the end.

wandering thoughts

I am writing this while I’m in class right now. My students are doing a worksheet to review for their monthly test on Thursday, and I am ridiculously bored. In fact, they are too. One of them just made a farting noise with his armpit. Gross.

Things here are fine, but busy. My Dad and brother are coming to Shanghai on Saturday, and I’ve got about a million and a half things to get done before they get here. Tomorrow I’m giving two monthly tests, and Thursday I’m giving two more. I have to have everything graded and in the computer by next Tuesday, but for obvious reasons I’d like to get it all done by Friday night.

Other than that, everything is pretty much the same. I teach from 8-4 (well, realistically I get to the office closer to 8:30/8:45, unless it’s Wednesday and I have to teach first period). And of course by saying I ‘teach full time’ I mean that I am in the classroom for about 20 hours per week and talking online and/or surfing the internet for the other 20 hours.

Anyway, it’s weird that I’ve got less than 6 weeks left here. On the one hand, it feels like I’ve been here for so long that most things have lost their shock value or surprise. It just feels so normal most of the time to be living in China. It’s gotten to the point where I know what to buy at the grocery store, I no longer am afraid to go places on my own (like my first 2 or so months here), and I don’t wake up every morning being like ‘oh yeah , I live in China. It’s just normal. Except last week when I opened my cab door directly into a guy on a bike. He was fine, but the cab door sort of wasn’t. The guy and the cab driver were both furious and I was the stupid foreigner who could say nothing more than ‘I’m sorry’ in Chinese, over and over. God that was horrible.

On the other hand (there’s always another hand, isn’t there?), being home for 5 days reminded me of the differences between here and there. Yes, you can get most things that you use at home here in China, and often for less money. But at home at the grocery store, there were so many more choices…so much more pre-prepared food (such as pre-washed salads, cut up fruit, frozen meals, granola bars, etc).. China IS dirty, and actually being able to see the stars at home made me more sentimental than I expected. Maybe that’s why I’ve been obsessed with the song “Passenger Seat” by Death Cab for Cutie lately. Or maybe I’m just weird. People are different, too. Manners in China are far different from in the US or other western countries. I’m looking forward to not being shoved while waiting in line for an ice cream. And granted, I’m writing about sort of trite differences between the two countries…I know that. But I don’t feel like writing more about the bureaucracy right now, partially because I’m lazy and partially because I don’t necessarily feel its effects every single day. Blah this is just me thinking while typing. sorry if it's not totally coherent.

It’s hard to give the thing that’s ending your full attention when you are rapidly and constantly preparing for the thing that is going to begin. In this case, I mean moving in with Mike, moving to Chicago, and law school. It’s hard not to spend so much time thinking about the future that you forget about the present.

That being said, I’m going to a great Indian restaurant tonight to celebrate my friend’s birthday. Today I found myself pulling a Travis from his senior year and telling one of my friends “You only have 6 more weekends to hang out with me.” So I’m going to do my best to be as social as I can and spend time with all of these people who have helped shape my experience so much. Plus, there are still tons of touristy things in Shanghai that I still have somehow managed to avoid. Hopefully I’ll get to see some of the stuff while my dad and brother are visiting. Anyway, that’s all for now.

um...ew.

after a long afternoon of shopping, we decided to further reward ourselves with a delicious mexican dinner at Taco Popo. It was decent (for chinese mexican food) and relatively cheap. Shannon got up to go to the bathroom before we left, as we were paying the bill.

As she was exiting the bathroom, she stopped short. I saw her stare in teh direction of the kitchen for a few seconds, before she turned to us and said, 'I just saw a rat.'

i tell you, nothing makes your meal sit in your stomach funny quite like that sentence. Ew.

a little stressed

Well, the May holiday came and went, and I had a great visit at home. Mike picked me up from the airport (he had a burrito from BTB waiting for me in the car) and basically from that moment forward we were busy nonstop. The visit included dinner with my family, dinner with his family, celebrating my mom's bday, hanging out with one of Mike's friends in Royal Oak, meeting Mike's grandpa, hanging out with Rebecca, me cooking fajitas, and culminated in an awesome birthday party for Mike on Saturday at his house in Ferndale. It was really awesome spending time with Mike (although 5 days is WAY too short a visit considering the amount of stuff we had to do), wonderful seeing my family (minus Gabe, who was busy in Chicago), and obviously fantastic to see so many of my friends. Even though a lot has changed in the past 8 months, at the core the people are the same, which is always comforting. I felt like my visit home was a nice little preview of what this upcoming summer might be like.

At this point, I have 54 days left in Shanghai. I should be super excited about enjoying my last two months here (well, a little less than 2 months) and taking full advantage of what the city has to offer me. Maybe it’s just the jet lag, and the fact that I’m crabby because of it, but I don’t know if I could be less excited about being here right now. Getting back into teaching was almost painful yesterday. But it’s really nice when my students do things that make me smile. For example, one of my students sits next to the window in English class, right by the chain to pull the blinds closed. He has a pencil case that is furry and is in the shape of a koala, and likes to make a noose for his koala out of the chain for the blinds. Perhaps it’s a bit morbid, but this kid is hilarious and so incredibly cute. Today he’s wearing a necklace that says ‘hot’ on it.

I’m definitely looking forward to my dad and brother’s visit. 16 days until that happens. Can you tell that I like countdowns?

I guess part of the issue is that I’m so stressed out about the law school situation. At this point I’ve turned down American and George Mason, deciding to send in a deposit only to Chicago-Kent (where I got the full-tuition scholarship). I’m currently waitlisted at U of M and UCLA, and technically at George Washington, if I send in the postcard saying that I want to stay on the waitlist. I don’t want to stay on the waitlist. I’ve had enough of waitlists. At this point, I wish I wasn’t waitlisted anywhere because I’m sick of waiting and I don’t want to have to make a decision if I do hear anything from either of those two schools. Yes, that’s a really immature outlook. But I am seriously so stressed out because my decision (which I probably won’t even have to make) will affect more than just me. I get super stressed out just thinking about it. Argh.

So anyway, it’s looking like I will probably be in Chicago next year, but it’s not 100% for sure. I wish I could say I was thrilled and excited about it, but there are just so many other ‘what-ifs’ that I’m having a hard time getting excited about anything. Blah.

I think it’s just hard being back here after having such a great week at home. I promise my next entry will be more uplifting.

trip to Beijing

The time is seriously going by so quickly. Last week went by fast cause we had mid-terms and half days which were filled with shopping.

Seriously, i've been doing so much shopping the past couple of weeks, it's sort of ridiculous. But what can I say, when's the next time I'm going to have this kind of disposible income and inexpensive purses and clothes to buy?

Anyway, Hayley and I left for Beijing on Friday, got picked up at the airport by someone from our hostel that we had booked, and pretty much just went straight to bed. Our friend Cindy had recommended the hostel to us, which was AWESOME. It was like a 5 minute walk from Tian 'an Men square, down this cute little ally-like street. We were exhausted, but decided to book the hostel's "Secret Wall" tour of the Great Wall for Saturday.

We left bright and early for the great wall. There were about 18 people total, crammed into two big vans. The drive out there took about 3 hours, and we had some glimpses of the other sections of the wall where TONS of tour groups were being taken. I was really relieved when we kept driving farther and farther away. The scenery was beautiful...it seemed like every tree ever was in bloom, with these delicate white/light pink flowers that smelled fantastic.

At one point, our van stopped in the middle of the road in a village we had come upon, and the driver started talking to some random guy on the street. Next thing I knew, he was motioning for me to move over (i was in the crappy fold-down seat next to the sliding door) and the random older chinese man climbed on board right next to me. Turns out, he was our 'tour guide.' He didn't speak a word of English.

So the vans dropped us off, and we started our trek up to the wall. That walk must have taken close to half an hour, all up hill. Super fun. When we got up to the wall itself, there were a few other people besides our group, but not many. it was an unrestored part of the wall, which means it was pretty dangerous...the stairs were all falling apart, the guard towers crumbling, etc. But wow, was it ever beautiful. All of my pictures of the wall and of Beijing are posted on my kodakgallery site.

So we started at one part of the wall and just continued hiking on it for a couple of hours, towards the village we had first stopped at. And, at one point, there was a guy with a table set up, selling souvenirs. How could I resist buying a "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt from a guy actually on the wall? It was only 15 rmb! I really loved walking on the wall and all the beautiful views, but I get deathly afraid when it comes to climbing down or walking down steep inclines. I am always convinced that I am going to go tumbling down to my death, something that would have been dreadfully embarrassing to do on the Great Wall of China. However, after only a few minor spills, we all made it safely down the mountain and to the village below, where we were served lunch. I was really impressed with my Great Wall experience...it was the first time that I saw a Chinese monument and didn't feel like I was in Disneyworld. It actually seemed legitimate. And really, if I could pick one thing to impress me, I'm pretty glad it was the Great Wall. That was one thing that I was hoping wouldn't disappoint me, and it didn't.

After cleaning ourselves up a bit when we got back from the Great Wall, we decided to go for dinner and drinks to this area called the "back lakes." I guess this one bar started it all, setting up shop on the lake, and scores of others followed suit. It took a little while to find a place with food in our price range, since it was literally just rows and rows of bars that all looked pretty much teh same from the outside with guys trying to get customers by saying 'pretty ladies, you want drink' and stuff. Finally we found a place that actually served food (they had a white board outside that said "FOOD" on it) and got some spring rolls and pizza. The bar was adorable, and even had a little kitten living in it, which we played with while we waited for our food. After dinner, we decided to check out some more of the bars, since itw as still early and everyone was promising us happy hour prices. The whole experience was pretty funny. We just went into one bar after another (i think we went to 6 total). Some were better than others...one served us mojitos that had tonic water in them...do they not know that there is no carbonation whatsoever in a mojito? Another served us a "pink lady" that consisted of milk, gin, and pink food coloring. I've never tasted anything so revolting in my life. Maybe if it had been sweet...but gin and milk...gross. We went to another bar in which we bargained for our drink prices. I swear to god you can bargain for anything in China...even cocktails, apparently. We finally found the original bar (called the 'no name bar') which served fantastic mojitos and had a very friendly and lethargic cat that sat on my lap while we had our drinks. Overall a lovely evening.

The next day (Sunday) we walked through Tian 'an Men square and went to the Forbidden City. I really wanted to see Mao's body, but the whole building was apparently closed for renovation. That was the first major disappointment of the day. So we went to the Forbidden City...and everything was coved in scaffolding. Second major disappointment of the day. You'd think they could maybe alert you before you walk in that they were doing major reconstruction (putting a whole new roof on one building and lord knows what to others), but no. And most of the rooms with "treasures" on display didn't even actually have any "treasures." just photos of the treasures. Maybe i've seen one too many Chinese temples/palaces, but I honestly wasn't that into the Forbidden City. Yeah, it was impressive...but the crowds were killing us, and to quote Hayley, "it's the same old shit." Everything is reconstructed, re painted, redone. Nothing really felt very authentic. After that we didn't really do much else on Sunday but go to a place called "Grandma's kitchen" for lunch and hang out at the hostel.

Monday was better. It got off to a slightly rough start with an obnoxious cab driver who wasted a lot of our time on the way back to Grandma's kitchen for breakfast, but the delicious food there quickly revitalized us. We headed out to the Summer Palace, which was absolutely incredible. I was nervous when we walked in and saw more scaffolding, but it ended up being really great. We got to see some Chinese dancers and instrumentalists on the Grand Stage, and spent a lot of time walking along the lake. I probably could have spent a lot more time at the Summer Palace, but we didn't want to get so exhausted that we wouldn't have energy to shop. You know, priorities.

So we headed back into town and went to the "Pearl Market." Believe me, they don't only sell pearls. If i'd had more energy, time, and money, I could have gone totally nuts there...as itw as, I bought a few gifts, a pair of fake adidas shoes, a fake chloe purse, a shirt, and some fake (?) mac lip gloss. The prices were definitely better than in Shanghai and the selection was quite different. Itw as pretty depressing walking through the shoe section and having everyone tell us that the biggest size shoe they had was 40. We both wear 42.

We went back to Grandma's kitchen for dinner (seriously, how were we gonna pass up good, cheap western food? we were still in the area!) and then called it a day. For me, that was the end of Beijing...i stayed in that night, although hayley went out with some people from the hostel. Our flight back Tuesday afternoon was god-awful, but at least I'm here safe now.

My overall impression of Beijing was a good one. There is tons of construction, and we heard one of our cab drivers listening to a tape to learn English. I wonder if they want more cab drivers to learn English for the Olympics? Maybe. The people in Beijing seemed a lot more friendly than the Shanghainese, but even so I was having a few 'i'm sick of living in China' days when everyone (seriously, everyone) stared at us all day long. I took photos with tons of Chinese tourists (at their requests, not mine), which is fun at first, and then gets sort of tedious. I bet celebrities really hate their lives sometimes.

Anyway, now i've only got 6 days until i'm home for my quick visit to see Mike for his birthday, and after that only 2 more months. crazy!

back from a hiatus

yes, it's been a freakishly long time since i've written. my apologies.

The past month and a half has pretty much been characterized by having a cold, going out to some good restaurants and bars, getting annoyed with my students, trying to plan my future, and watching tv shows on dvds.

You know when you have so much do say that you don't even know where to begin? I guess that's sort of how i'm feeling right now.

I guess i'll start with some stuff that's on my mind right now. I've been admitted to 3 law schools, and right now i'm leaning towards going to Chicago-Kent College of Law for various reasons, including the fact that they've offered me a full-tuition scholarship. I'm still waiting to hear from 2 schools and i'm waitlisted at 2 others, so it's still a little hazy as to where I'll (we'll) end up.

I'm coming home the first week of May for the labor day holiday in China. I absolutely cannot wait to see Mike (we're having a big birthday party for him while i'm home) and to enjoy all the good things about the US...like cheese, potable tap water, my car, etc. It might make it hard to come back here for my last two months, but I am SURE that my last 2 months here are going to go by so quickly-- just like the past 2 have. My dad and brother are coming to visit at the end of May, which i am SO excited about...and I know it's going to make the time go by even faster. So, my goal is to try to start seeing/doing all the stuff in Shanghai that i feel like i'll regret if i miss out on. For example....I'm spending serious amounts of time at the fabric market, because why would i pass up the opportunity to get any type of clothes i want made to fit my body? It's a good thing i'm coming home in may so I can bring home a load of clothes, etc. My suitcases are gonna be so full!

Next week is the midterm week, after which we have a 4-day weekend. My friend Hayley and I have decided that it's time for us to go to Beijing, since we're both leaving China in July. We're having some issues booking plane tickets (they are far more expensive than we expected) but we're going to stay at a hostel that is right next to Tiannamen square that our other friend stayed at, so that part of the trip should be cheap. I'm really excited to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City-- after spending so much time in Shanghai, I'm really craving some culture.

As for teaching, it's been sort of up and down. For some reason, this week I've been in a pretty good mood outside the classroom, but the second I walk into a classroom full of children, I am NOT happy. Maybe it's just that the kids are taking more liberties now that the weather is nice and they think they're my friends, so they're noisier...or maybe I've just had all I can take...but either way, it's gotten to the point where I had to make my 4th grade ESL students write "I will not hit, kick, or say mean things to other students" over and over in their notebooks for 20 minutes on Tuesday, and made another class sit quietly doing absolutely nothing for like 10 minutes. It's just really frustrating trying to control these kids sometimes.

That leads me to the girls I tutor. This semester, I started tutoring 2 girls, one on mondays for an hour and a half, the other on wednesdays for an hour. I charge 200 rmb per hour (that's about $25), so that's an additional 500rmb per week that I'm bringing in. It's pretty awesome, except that the girl I tutor for an hour and a half on mondays doesn't care about school AT ALL and succumbs to any and every distraction possible. And it's weird, I can stand in front of a whole class of kids and get them to pay attention and do their work, but one-on-one, this girl is just really difficult to deal with. Don't get me wrong, she's nice, but I knew things were going to be weird the first time when she started hitting my knee (which was crossed over my other leg) to try to test my reflexes the way a doctor does. Then she started touching my arm and asked me "Why you black?" because apparently i was a bit more tan than she was used to. She also likes to try to play with my hair, even saying one time "next week i bring comb." I couldn't believe it when I heard myself saying "no, don't bring a comb. we have to STUDY." On the other hand, the other girl I tutor is a perfect angel. Either way, I like tutoring. It's seriously some of the easiest money I've ever made.

I may or may not have made my first student cry yesterday when I spent quite a bit of time explaining what the word "flirt" means and then accusing him of flirting with the girl next to him. Oh well. It's so distracting, time they learned better than to be annoying about it in my class.

I was at the post office today sending my grandma a letter, and some random chinese guy came up to me and asked me where I was from and asked me if i spoke Spanish. He started saying all the Spanish words he remembered, like 'camarones' (shrimp), 'zapatos' (shoes), 'amigo' (friend) and some other random stuff. It was really bizarre.

Anyway, that's as much as I can handle for an update right now. More again soon?

...part 2

here is the continuation of my description of our trip. Unfortunately, I am sick in bed with a fever and chills, so my apologies if this entry is a little less upbeat than my last one.

So as I said, we found a beautiful hotel room even closer to the pier with a view of the ocean and right next to the pool. We stayed there for two nights. After settling our stuff in and taking a brief swim in the pool, we decided to go on a little hike to explore the island. We had asked several people about hiking trails (people in the dive shops, etc) and they all claimed that none existed. Mike's guidebook said they did, but we soon realized that his book was pre-tsunami. The tsunami really devestated Koh Phi Phi, but now, a little over 2 years later, you can hardly tell that there was any damage except for the huge amounts of construction around the pier. But, we decided to go for it, trails or not, and I'm so glad we did. We walked along the beach for a while, maneuvering through huge boulders. Eventually we decided to go inland, and did some nice walking through the woods, stumbling upon many tiny bungalow places with private beaches. That was more the sort of thing I was expecting when we came to Koh Phi Phi, but unless you really know how to find those places, it would be sort of impossible. Also...our one huge rolling suitcase wouldn't have been well suited to that hike.

Anyway, we got to one part of the path that we were on that was surrounded by trees. We both mentioned that we were on the lookout for monkeys in the trees, but hadn't seen any up to that point. However, it was our lucky day. Not long after saying 'i want to see a monkey,' we looked up and saw a whole family of monkeys in a tree not far from where we were standing on the path. I took a few pictures from afar, but Mike was more brave than I and climbed up the side of the hill off the path to get a closer look. One of the monkeys threw a piece of fruit at him, and at one point a big one was crouching not far from Mike and growling at him. I kept having visions in my head of those tv shows "when animals attack." Thankfully, nothing like that happened and we continued happily on our way, overjoyed at seeing monkeys in their natural habitat. After stopping for a refreshment at one of the bungalow places, we decided to head back to the beach to watch the sunset, which was beautiful (aww). After that, we took a long boat back to our part of the island, wandered around through the shops and restaurants, and I ended up talking Mike into going to one of the million massage places. He opted for a foot massage, while I opted for the traditional Thai massage. I liked some of the stuff the lady did that stretched out my leg muscles, but overall I wasn't really that into the Thai massage. Mike was even less impressed with the foot massage when the guy proceeded to spend half an hour scraping and filing off his caluses. So much for walking barefoot.

Our last day on Koh Phi Phi was even better. We got up and went for another hike, this time choosing to go to the viewpoint on the island. It was quite the hike, but well worth the 9 billion steps we had to climb. When we got to the top (we actually went to 3 view points, all of which offered a slightly different view), we had incredible views of the narrow part of the island that was the most severely damaged during the tsunami. At one of the view points, the guy who ran the little souvenir and refreshment shop had a book all about the tsunami, where we were able to see how much the island has changed since then. It was really fascinating. I really loved the hikes we took because it's not something I get to do that often, living in Shanghai. The closest thing to is is the Taiping hashes that I go on with my friends, but I've only been to 2 (and i'm going to my 3rd this saturday, provided that i'm healthy). The change of scenery from a filthy, smoggy city to tropical paradise was just what i needed.

After our hike and lunch on the beach, we decided that it was time to explore one thing that had really interested us about Koh Phi Phi-- monkey beach. I had read a little bit about it, but still didn't really know what to expect. Would there actually be monkeys there? Would it be a big disappointment? Needless to say, we were excited about the idea of feeding monkeys and decided to hire a long tail boat just for the two of us. Our driver was nice, and the boat ride over (which took about 25 minutes) was spectacular. The cliffs of Koh Phi Phi are really breathtaking, and the whole time we were there I felt like it was all a dream. When we arrived on Monkey beach, we were a little disappointed that there were so many other tourists, but pleasantly surprised that there were, in fact, monkeys. the beach itself was beautiful, with really soft, white sand. We decided to buy some bananas, which the monkeys gladly grabbed out of our hands and peeled themselves. Other tourists gave them coconuts, bags of watermelon seeds (which they opened themselves, and then cracked the seeds to eat what was inside), and other various types of fruit and candy that needed to be unwrapped. Unsurprisingly, these monkeys are obese. It's really actually pretty sad, because they just eat and eat all day long. But...that doesn't mean we fed them any fewer bananas.

Our taxi boat driver had told us that there were actually 2 monkey beaches, and that the other one was far less crowded. We bought some more bananas and asked him if he would take us there. He told us that it was low tide, and that he wouldn't be able to get the boat onto the beach, but that if we wanted to swim in to the beach from the boat, he would do that. So, when we got close enough, Mike was the first one to jump in the water. Our driver told us that we had to be very careful because there was so much coral (most of which was VERY sharp) and to wear our flip flops while we were swimming so that we could walk on the rocks when we got close enough. Sadly, Mike couldn't see what he was jumping into when he got into the water, and ended up cutting his foot up pretty badly on some coral. However, he was determined to get to the beach, and with a bunch of bananas in his mouth, he swam ashore. I followed suit, managing to steer clear of the sharp coral. When we got to the beach, we were greeted by a lot more monkeys than at the last beach, and these ones were a normal weight. Apparently not as many people come to this beach to feed the monkeys, and they were acting like they were starved. Mike and I fed them more bananas, but these ones were also a little more aggressive, as one actually jumped up on Mike's leg to grab a banana out of his hand. I couldn't believe it. Two other monkeys seemed a little upset with me that i didn't have any more food for them, and ran around my legs, scaring the hell out of me. Once out bananas were gone, we made the slow walking/swimming journey back to the boat, feeling like we had finally accomplished everything that we had wanted to on our vacation.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, and we left on the 9am ferry to go back to Phuket the next morning. Our last day of vacation didn't really feel much like vacation at all...we had like 6 hours in Phuket until we had to go to the airport, so we pretty much just ate lunch and went and hung out in an air-conditioned coffee shop for a while. We had timed it so that our flight from Phuket to Bangkok would only leave us with a few hours at the Bangkok airport before our flight back to Shanghai, and it worked out really nicely. Our flight left Bangkok at 1:30am, and it turned out that our flight was only half full, so we ended up with several seats to ourselves. Arriving back in Shanghai was uneventful, and the last few days of Mike's visit involved mostly sleeping and relaxing and a little bit of eating and drinking. The most touristy thing we did was go to the bar on the 87th floor of the Jin Mao tower for drinks and appetizers, which was really romantic and really fun.

Needless to say, it was hard to say goodbye. I can't believe i've already been in China for 6 months, and sometimes another 4 months seems like nothing...but saying goodbye at the airport always makes even hours or days seem like forever, let alone another 4 months. The semester has gotten off to a decent start so far, minus the fact that I'm sick in bed right now...I just hope i can strike a good balance of enjoying my time here while being excited about coming home and starting law school and my 'real' life.