the cold-blooded, almost robotic gunslinger to an incredibly moving human in those five hundred pages, and that is enough to make me want to read on.

It is not perfect writing. A lot of it is actually quite sloppy, and there are pages worth of description and thematic writing that could have been better served by one or two concise paragraphs. There are times when it is difficult to remember which background character is which, which is especially frustrating when they suddenly become major players in the end. You can tell sometimes that Stephen is just desperate to get the words out, because once they're out, at least it's over.

But, in the end, it's effective writing, and that's all that matters at the end of the day. Writing should sound beautiful, yes. But above that, it should be emotional, and that's what Roland's tale in Wizard and Glass was for me.

I feel a connection to the Dark Tower series for more than one reason. I understand how Stephen King must have felt about these books, because I've been carrying around my own Dark Tower for about twelve years now. Unlike King, however, my story has no real form; it takes a form but soon changes it, like a sort of creative amoeba, and while my biggest dream in life is to actually pinpoint what the story is supposed to be and write the damned thing, part of me knows that's about as likely as, well, everybody in Roland's new story turning out happily ever after.

My story began when I was eleven years old, and found a picture of an unusually styled female character in a review in some video game magazine. I now know that it was an anime styling, but Japanese pop culture hadn't hit America hard yet back in 1995, so all I knew was that the art style was somehow infinitely compelling. I took out a piece of manila-colored paper (I seemed to have an endless amount) and scribbled down a picture of a girl in the same style; she was skinny, with long, messy hair (which I immediately knew was red) and big, doubtful eyes (piercing green). I also knew, instinctively, that her name was Lunar. Pretty standard juvenile fantasy fluff, I now realize, but to this day I'm still unable to really change any of those first few characters that came to me; as ridiculous as they may be, Lunar will always be Lunar, and Will will always be Will.

My first story with Lunar and Will was pretty awful. It had to do with magic pendants, but it read more like a video game script than an actual story; there was perhaps one big twist intended at the end, but otherwise it was almost painfully linear. First they'd go here, then they'd go there, and eventually they'd end up where they had to be. Middle school happened and I gave up on the quest for the four pendants, but it always remained somewhere in the back of my brain.

As much as I want to teach when I get older, I'll always want to write a little bit more. But I don't think I can really properly devote myself to any writing project until I at least get some headway on the Lunar story. My main problem, however, is that as I grew older, I began to realize more and more just how important structure and purpose is in a story, and, looking at Lunar and Will scrambling through their fictional kingdom to find four conveniently placed pendants, I realized my story had absolutely none. No structure, no purpose. I loved stories that seemed well planned; when I realized JK Rowling had name-dropped Sirius Black in the first chapter of the first book, despite him not becoming a major player until book three, I knew that the Lunar story (affectionately titled "Sun and Moon") had to be completely reworked.

But I didn't know how. And I still don't know how. Because as much as I may try and change the form of the story, something inside of me refuses to give up on the most constricting of points. I can't, for example, get rid of the pendants. I can't give Lunar a better name. There has to be some physical form of divinity. It has to be a goddamn fantasy story, a really, really trite and uninspired fantasy story. I have tried everything to make the story work. I've changed the setting, I've changed the time, I've made bad characters good and good characters bad, but nothing works. To be honest, I can't even tell you why Lunar and Will need these damn pendants so much, but I know the story falls apart without them.

So I understand Stephen. I understand this obsession with a story. And I can even forgive him three hundred pages of would you please get to the point already because I'm sure that, if Lunar ever deigned to tell me what it was I needed to be writing about, there'd probably be parts where I just had to get through it, be it good or bad writing in the end. (If it's me writing, it already defaults at "pretty awful.") My only hope is that, if I ever get to chasing my pendants like Stephen chased his Tower, I can manage to create a story that is as moving and heartbreaking and simply touching in parts as his (and Roland's) own.

...okay, so nobody read that at all, but that's fine. Hi Mom! Hi guys! I'll be back three weeks from today.

Okay, scratch the last entry.

My mother is CRAZY. Thank you so much, Mom! I really cannot express how thankful I am. This is probably the biggest package I have ever received in my life, and there's SO much inside -- I have been so starved for any sort of fattening American food that I thought for a brief second "I hope I don't eat this all in a week," but, uh, that's a little impossible. My God, Mom. I'm really giddy with happiness, you're the best!

(Just so everybody knows the scope of this package, my mother sent me, amongst other things, THIRTY SNACK SIZED BAGS OF CHIPS and a FIVE POUND BAG OF CANDY. This is absolutely crazy.)

I love you, Mom!

There is nothing more frustrating...

...than the USPS website telling you the package your mother spent a fortune sending you has been delivered to the campus mail facility but still not having it.

Except perhaps the USPS website telling you it is there and you being completely disallowed (thanks to the seemingly endless rules and regulations here!) to even go try and check yourself, even though the people who have to check for you refuse to even, you know, TAKE A NAME to look for on the package.

I know I shouldn't be upset, but I am, because my mom spent a lot of money to get that package to me, and I'm so sick of being unable to do anything for myself here. I know it's only been three weeks, but I'm so used to being able to take care of my own business that this helplessness is beyond frustrating.

I'm also emotional because my period is still hanging around. I cried at that stupid badly written Steven King book. I had to even put it down.

Augh.

If nobody can find it tomorrow, I'm just going to be pissed, and I don't care if I come off as the pushy American, somebody is going to have to find some sort of answer.

A Basket Full of Wishes

Today, my girl students asked if I could teach them some Japanese instead of stale old English, so I ended up giving an impromptu lesson on very basic Japanese. Doing it, I realized intensely that I really, really, really love teaching JSL. I don't care for ESL very much, although I'll do it, but since I've been a native English speaker all my life, I don't actually understand the structure and logic of the language as much as I should -- also, it's just not particularly interesting to me. Japanese, however... my God, I love the language, I love how it is structured, I love how it sounds, I really love everything about it. I love how it makes my brain work. And teaching it, even for a really brief time, was more fun than almost anything else I'd done since I came here. I know I'm here to teach ESL, so I'll continue to teach ESL, but it was a nice little eye-opener.

Maybe I chose the right path after all.

I really think, with my particular temperament, teaching is one of the few things I could actually consider a calling. I always wanted to be a writer, but writing is such a solitary practice; I used to be a very solitary person, but that's changed a lot in recent years, and now I find myself constantly craving company. I love to learn, and, when I love the subject, I love to share what I've learned, or discuss ideas I've gotten from my learning.

I can't believe I have a five year plan now. I never used to be this sort of person. (There is, admittedly, something very comforting about it, however.)

My 23 DAY PLAN, however, includes:
- finish reading freaken Wizard and Glass, my Lord, this book never ends!
- start reading Wolves of the Calla
- ...finally, finally, finally finish Final Fantasy 3/6 for the SNES, my Lord, I hope my emulator doesn't screw me over THIS time. Every time I've ever gotten close to the end of the game, both on my SNES and on my PC emulators, the game always glitches! I will never get to see the half hour long ending.
- watch some of the stuff I've downloaded, including an embarrassing amount of movies everyone else in the entire world has already seen a thousand times but I've never seen once (like, uh, Shrek. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I suck.)
- keep up with watching Canadian Idol? Thanks, Internet!

I've been losing a really stupid amount of weight here. I think it has more to do with actually spending a lot of time outside than what I've been eating, since I've been eating a lot of fried crap here (noodles and dumplings are the only things I can successfully identify and ask for here, so there you go!) I don't really care, but it's a little frustrating because now all my pants are starting to fall off of my waist. I wish I'd thought to bring a belt. You can't really tell by looking at me, but it's a little annoying to be losing a size when you're still ten sizes larger than any stores carry in the area. I'm sure PIZZA AND MEATBALL SUBS will solve this problem right away once I return to America, mmmm.

Pizza, meatball subs, and A THOUSAND TUBS OF BEN AND JERRY.

I hope you're all writing this down!

Bored and Hormonal in China, Part Two

You are all really lucky, since I was just writing an extremely long and self-obsessed entry about how one song on Kelly Clarkson's otherwise terrible new album made me think about the absolutely dismal status of any private emotional life I'm supposed to be having by the age of 23, but I thankfully snapped back into consciousness three pages into my angst fest and deleted the entire thing. It's no great loss, really. If you really want to know, ask me again in 28 days, when this always suddenly becomes a major issue, and I'm sure you'll have me whimpering and whining all about it at you.

I see no great benefits to this "being a woman" thing.

China is... still pretty boring! This weekend was oppressively hot and I was pathetically sore, so I spent most of it inside, chilling (quite literally, thanks to the air conditioner). Not that there's much to do otherwise, especially for a foreign girl who doesn't speak Chinese. Everybody is studying for exams, so I couldn't drag people out to the city, and really, it felt nice to just spend some down time, especially since I was feeling so cruddy. Maybe next weekend I can finally find the Pizza Hut downtown! (If only I knew how to GET downtown in the first place.)

But, it's nice. I've decided to treat this as a random international vacation; I get some experience pretending to teach English, and I otherwise just get to watch movies and read books and, uh, surf whatever websites I'm allowed to surf at that particular time. (We've had a week of Wikipedia access, which has been awesome, let me tell you.) I kinda want to do a little bit more in the time I have left, but God only knows what, and the heat is so killer here that usually the only time I feel up to doing anything is when it's night, which is a little counter-productive. I still have time, though.

23 more days.

I demand pizza and meatball subs upon my return.

I bought a bike!

Today I finally was able to buy my bicycle. The bike, lock, and basket all together cost 190 yuan -- or 25 dollars. It is ridiculous. It is a really good bike, for China, at least, much sturdier than the other ones I see around campus. The funniest part of it to me, however, is that after I bought the bike, I noticed that the side of it said "かぜのマぴお" in Japanese. God only knows what Mapio of the Wind is, but naturally I ended up buying the bike with the broken Japanese on it. Naturally.

Pictures forthcoming once my mother's ridiculous package gets here. This is a shout out to my Mom, who took the small list I gave her of things I wanted and ended up sending me a package that sounds nothing short of amazing. I love you, Mom! You didn't need to do that, seriously!

(That gives me one week to drag myself through the end of this book.)

Life in China feels pretty good today. Walking back from the little convenience store on campus (I needed bottled water badly), I heard the sound of the frogs mingling with the crickets in the grass, and for the first time in my paranoid little life, it actually sounded soothing to me.

This weekend, if we have it free, I am totally going shopping and nobody is going to stop me. (There is a Pizza Hut somewhere in this city! I must find it!)

Bored and Hormonal in China

Q: What do you get when you mix one (1) Melissa, a heaping of hormones, and way too much free time in a China-shaped bowl?

A: ...hour-long blocks of Mariah Carey's "I Don't Want to Cry," apparently.

How is everybody in the rest of the world doing? I started this blog in the hopes of having tons of really exciting stories to tell all of you, but, really, life in China is sometimes even more monotonous than life in small city America. I have the feeling that I'm learning a lot, but I'll be damned if I can actually pinpoint a single thing I've learned since coming here -- well, with the exception of how to ask for "two yuan worth of dumplings" in Chinese.

We still have four (!!) more weeks left here, though, so maybe I'll have some interesting stories or self-absorbed epiphanies to share at a later date. Until then, you'll have to cope with a thousand entries of "I'm bored!"

I'm bored!

China is very muggy. China is humid beyond anything I've ever dealt with in New York, and New York is a very, very humid place. I've worn my hair up every single day since I've landed here, since the humidity turns my already stupidly thick hair into some sort of pseudo-diagonal afro. China's mugginess is pretty uncomfortable to walk for long distances in, and the night does nothing to ease that; that, combined with the lack of outside lighting at night has pretty much destroyed any ability of mine to take nighttime strolls, one of my favorite hobbies in America (in particular, Albany). Hence, once the sun goes down, I can either stay in my room or... stay in my room. I'm not complaining, really, but that's why you see so many bored entries, especially at night. (I heard the time stamps were weird on my entries here -- for the record, it's almost 10pm here.)

Today Joyce and I began teaching some more structured classes. They're... well, I'm not particularly crazy about them. The lessons we have to teach are really dry. I feel bad for the four kids stuck sitting in our classrooms (especially when I'm at the front of it) while we read really boring stories about "Johnny the Explorer." The bright spot of the day was the impromptu talk we had about Japan instead of doing more boring Reading Comprehension lessons; it was the first time I'd heard any Chinese person here talk about Japan in any manner even beginning to resemble positive (or at least not scathingly negative; the impact of Japan's war crimes here remains strong even now), and since Japan is actually something I know a lot about (and I hadn't been the one to initiate the conversation in the first place), we ended up managing to have a decent conversation for a while.

Tomorrow I supposedly get a bicycle. I'm very excited. On foot has to be the least effective means of transportation in China. (I hope I can get a pink one.)

Otherwise, though, I'm pretty bored. So, everyone, tell me, how are you all doing? What's up? Am I missing anything big in your lives? How about LiveJournal drama? Any of that? What do you recommend for me to watch while I'm here, since the (one) plus side of Chinese Internet, the desolate, blogless place it may be, is that nobody monitors music or video downloads, so give me your recommendations! Really, just drop me a line and say hi; my e-mail has been acting a little funky here, but I swear I'd love you forever. Seriously.

Now, to end this entry (and turn off this damn song) before I start waxing poetic about, I don't know, socks. Later!

One More Month and Other Stories

I've actually been trying to write this entry for a few days now, but whenever I do, something comes up and distracts me one paragraph into it. So I'm going to try and keep it short for now, because any entry is better than no entry, I think.

Joyce and I went to teach at some place called the "Youth Library" on the weekend. It was... a rather interesting experience, to be quite honest. We were teaching English using the "DD Dragon" program that the school favored, which isn't my favorite program by a long shot, but what can two volunteers do?

Saturday's classes were terrible for me. I had to teach three of them, and of the three, only one had the occasional moment of cooperation. The kids were very young in all of the classes, and it was obvious that none of them had any real interest in English; they were there before their parents thought it was a good idea, but all they really wanted to do was beat the living crap out of each other and play. To my great horror, the Chinese TA with me didn't really do anything as the students climbed out of their desks and began trying to pummel each other with their chairs and whatever else was nearby. It made me really wish that I spoke Chinese, because, classy or not, I would have loved to give them a verbal smackdown.

Sunday was much better. The classes were well-behaved and funny, and I was able to keep much better control of the class. I really enjoyed teaching on Sunday.

There's been other small things going on. Today is supposedly the Dragon Boat Festival, but I have no idea what that actually entails for us university people. I've been meeting and chatting with some people, but really, life is slow and fairly chill here in China.

As of today, I have one more month left in China. I'm starting to get a little lonely again, but I think that's just because of the dreams I keep having. So, you all need to leave me alone in my dreams so I can try and enjoy my mosquito bites a little bit more, okay? Hahaha! In other news, I also had a dream where I absolutely had to go to Singapore or else (Jenjen?), but when I woke up and just curiously looked at airfares, I learned that it's more expensive to fly to Singapore from China than it is from America. (Same with Japan as well.) Logic, sigh.

I'll leave you with one thought: Steven King's writing in Wizard and Glass was actually really, really awful, and I can't decide if it was on purpose (to show the grandiose immaturity of teenage love) or not. All I do know is that the book goes on forever.

Oh, Lordy.

Our adviser has found us a job teaching English to little kids on the weekends. It looks like it can be up to ten hours on Saturdays, though, so I'm a little overwhelmed, but I'll try my best!

If any of you have magic English teaching games, now would be the time to let me know.

Can somebody please explain to me the meaning behind this?

You are all extremely lucky that my camera is claiming it has a low battery, because otherwise you would all be forced to look at a picture of my poor, eaten up leg. These Chinese mosquitoes are vicious! They ignored me for a week and I thought I was safe, but today I have about twenty fresh bites on the back of ONE of my legs -- probably more if I wanted to count, but really, all I want to do is ITCH ITCH ITCH, AUUUGH, WHYYY.

A lot more interesting things happened today, but at the moment I am merely focused on owowow WHYYYYYYY. And I wore pants today, too, what gives?!

Ups and Downs

Today has been a day of extremes.

I woke up this morning feeling irritable and fairly miserable, both physically and emotionally. I was strongly pushed into going to the foreigners' Chinese class in the morning, but it is so above my level that there is no way it can be helpful; the weather was groggy and miserable, and all I wanted was to see my mother and my friends. I was also dropped the bomb that we might lose all Internet access "next month," which, while not specified, could mean as early as July 1st, which is not what I wanted to hear. I don't care about my dorm net, but I want to at least be able to check my e-mail from the library every now and then. Also, um, to be a bit TMI, one of my major medical concerns last week decided to completely reverse itself, so I was feeling incredibly sick both in body and in heart.

Another five weeks seemed almost too long, and I wanted to go home.

Yesterday we began "teaching," although it isn't at all what I had been expecting. Instead of the entire classroom full of pupils last year's students had, we have a whopping.... three. Two are high school girls with a decent amount of English, but the third is a boy who has lived most of his life in France of all places, and hence doesn't speak English or Chinese very well.

This, as I'm sure you can imagine, is a bit of a problem.

Yesterday was fairly awkward, and the conversation ran slowly. Today was much better, however. I came in alone, since my partner was busy helping a friend translate some impossible speech, and I immediately dove into conversation with the girls (the poor boy is a lost cause, and you can tell he is only there because his parents wanted him to have something to fill some time up with). We talked about politics, 9/11, music... it just went very well, and I had such a good time that I left feeling happy and not utterly miserable.

China makes me feel bipolar, but I know enough now to know that if I wait long enough, I'll usually feel better. (We'll see how this goes, however, if I'm left without Internet for 19 days. I will begin demanding phone calls!)

I have started keeping an album of my photographs on Facebook, although supposedly you can see them even without an account here. If this link doesn't work, however, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'm a pretty awful photographer, so most of the shots stink, but there's a few keepers. Maybe. I'm not promising any miracles, however.

Thanks for all the comments! I wish I could respond to them, but while I can post in my blog, I can't actually see it (blogs are dangerous!). I'm especially missing LiveJournal, so if anybody knows of a decent proxy, be sure to let a girl know, okay?

Much love to all of you from the other side of this world.

Here's an understatement for you:

It is very rainy in China.

I am soaked to the bone from the rain. I have never seen rain like this before. It blows from all directions, so even if you try to protect one part of your body, the rest end up soaked.

The backs of my pants are almost pitch black.

I... did not start teaching today after all. Someday "soon" is what we're being told. Everything is soon in China -- we will have dorm Internet "soon," we will start teaching "soon," we will be reimbursed "soon." I can live with soon, though. Life is just slower here.

Whenever I travel, one of the things I notice most about myself is my sense of time. I always feel a need to be somewhere or doing something, and I need to know exactly what I need to do and when it needs to be done. I hate having huge blankets of free time, because I stress out that I should be doing something instead. I'd say a good 99% of my impulse buying, in general, stems out of me having too much time on my hands. Likewise, I attribute my better performance in school to, amongst other things, my harder schedule; the less time I have to just putt around, the more time I keep cracking.

That is not China, though. China is slow. China is slow, and relaxed, and extremely, extremely rainy. Maybe in other places it isn't so laid back, but at Wenzhou University, at least for the foreign students like myself, life moves at a slow, casual crawl.

I think I can come to like that.

another hazy morning

I am so bored. It is 9:20 in the morning here, so nobody is doing anything here, but I pay my fifty cents to use the Internet for two hours and nobody is online either! Where are all you people? Why are you off having lives? Come online immediately to talk to me! (Or at least send me e-mails, because two hours without LJ to waste time on is suddenly a very long time.)

In other news: I now cannot access the Thai w-inds. BBS. This is a little silly. I haven't had problems with it these last few days, so maybe it'll clear up later. But no LJ and no ridiculous pictures of miserable Japanese boys means I really have nothing to do. Oh, woe is me.

I will be updating with a million pictures once I have dorm net. Yesterday, a group of us went up to the mountains to pick waxberries, which are Wenzhou's delicacy. Yes, I climbed a mountain full of insects and buzzing things and did not freak out. I really didn't know I had that in me, so I'm really happy! I am now a few significant shades darker than I was before, but I still look pasty. How does this work, can anybody please tell me?

I am extremely hungry because I have had very bad luck with the cafeteria this past 24 hours. I was called off on this field trip to the mountains minutes before I went for lunch yesterday, and by the time I was ready for dinner, all they were serving were pork meat buns. I had one, but then they closed, so no more food for me! This morning I went to eat some more and they had nothing out yet, so I'm just batting a thousand here, I'm sure. (Well, to be technical, now I'm just batting another damn mosquito away -- these things are vicious here!)

Well, I still have one hour left to sit here and do nothing, so I guess I better get started on that. Take care, everybody! Please feel free to comment on my blogspot account or e-mail me at karupin@gmail.com.

Post the Second

Hi, it's me again, posting from the Internet, well, cafe of sorts. It costs 2 yuan an hour to use the net at this place (we're waiting on our net to be switched on in the dorm, which will happen "sometime next week" apparently), but since 2 yuan is about 25 cents, it's really no big deal at all. Some other crazy sample prices: I have a cell phone here with a monthy fee of 24 yuan ($3), which includes 150 free text messages and free calls within China and free incoming international calls, I bought a huge bath towel, chopsticks, Diet Coke, and an enormous thing of body wash at an expensive store for 90 yuan (about $11), my laundry detergent cost 2 yuan (25 cents), and my meals yesterday cost, together, a whopping 10 yuan ($1.30). The only thing I did get ripped off on was my cell phone, which is very old and has no real functions but cost 280 yuan ($38). However, I think I can afford it given the slightness of the rest of my purchases here, and since I really needed a phone that could handle a Chinese SIM card (my American phone could not, sadly).

Today is going much better than yesterday; well, to be more specific, the last half of yesterday and first half of today is going much better than the first half of yesterday did. I spent a lot of time with some of the other international students yesterday, which was a great deal of fun, and today I started making Chinese friends, despite the ridiculously poor nature of my own Chinese. I am feeling much better than I did yesterday, and I managed to find food that will not kill my stomach, so all is well in Melissa land!

That said, I have free incoming international calling, so if anybody wants my number, please leave me a note in the comments with your e-mail address!

I'll write more later or tomorrow, most likely. Thanks to all of you who commented on my last entry. It made checking my e-mail excellent!

I'm here!

I am only just able to update, so please forgive me the lag! I'm in China and still trying to get properly situated; I will admit to having probably the worst case of culture shock I have ever experienced in my life, and I am so ill that this morning I was certain I'd have to come home to go to a hospital, but I'm going to try and work through both things as much as I can. I have limited Internet access at the moment (and, as I suspected, no way to get a hold of LJ), but please feel free to send me as many e-mails as you desire, since they'll help -- a lot. Once there's Internet in my room, I'll be sure to post a lot more (and with pictures!), so please give me some time. I love you guys, and I'll talk to you all later.