A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That...

Preface

Well ni hao, zenmayang, etc. Yesterday, my dad asked me why I haven't posted another blog recently. I told him that nothing too exiting (tai xingfen) had been happening in my life recently (apart from being in China...hehe). Just now, walking back from Shiling town, I decided that I could probably think of a few new things to blog about. Then when I logged onto the TravelBlog website, there was an excerpt from Alistair Watter's blog expressing my own recent blog dilemma by defining some blogging terms. So I'll quote Watters below:

"Blog Lag
Blogging about events in the past, struggling to get back up to date, symptoms include: not being able to get past one event, looking for a way to describe it, forgetting the names or significance of certain photos. Writing an entry that just seems to end prematurely.

Blog Fatigue
Being bored of ones blog, not enough comments or messages, maybe just that nothing worth writing about seems to happen. Usually results in Blog Lag (see above)"
~Alistair Watters

These are the two factors that seem to be plaguing my blog recently. But anyway, on to a little bit of this and a little bit of that....

Refrigerator vs. Head

So, the other day, I decided to take on the slightly momentous task of rearranging my apartment. Since arrival here at CDU I have been in possession of a brand new large screen TV, given to me by the Wai Ban (Foreign Affairs Office). However, due to the fact that I wasn't raised watching TV and that even now I find it more of a task to watch something than entertainment, I had been keeping the TV in the corner of my bedroom as a clothes drying rack (or clothes piling facilitator, whatever the case on a given day). Another factor in the TV's banishment to the bedroom was that the location of the TV cable outlet was smack dab in the middle of where my couch had most recently sat. And given the position of the couch, every single piece of furniture (and I mean every) would need to be moved if the TV was allowed to venture into the living room. Despite this, my urge to watch the playoff games from the NBA finally provided me with enough rationale to move the TV out. So, on day one, I moved everything and was just about to move the TV out when I realized I couldn't find the TV cable. So, after searching for about 15 minutes with no luck, I decided there was no use in moving the TV out and not being able to turn it on. So everything got moved back (a few curse words were heard). Promptly after moving everything back, I found the cable. But, needless to say, I didn't jump right back into moving all the furniture--my momentum had waned. So, about two days later, I repeated the process. My desk is now in the window balcony area (where the refrigerator had been) The refrigerator is in the corner closest to the window, the TV sits betwixt the refrigerator, the couch is on the opposite wall, and my phone table is in the corner near the window opposite the refrigerator So, you're probably wondering what this has to do with the title for this paragraph...well, here you have it. Within an hour of moving things around, I went to grab something from the refrigerator which is now so close to the window balcony that the hanging curtains come out from behind it and get caught up on the door. I went to get an apple from the refrigerator and was standing in the door. I then gave the door a hefty swing to close it, but realized quickly that the curtain was going to be caught in the door. I moved in (a bit too slowly) to grab the curtain and the door caught my head on the side directly next to my right eye. Let me tell you: PAINFUL. It hit so hard. And I soon had a small goose egg about the size of a pencil eraser. This happened last Thursday, and today is the first day that I haven't had lingering pain. So, I wish I could some how attribute this kind of silly clumsy accident to something in the food here or in the water...but sadly (aside from the role played by the curtains), this is just the kind of thing that I seem to do on a regular basis. So, all of this was the result of moving the TV so I could watch the NBA, but I can’t program my TV channels (it’s all in Chinese), so I can’t even watch the NBA!!!! Makes the whole scenario even more classic…haha.

Four-Leafed Clovers

For those of you who don't know, back at Toad Lake, there was a small patch of clovers in front of our house door on the left-hand side. At almost any time, I could squat down in this little patch and find a four-leaf clover. And I seem to have a knack for finding four-leaf clovers wherever I go. I found one at my Grandpa Carl’s old house in Alpena, Michigan, and once on a trip to the Upper Peninsula, I found two five-leaf clovers within the same day (which is good, since five-leaf clovers mean death…finding two means they canceled each other out!). So, when I got to the CDU campus and found that much of the campus grounds is planted with clovers, I was sure that I was going to find a plethora of four-leaf ones since I’ve dubbed it my talent. However, after months of walking to class scanning the clover patches as I go, I hadn’t found even one. However, just last week, I found one, and then another. And then this week I found two more. I had almost given up on four-leaf clovers in China, but this just goes to show you that there’s a little luck everywhere.

May Labor Week

This week there has been no class because it is Labor Holiday in China (and apparently much of the world, but not the US). So, the campus is quite empty, as is Shiling town. Many students go home during this time to spend time with their families and travel. However, there are a good number of students still on campus. These are the ones that live in provinces that aren’t convenient to travel to when you only have a week off. During May holiday things like the post office close, but the shops and restaurants are still open. Since I haven’t had class, I’ve been doing things like sleeping in until 8:30—that was my record, can you believe it?! And then I still feel so ashamed. I’ve also taken a couple really good naps. Mostly, though I’ve used this reprieve from classes to do some necessary catch-up on lesson planning and for writing exams for my classes. I’ve also done some mandatory summer shopping and “spring cleaning” of my apartment. So, the holiday is wrapping up as Thursday looms. Then it will just be another regular weekend, getting ready for the week’s upcoming classes. But in all honesty, I crave structure, so I’m welcoming the return of classes and my schedule.

Tai Ri, Tai Ri

These words (Chinese, of course) are what my site mate hears me say so often that he probably wants to hit me. The words mean “too hot, too hot!” So just a short note about that: IT’S HOT IN CHINA! Okay, but seriously, it’s already 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and it’s only May. I have to be honest in saying that I’m not cut out for intense heat. I would love to hear what I would have been saying right now if I’d taken the Peace Corps Africa option that I had in addition to China—perhaps there would be some expletives added into the above phrase. Anyway, I keep telling my site mate, “Oh, I’m sure if I was in Africa or some place like that I’d adjust.” Then he just loses it laughing. We both know that’s a far stretch. I’d be a pathetic sweating mess. But we’ll see…maybe I can adapt. I’ll keep you abreast of the “tai ri” situation.

Favorite Summertime Snack

Just a short note…In the winter, one of my favorite snacks was a concoction that I dubbed “goo cups.” Those are highly unaesthetically pleasing, but highly tasty cups of goo (infused with pieces of dried fruit, large black tapioca balls (zhenzhu), and flavoring). The goo comes into being by having a bit of cornstarch liquid poured over the dried ingredients and then having hot water shot into from a “dragon cauldron.” The result looks like snot and tastes like warm gooey heaven to a girl like me. So, in the summertime, I’ve found my snack of equal appeal. The summertime snack is called bao bing (bing means “cold” but I’m not sure what bao means in this context). Basically, it’s like a fruit cup (pineapple, strawberries, and watermelon) on ice with the addition of different kinds of Jello squares, zhenzhu, red bean paste, and then topped with candied dried fruit, raisins, and sweetened condensed milk. For 4 RMB I get the big one and it’s ever so much fun and just what I want when the sweat is dripping off my nose as I walk down Snack Lane. So, there you have it: a full blog entry on nothing at all relevant.

Yet To Come

1.) I will have one of my students help me program my TV so that I can watch the NBA games
2.) I will have my last two classes on cross cultural communication in Thailand for the Communist Party officials (one session to include some basic Thai phrases)
3.) I will be the judge of yet another speech competition (there seem to have been about 17 in the past month…well, just two really, but this will now be the third within a month)
4.) I will continue to endure the heat (with a smile)
5.) I will mop my floor with the new high quality mop I just bought

You can see just how exciting things are around here currently!!! Hehehe.
All the best to everyone at home!

---

---