When I feel stressed out, sometimes I suppose that my mind tries to find something else to distract me.

For example, for the past couple of weeks…maybe the past few, I’m losing track of time these days…. I have been stressed out about a variety of decisions that needed to be made. (I’ll explain some of this soon when I can say more for sure)
This explains why I haven’t been posting here at all. It’s not due to a lack of significant events or extraordinarily dull days (something either amusing or frustrating happens here on a daily basis, to be honest. I’m certainly not short of material); it’s just because I have been too distracted to even think straight.

That’s where the problem started.
My tooth began to hurt.
When I ate something sweet, it seemed to hurt. I kept thinking about cavities. The more I thought about it, the more it hurt. Therefore, it seemed logical to me: I must have a cavity- maybe three or four! The pain increased. I Googled tooth cavities and examined my teeth in the mirror. I was absolutely certain that I saw one and then another two possible cavities further back in my mouth.
If you know me at all, you know that I am absolutely terrified of needles. I couldn’t really tell you why, I just know that the sight of one, even on television, makes me sick to my stomach, weak in my knees, and more than just a little shaky. It’s embarrassing. Truly embarrassing.
(Does anyone else out there have crazy fears like that, or is it just me?)

Well, I’ve had one filling my whole life and I hated it. I really hated it. The needle in my gums was by far the worst part. I had no idea they were going to do that. So, needless to say, the idea of needles and a filling in China worried me. I could just leave it until I get home, but what if it got worse?

Kate finally suggested that I talk to our friend/co-teacher/new waiban’s assistant, Mary (not her real name, that’s just her English name) and ask her to take me to get my teeth simply looked at. Kate is so smart sometimes.
So Mary and I headed out to the dentist. About four or five yuan later, I was sitting in a dentist’s chair and a Chinese woman was poking around my teeth and explaining things to Mary. I, frustratingly, could not understand a word and also couldn’t ask for a translation when I had a metal stick-thing in my mouth. Somewhere at the end of her comments, I heard “mei you” which I took as a good sign. (It means “don’t have”)

Turns out….absolutely nothing wrong with my teeth.
In fact, they clean teeth there, but they recommended that I not even bother with that because my teeth don’t even need cleaned (not what I’d hear from a dentist in the States, I’m sure). She just said there are some spots in the back that could develop into cavities if I’m not careful, but to be honest, I’ve heard that for years. (I guess these things don’t get better)

Funny enough, my toothaches seem to have disappeared since then. Odd, eh?

I guess that just goes to show how ridiculous I can be when I’m under stress.

More later.
This time I really promise.
(If any of you believe me anymore!)

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Now playing: AIR - Alone In Kyoto
via FoxyTunes

A few weeks ago, I was giving some students advice on improving vocabulary and pushing them past their basic English skills. I told them to read the world news and to give them an example, I opened up www.cnn.com and clicked on the first article that was related to China.
This is what came up:

An Article on Pollution and Cancer in China

After reading it, one of the students gasped in astonishment and then said “That’s the river that runs through my hometown! It’s very close to my home!”

I guess that was a good lesson on why people should keep up to date on the news.

I found an article recently on the New York Times website that I think is definitely worth reading. It’s all about China, industrialization, and the pollution that is occurring as a result.

Here in China, when the topic of pollution comes up, the most common response that I hear (I’m not sure what others hear elsewhere) is that China is a developing country and as countries like the United States and Great Britain developed, they too created serious environmental problems, but they didn’t do anything to remedy the situation until after they had modernized and developed. China is still in the process of developing now.

However, one thing that is very clear from statistics is that China seems to be creating a lot more pollution and at a much faster pace. I suppose that when G.Britain and the U.S. developed, there probably wasn’t anyone really measuring their factory emissions though. Earlier today, Kate pointed out that at that point in time, the scientific knowledge and techniques had not yet been created to control and reduce the amount of pollution. Yet, today we have that technology.

Well, I’ll share the link to the article and let you see for yourself. I’m not sure how long this link will be good, so I’m sorry if it’s gone in a week or so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html

Well, it’s been a terribly long time between posts.
Sorry about that.
There isn’t much time for this one either, so I’ll try to keep it short.

Summer holiday…

Well, I spent the first week of it in Longzhou, just hanging out while Kyle gave his final exams. That was pleasant and relaxing. (for me, not him)

Then, the next few weeks were spent in Yizhou. It was incredibly hot and humid, as expected, so most days were spent indoors and in the evenings we went out and explored more of the city. I saw bits I’ve never seen before…that was fantastic.
While we were there, a few teachers came from America for a summer course. I had heard from students who had taken a similar summer course, actually, from my understanding, they were from the exact same organization, so I knew what it was about. Kyle and I tried to invite them to do things with us- we were happy to have other Americans and other Christians around and we were hoping that they wouldn’t mind spending time with us. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were willing to take us up on our offers, but they never reciprocated. We heard afterwards from my friends at the school about parties and all of the fun they were having. Honestly, that wasn’t really the most annoying part. The frustrating thing was how open we were with them and how they most certainly lied to us. It seems like an entirely unchristian thing to do. On top of that, they actually took people to the river to do something that’s illegal in China. That maybe makes sense in some places, but in Yizhou there is a great church community and a way to go about all of that without doing anything illegal. I personally don’t see why you would do that kind of thing outside of a community of believers when the option is there. Since they were only there for three weeks, I hope that they remain in contact with the Chinese that they took to the river because there are going to be questions…
They were really nice people, these Americans, so I wish them well, I just wish that as Christians they would have been willing to work with us, rather than so obviously trying to work separately and almost against us.

Anyway, after that, Kyle and I headed to Guilin. Kyle headed on to Hong Kong from there so that he could meet his parents and two youngest siblings. I stayed in Guilin to wait six days for them to come into China. I planned to stay in a nearby village with a friend who is a student at my school, Jane, then I would stay in a hotel in the city and hang out with Lizzy, a friend who is a chemistry student.

Jane’s family was absolutely wonderful to stay with. While I was there, I actually ended up going to the hospital for was basically a type of food poisoning. It was horrific. I’ve never felt so much pain in all my life. I actually wasn’t sure what was going on. I ended up having an ultrasound (to check for stones), a painful blood test (really unsanitary too….there were drips of bloods from others before me scattered across the counter!), a shot in my butt, and an iv for three hours. I don’t know what the shot was for, what was in the iv, or what any of the four medicines I had to take afterwards were.
The whole experience was stressful, and I don’t want to even start on how this hospital would never, ever, ever be up to standards in the States.
I survived though, and I did get better, so I guess that means they knew what they were doing.
After talking to a nurse at home through my mother, I found out that I had probably eaten something with bacteria in it a week or so before going to the hospital, but I had been taking stomach meds, and that was just covering up the symptoms, not curing anything, so it just got worse and worse.
Well, that’s mostly over with, but I’ve had stomachaches off and on since then, but they said it’ll be a couple of weeks until I’m completely back to normal. I’m not going to lie, I tried to be brave, but it’s tough being in pain and not knowing what’s going on.

Other than that, things have been good. Jane and I got a chance to go to Merryland, an amusement park in Guiln. Then I went to Lizzy’s cousin’s wedding, then Kyle’s family arrived.
Since then, we’ve been traveling….spent some time in Guilin, then the rice terraces in longji (my 4th time there), Yizhou, now Longzhou. Tomorrow we leave for Nanning and we’ll fly from there to Shenzhen and then we’ll go to Hong Kong. Kyle’s family flies out on the night of the 13th and on the 14th, Kyle and I will go to Nanchang to visit Lucretia (the awesome woman that we had our training with to come to China), then four days in Beijing, and then we head to the Amity conference in Nanjing.

Then it’s time for a second year of teaching in China!

I haven’t updated photos lately, but hopefully I’ll have a chance at some point. I’ll try to be better at posting on here and responding to emails during the rest of the summer holiday.

On Saturday morning, I wanted to go to Bai Long Park (White Dragon Park). So I sent a message to Wendy, a student here that I’m friends with. We decided to head over to the park, but then we discovered that it was closed (for the fourth time!) because of the danger of falling rocks from the mountain.
So we headed to the square instead and we thought about climbing the mountain.
Well, for anyone who has ever been to Yizhou before, climbing the mountain in the late morning heat is a hideous idea, so we changed our minds. Instead we took a fantastic rambling walk through the countryside. We wandered around rice paddies, scruffy dogs, cows and calves, and a glass factory. We even spend a bit of time sitting with a little boy, his mother, and their family of pet cats. It was lovely.

Unfortunately… I remembered to wear sunscreen, but I forgot to put it on my shoulders. As a result, I have a terrible burn on my shoulders. Alas. That is a lesson for the future!

This morning, another friend, Lizzy, went with me to the hospital. Before you get too worried, Chinese people go to the hospital whenever they’re sick. I’ve had a sore throat for the past couple of weeks that has just gotten progressively worse. (probably just got whatever Kyle had in Vietnam) I felt terrible yesterday- my throat hurt when swallowing, eating, and pretty much all the time. I didn’t really want to go to a doctor, but I was in a lot of pain so I finally decided that perhaps I should attempt to go to the hospital.

So after an hour in the hospital, and 54 yuan later, I’ve got to take 21 pills a day for four days and I’ve got something horrible I’m supposed to eat every couple of hours and then I should be much better. Also, I’m supposed to change my diet- absolutely no spicy food and fried rice only twice a week at most. The doctor also said that I need to do as little talking as possible for the next five days or so. This should be interesting. The hospital itself was quite a bit different from the hospitals at home. Cement floors, tile only half-way up the walls…very peculiar. Not really all that bad, but not a whole lot like a hospital at home. I’m not big fan of hospitals and doctor’s offices to begin with though.

So I’ve just returned from my first official visit to a doctor to have something checked out.
Last term I had an injection at the school clinic, but that doesn’t count. The scary part about that is that I’m not entirely sure what that injection was for!

However, I have apparently been bitten by some horrible sort of bug. Then, the matter was complicated by the fact that the bite got infected. Lots of fun, I assure you.

I was extremely hesitant about going to see a doctor. I don’t know how many of you are in China now or have been to China before, but I must tell you something that I have observed- they give every patient an IV, seemingly regardless of what they’re there for.
Well, those of you who know me are probably aware that I have a ridiculous fear of needles, basically a phobia. Therfore, the mere thought of a needle stuck anywhere in me, makes me tear up and shake a bit. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to a doctor unless I thought I might die.
It didn’t seem to be a near-death moment, but I’m going to Vietnam on Sunday, and the last thing I want is to get sick from a bite when I’m not anywhere near home.
I decided to just tough it out and see what happened. One of my wonderful coteachers helped me go to the clinic and show the doctor/nurse (not really sure what he is) my lovely bite.

He shook his head when he looked at it, then told me that it was infected and I should have come in as soon as I got the bite. Then he cleaned it out (which, I must say, was not the most fun) and gave me a couple of creams to apply for the next week until it gets better.
He either didn’t know what bug it was, or it couldn’t be translated, but it was made clear to me that I should be careful because there are many dangerous insects around this area. Fantastic.

I’m just glad that it’s taken care of now.

This afternoon, I’m heading out to Longzhou to spend a couple of days with Kyle. It sounds like the weather down there is fairly warm. It’s raining here right now, so the weather is just perfect. We’ve had a lovely mixture of rain and sunny days recently. I love a good rainstorm, and it keeps it from getting too unbearably hot here.