connections&failures

Hey everybody. Sorry I haven't posted- I've been busy with a lot of random stuff :). Things have been going well lately, my days are still basically free from any obligation, which means I get to preoccupy myself with whatever I want! Today, my post is titled, "Connections and Failures."- here's the "failure" part, first.

So, get this. Yesterday morning, I wake up tangled in my comforter in like, SWELTERING heat. This is quite unusual since I like to sleep with my AC blasted at like 16 degrees celsius. Getting up to look at my AC, I find that the vents are still open but the power is off. Hm. I guess it might've died sometime in the night. So, I hop out of bed to do my morning ritual (showering, brushing of the teeths, hopping on the internet, the usual). When I turn on the bathroom light, I find... that it doesn't turn on. And neither do ALL OF MY LIGHTS. 

I have ZERO power in my room. No way to charge my cell phone that I use as an alarm clock (which is completely dead now), no way to charge my laptop (which says I will have like a measly two hours), no way to turn on the lights at night (I only remedy this by not going into my room until I absolutely have to sleep... in the pitch blackness), and best of all, no air conditioning in the humid heat. 

Delicious.

Turns out that I should've paid for my accommodations at this other building on Monday, which would've given me 120kw/h for free, and then I could've paid for more electricity if I needed it. (Can you imagine the hotel person's face when I said, "Um, hi, I've been here for 3 days and I'm already out of power.") I actually only used up like 20 kw/h these past few days, and the whole situation with paying for electricity, getting free electricity, paying for accommodations, etc etc is really confusing. I thought Beloit was supposed to be paying for the room and board???? Hm.

But I guess all clouds have their silver lining. Yesterday, I woke up groggy and pissy that I had absolutely no power, so taking a freezing cold shower in my dark bathroom really kind of woke me up. And also, since I (thought) I had no internet, I actually opened up my chinese textbook and studied. Woooow.

That's basically what I did all of yesterday afternoon. I also made my regular breakfast outing with Emily off of campus, through the south gate of Shandong U, making a straight shot down the street into this amazing bakery bun-shop, where I can stuff my face silly with delectable chocolate covered crossaints, wee breakfast tarts, and other assorted goodness. Hahaha. However, things kind of took a turn for the worse. Naturally we decide that the only thing we want after breakfast is nai cha, which is like bubbly milk tea. Yummy? Yes? So we approach the counter of this tiny place and ask for a coffee-flavored milk tea. She asks if we want it cold; obviously, we said, "sure!" As we're chatting about what else the day holds for us, I suddenly hear ice grinding. I freeze up, and I said, "Emily. She's putting ICE in it."

What's so bad about ice, you say?

Long story short, when we had first arrived in Kaifeng, the boys split off one day to get lunch at McDonalds (ugh) and came back sicker than dogs. The girls (Emily and I) got lunch at a food vendor, some steamed buns and stuff. We were fine. The boys spent the whole day on the toilet. The ENTIRE DAY on the toilet. Oh yes. So after a little detective work, we realized what had made them sick. Their cokes had ice in them, and when the ice melts, all the dirty unclean water used to make the ice infiltrates into their drink, making them have severe, uh.. yeah, you get the picture.

Emily says, "ohhh no." And we apologize to the stand person profusely and ask for it without ice. "Sorry! Sorry! OH GOD I DON'T WANT TO GET SICK!" (didn't actually say the last part but that's basically what was on our minds). The stand person shrugs and says, "mei shi" (which means, "No problem") and turns around. Being sneaky-sneaky, eh? Because HE SPOONED THE ICE OUT INTO THE TRASH AND PROMPTLY GAVE THE DRINK BACK TO US.

By now, I'm mortified at the thought of sipping a coffee-flavored laxative. Emily is holding the drink with a cautious (read: disgusted) look on her face. She hasn't gotten sick this entire trip (yet, haha) whereas the rest of us have had bouts of something bad. After some deliberation, we decide, "What the hell, we paid for it, the ice didn't sit in the drink for more than 3 seconds, if we get sick, whatever, it won't be that bad." We drink it.

Fast forward 2 hours.

My tummy hurts. Emily's tummy hurts. We do the business, CURSING the stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ice. Awesome, I know. No more "cold" bubble tea for me.

---------

As for the latter half of this post, "Connections", all I want to say is that on top of all the other little crappy things that kind of bum me out everyday (missing friends, missing home, not having electricity, drinking cold teas that may or may not make me stay in the bathroom for long periods of time), I'm having a blast meeting some more the international students. In my last post, I mentioned the "American plan" to win over our international mates. Well, it worked. There are so many awesome people here from London, Scotland, Ireland, England, oh, it's ridiculous. They're all here for only about two more weeks. They've been doing this summer intensive Chinese program, and none of them knew Chinese beforehand. It's been awesome going out with them and talking to them about life across the pond. Haha. We all actually went to this Karaoke place (I've never been karaoke-ing before) and it was hilariously incredible. The place looked like a Vegas strip packed into this tiny building with freakin' Call Girls everywhere! It was kind of creepy but it made for a fun night. We were all singing songs in English, eating watermelon, hanging out and talking! Such good fun. I'm going to be sad when they leave :( 

But yeah. Today is a brand new day (sans electricity in my room)- I've got a bunch of things to do today, including registering for classes (yaaaay.), buy more electricity, and study some more chinese!

Cool. I'll catch you guys later! <3

shell.breakage

I like Jinan much better than Kaifeng. It's overwhelming in the best possible way. The food is simpry dericious; I see blue skies and a billion young faces. After arriving via sleeper train, I basically spent the whole day exploring. I didn't get much rest on the train, so I was pretty pooped by dinnertime. I went out and bought some necessities for my room. It's hard to control spending since everything is cheap, but I'm well aware that these little expenses rack up really fast. I'm in love with my room, even though it smells like rancid sewage. (I bought some Glade air freshener, it was MUCH NEEDED.) Last night, the four of us (Matt, Andrew, Emily and I) wandered downstairs to see if we could meet some other international students. Everybody was huddled in their groups; I overheard loud German coming from one corner and some heavily accented English from another corner (must've been either British or Irish, I couldn't really tell.) Strange how everybody sticks to their groups, even though I can't blame them- as fun as meeting strangers is, it's really awkward the first few days. Classes start up on the 7th. I need to register some time in the next few days, but lately my days have been filled with random outings, exploring campus, and gathering food and other necessities. 

I'm really tempted to say hello to some of the other students, but most of the looks I get are stand-offish, "not going to talk to you if you come say hi" kind of faces. I guess I just kind of feel like a recluse, which is a pity. For once in a long time, I feel super-insecure and awkward from being stared at. Luckily, I haven't quite hit the "homesickness" state... yet. 

It's all good, though. 

Tonight, we Americans have plotted the ultimate way to win over our foreign friends.

We'll see how things go. I hope we have enough ping pong balls.

Currently Listening To: Mairead: The Von Bondies

new.connection

Hey. I'm leaving Kaifeng tonight to take a train to Jinan, where I'll be posted for the rest of the semester. I can't wait. Gotta keep this short, but just wanted to say, I'll be getting a cell phone in Jinan so hopefully you guys will be receiving a short call from me sometime in the next week. Love!

-m.

alive&kicking

Hmph. Haven't been online alot (duh) but looking to change that. These past four days I've been on a giant road trip, I went to a bunch of places and took a bunch of pictures that I can't upload (which is so frustrating)- but if you're really interested in seeing where I was, you can google "the longmen grottos" and "shaolin temple" in china (duh) and see basically some pictures. I really do hate having internet. There has been so much happening that I just want to update everybody on, but you guys know how crappy my memory is, so I just have to do my best to carry all these stories in my brain until I can reach an internet cafe, spit out a few yuan, plop down between two World-of-Warcraft enthusiasts, and dump my stories onto the e-world.

So, big things lately.

Well, yesterday we were going to the Shaolin Temple (from Luoyang) and as we were merging onto a big highway, a motorist crashed into the back of our van. I was in the backseat facing the window and all of a sudden, out of my sleepy nap, i see this old woman on a Vespa-ish motorbike come merging into our lane going SO FAST and she slams into the side/back area of the van. My mouth dropped open in horror as I turned around and saw her limp body roll off the motor bike almost into oncoming traffic. Our van stops and literally everybody is frozen. Her body isn't moving. I seriously thought she was dead. I felt so sick to my stomach. She slowly got up after like 15 seconds, screaming and clutching her arm. Our driver rushes out an see what happened, and a small crowd starts building around us. This is pretty common in China (both the driving accidents and the nosy crowds). I wanted to jump out and help but it wouldn't have been the best idea. The last thing an accident needs is a van full of white (and two asian) foreigners to jump out and complicate the situation. Our van driver ended up dealing with the accident basically all day. As they say in China, "hen ma fan"- very bothersome. After getting most of the preliminary paperwork done (it took two hours!) we were back on the road to visit the shaolin temple, and after we were done, we called him and he picked us up, and we drove the 1.5 hours back to Kaifeng.

I'll be in Kaifeng for just a few more days, then it's off to Jinan and Shandong University. It's a city of about 2 million people, and needless to say, I am glad to get away from this place. I'm getting kind of sick of it. I feel kind of hopeless in this area. Not hopeless like my chinese can't get better, or whatever, but just like, walking around and seeing all the impoverished people, lots of beggars, unclean drinking water, shitty living conditions, getting sick a few times because of unclean food, it's... just a real trip.

I need to upload some photos... you'll have to wait a few days. Aside from all the little nitty gritties, China is truly beautiful. The countryside and the mountains, and Buddhist temples in Luoyang are really breathtaking. The stairs to climb the mountains are doing a number on my legs and bum, but it's good for me. Pollution is pretty prevalent and I've been careful to always carry tissue paper on me (since the bathrooms are made for squatting, not sitting- and they don't have TP) and hand sanitizer. I feel like a tourist. :(

People are very very very curious as to how an asian looking girl speaks English so well. I'm usually targeted in the group as a "chinese person" so whenever a curious native approaches our travelling group, they always ask "Are your friends foreigners?"

Imagine their face when I say, "Yes, but I'm a foreigner too. We're from America."

I gotta run. I swear up and down, I MISS EVERYBODY WHO READS THIS BLOG. ALOT.

Talk to you guys soon. <3

henan.university

Wow. I'm here. It's kind of unreal. Haven't had internet access these past two days, but I'm currently in an internet cafe with matt, travis, and emily. we've been chilling and enjoying this city. needless to say, the humidity and lack of understanding with the townsfolk has been really annoying. The dorms are tiny and very... "old fashioned".. (read: nasty). Anyways, sorry that I have to keep this relatively short. Just know that I love you all and am missing beloit (and family that are reading this) like crazy. I'll be in Henan for about another week or so and then we're off on a roadtrip, then to Jinan. Alright. Update later.

OH BTW
shit here is so freaking cheap. like dear god. i can be full for an entire day off of basically 2USD.
<3