Well, time sure flies.
I haven’t written in a while and you may have noticed that some of my posts of ‘disappeared’.
I’ve got to be a bit more careful about what I write, so that had to be taken care of.

Anyway, I’m back once again.

For those of you who happen to check out my Flickr photos, you may see that I’ve been uploading (more to come) photos of all of my students. I just had midterm exams, so I’ve gotten a picture of each of them. Labeling them to post them up has been quite helpful as far as getting me to remember names and faces. Too bad I don’t have much time left.

Thought I’d share a quick humorous exam story. The freshmen, as one part of their exams, had to give a short (2-3 min) speech about themselves.
I was listening to one girl’s speech and suddenly she surprised me with this sentence:
“I’m not very good at intercourse.”
I’m sure that she didn’t mean it as I heard it, but wow, it was terribly hard not to laugh out loud at that one. I wrote in her comments that she might want to rethink that phrase, so I’m sure she’ll be asking me about it later this week.

This weekend, Kyle and I met up in Nanning. We’re planning a (very!) short trip to Vietnam at the end of the month, so I had to pick up my passport and visa.
It was incredibly hot there (I am absolutely dreading this heat…I despise humidity) and it seems, now that I am back, that the heat has picked up in Yizhou as well.
I had a fantastic time. We met up with other teachers that we know for dinner, we walked around the city, found real ice cream, (No joke! New Zealand ice cream for only 6 yuan per scoop. Anyone who’s in Nanning should look for it. It’s amazing.) working on wedding/marriage planning, and we visited the medicinal plant garden.
I’ll be posting photos on Flickr sometime this week. Perhaps tomorrow, if I get around to it.
One of the great things about the weekend was attending church this morning. We went to this church with other teachers last year and it was quite similar to other Chinese Christian churches. However, this time it was different. They had an English translation of the service! We got a headset and the translation was broadcast over the radio and into our headsets. It’s such a fantastic thing to know what’s going on rather than constant guessing. This is the first time I’ve sat through a service in Guangxi and had the whole sermon translated for me. I loved it.

Speaking of churches and China- I don’t think I ever remembered to post this article from last fall. I was contacted about the use of some of my photos for an article about Bible printing in China. It’s definitely worth your time to check it out:
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/01/03/godless_china_t.php

Ah, yes- and the BIG news-

I finally have plane tickets to go home! Huzzah!
On the morning on June 26th, I will be flying from Nanning to Beijing, then Beijing to San Francisco. I will stay there for a while and then on July 8th, I’ll fly from San Francisco to Texas (strange layover, if you ask me!) then from Texas to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It feels good to know when I’m getting home now.
To be honest, simply knowing that I have a flight makes me itch to get out of here.
It’s probably for the best that I didn’t have tickets earlier.

It’s going to be really hard to leave China, but for the moment, the idea of seeing people that I haven’t seen in nearly 2 years over-rides all of that.

The Chinese Postal system is not my best friend.
Not even close.

Let me just tell you one recent story…

I needed to send 2 pieces of paper to two different people. However, these papers a rather time sensitive, so I wanted to make sure they didn’t take eons to arrive.

One of my wonderful students, Shelly, accompanied me to the post office closest to the school.
We arrived at 4.40 pm. We were told that yes, they can send each of the envelopes for a shockingly low 3 yuan. However…they would take about 2 months to arrive.
So scratch that. The woman at the post office says that there are two more options. The next one cost 20 yuan or so and will take maybe 15 days, but maybe 1 month. OK, so 15 days is good, but 1 month is absolutely not acceptable. The last option she said will cost 100 and will be there in 10 days. That sounds much better. Pricey (for two pieces of paper!) but the timing is much better.

Then, it turns out that this post office actually doesn’t do that. So the woman called the other post office across town and asked them to stay open for us.
We grabbed a ’san ma’ (3-wheeled local transportation) and rushed over.
It took an hour to get the paperwork and get it translated and sorted out. Seriously. It should not have taken that long. Finally, they enter them into the computer system and take them to be sent out.
He turned to me and said “si bai wu shi yuan”

What???!! 450 yuan? You have got to be kidding. (you can google it to see the exchange rate. That is quite a steep price for just some papers, especially to someone whose bank account is not what anyone would consider ‘full’)

We are now past the point of no return. I can’t get my letters back, so I have to pay.
Embarrassingly, I didn’t have enough cash on me (who just carries that around anyway?) and I hadn’t brought my ATM card. Shelly offered to lend me the money and I had to accept her offer since it was my only option. (I did promptly pay her back the next day, for the record)

So, that is just one of my terrible moments with the Chinese Postal Service. I could honestly fill a book with annoying circumstances (like arguing with the employees that I don’t care if the vase breaks, I’m going to send it anyway because I am not going to lug the heavy thing home in a suitcase! or the time that they wouldn’t let me send a CD but the next time I sent chicken feet to the US without a problem)

Anyway, I’m not the only one who has these problems.
My fellow Amity teacher wrote a little poem about it for the 2005 Amity Echo (a newsletter for all of us out here) and she very kindly allowed me to share it with you.

Enjoy:

Ode To The U.S. Postal Service

When listing what I love the most,

I won’t include the China Post!

As Christmas gifts away must go,

The box I need tamen meiyou!

Nor can I pack the box myself;

It must be done by a Chinese elf.

I pay my mao for the manifold;

If I fill it wrong, the clerk will scold!

I took for granted, but now bewail,

The convenience of the U.S. mail!

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!)

—————-
Now playing: AIR - Alone In Kyoto
via FoxyTunes

It’s embarassing to have written a post promising more posts and then I completely disappeared for ages afterwards.
I’m quite sorry.

Here’s a quick update…

The term ended…a flurry of spoken exams, written exams, marking, turning grades in (after rewriting them countless frustrating times- I’m terrible at copying numbers by hand), and traveling.

First, Kyle, Kate, and I met up with Andrew and Lucretia (two other Amity teachers from the U.S.- they’re fantastic) in Yangshuo (the famous tourist town outside of Guilin). It was COLD. We spent the vast majority of our time indoors eating and watching DVDs on big screens in restaurants. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible way to spend several days. I had a good time.

Then, we traveling to Guiyang in Guizhou province for my last Amity Winter Conference. It was great to see folks, but somewhat bittersweet knowing that this is the last time I’ll see most of them.
The weather in Guiyang was hideous! Seriously cold and icy.
There was supposed to be a visit to an Amity project- a biogas thing. I was really looking forward to seeing how this works. However- the weather was too bad and most of the roads were closed, so that bit was cancelled and the conference ended early. Most folks were flying out, but they got stuck at the airport for days! Well, they ended up in hotels at night. Kyle and I thought we made a good choice by getting train tickets. Boy…were we wrong.
It’s a long story- but the train station was mass chaos! Trains hadn’t gone for days. People were sleeping in the station. It was definitely below freezing inside and out. Our train was meant to leave for Guangzhou at 10.35 am…. we were lucky we got to leave at all! We were told that our train would leave the next morning (after hours of ‘it’s cancelled….maybe….we don’t know’) but then Kyle randomly showed a train security person our tickets at 1 am. She then rushed us onto a train that left two minutes later! We nearly missed it! Insane!

The train was definitely at least freezing-literally-the whole time we were on it…all 31 hours! Oh my goodness. It was not fun.
When we arrived at the station we came upon the largest crowd I’ve seen in my life! Over 100,000 people waiting and LOTS of police surrounding the building. Wow. If you look at any news article about the crazy weather in China, it’ll probably show a photo of that station.

Most of the metro stations near the train station were closed off, but we walked to one further out and made it to our hostel. We were looking forward to nice warm showers….I got in and - no hot water! I decided to tough it out and shower anyway. It turned out that for some reason the city shut off hot water or something. Really confusing. Basically, there was no hot water for our entire time there. And it was cold.

The night before our flight out, my sister and my parents called to tell me that my grandmother died. Apparently she had gotten sick and she didn’t pull through. It’s still quite a shock to me. It’s hard since I’m here and I can’t get home. Kyle and I looked into flights and it would cost me quite a bit over 1,000 just to fly into Chicago. Please keep my family in your prayers.

This afternoon Kyle and I arrived in Singapore. It’s really nice here. Raining and hot, but so far I like it. We had originally intended to go see ‘La Triviata’- I’ve been wanting to see it for years- I’m a big Verdi fan. However, I was a bit of a mess this afternoon and we got a later start than intended, so we missed it. Oh well. There are other things to do. It’s a big city!
They speak English! And it’s clean! No spitting!
We had toast with peanut butter for dinner/lunch.

Oh. My internet time is almost up.

I will do my best to write more soon.

I’ll be here, Malaysia, and Sumatra.
Adventures.

As I was biking out the gate today, the guards at the front gate tried to stop me and the pointed out a sign that said (forgive me if I’m missing a bit, but I believe this was it):
出人下车
I’m pretty sure that means that I have to get off my bike to exit. However, I was already going at pretty good speed and I just said “Wo bu dong!” (I don’t understand) and then they laughed at me and let me through anyway. The guards at the back gate weren’t so forgiving though. They seemed to know that I knew, so I got off and walked my bike in.

However, it is terribly frustrating to live in a country where I’m practically illiterate. I’d really like to be able to learn more. The unfortunate part is that my lack of literacy is largely due to an excessive amount of slacking on my part. More of then than not, I just don’t feel up to it! It’s a ridiculous excuse, but it’s the one I give myself when I put my Chinese textbook back after 5 minutes of looking it over. I’ve really got to make myself work on Chinese this year.
I was looking at a blog of one of my friends from high school. She’s in Morocco now and she spent a year in Paris before. Some of the things she said were very true. Knowing other languages really opens doors in life. It gives you many opportunities that you wouldn’t have otherwise. I’d like to become at least conversational in Chinese and I’d like to study French again because I’ve forgotten nearly all of it. (My French prof at Hope was right when I quit- “Ce n’est pas une bonne idée”. I should have listened.)
Hopefully, when I’m back in the States, I can find somewhere to study, or at least practice one (or both) of those languages.

In other news, I’ve finally found a place with fun drinks that I like. Back home we have Bubble Tea (called Pearl Tea some places) and usually you can get black bubbles or colored ones. I, personally, think that the black ones taste horrid. Unfortunately, that was all they had here. Until a new shop came in over the summer. And at this shop, I can get this delicious grape juice (a great alternative to the usual tea mixed with milk). I’m really happy about it and Kate and I both really enjoy it.

Also, a bit of sadness over my former “roommate”.
I’m sure I had told several of you about a little gecko who had taken up residence here at the start of term. He’d always come out at night, but during the day he would find little hiding places. His favorite seemed to be in the crack of the door. This caused me to be incredibly cautious whenever closing or opening any door.
Unfortunately, Friday morning, I left the bathroom door open a tiny crack while I took my shower; I guess it just hadn’t latched right or something. Anyway, I got out of the shower and then the door swung in, then back out. My little gecko friend must have snuck in the crack when I wasn’t looking because then he fell- plop!- right onto the floor in a puddle of water. I quickly picked him up out of the water only to discover that his back legs had been irreparably smashed. Poor fellow.