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.