"The brain is a very big place in a very small space"

Hello, all!

I'd just like to share some of the music that has been filling my mind since I didn't manage to write a new post last weekend. Very short, but I hope you enjoy it!

Take a Minute by K'naan-- this is a grounding and grateful song.

The Puzzle by Brother Ali, and Good Lord by Brother Ali as well-- I am continually impressed by the humility and wisdom in his lyrics (and by his life story).

Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammar-- a sweet, hopeful song. (If you're not really into rap/hiphop, start here on this list)

Dig by Incubus and Earth to Bella by Incubus. I have shared these before, I think. They fit well with my introspection.

and last, Ode to the Brain by Symphony of Science ! This dude cuts together and autotunes pieces of scientific lectures (from the greats!) and the results are often really moving.

I bet that you can figure out which one my title came from.

I can't get to sleep// I think about the implications// of diving in too deep// and "possibly"- the complications

I went to bed around 11:30 last night, after having emailed about a couple of english teaching jobs in China and worked on my application for TaLK in Korea. I think I fell asleep around 3am. I wasn't unhappy; I've done the anxiety insomnia thing and this wasn't it. Still processing what I should do next year. I've decided to teach English wherever I am, since I don't know what else I'd want to do and it would be good for me to investigate teaching more formally. I'm feeling good about that decision. The task now is to find secure places to work that will pay me enough to save a bit of money and work on paying back my loans. I know that's possible with either of the government programs in Korea. I know that secure programs exist in China, and I know that some pay alright. Okay. Moving on.

On my 4 hours of sleep I managed to stay awake and almost as attentive as usual through my classes this morning. Both were a little lacking in attendance; our spring break is next week and a lot of people have left already to travel. I and three (at least... I really thought there were more) of the other kids going to Sichuan to teach English are getting on a train on Sunday afternoon. The train will take about 25 hours, and once we reach the Guangyuan train station we'll have a two hour bus ride to Bazhong.

My teaching partner, Yang Genbao, and I planned our lesson last night. We're following their textbook for the most part (involving learning to talk about doing homework and watching television, among other daily and riveting activities) but are playing Jeopardy the second day (we're only going to see each class twice) and leave the last 10 minutes of each class for them to ask us questions in Chinese. They will probably be pretty excited to meet Genbao since he's from so far away in China. I think I already said that I'll probably be the first foreigner these kids have met. It's blowing my mind a little.

I did my class shopping today, photocopying the textbook so we can give the original back to the other group teaching 7th grade, buying candy for prizes. This involved a lot of walking around outside and listening to music- one of my favorite things to do. I was lamenting the trouble I have been having meeting and connecting with people and thinking about how a foreigner in China really has to find a way to enjoy attention (reminding myself to be excited about all the opportunities to smile at people I have when everyone is staring at my white white skin), and then made a friend in the supermarket. He was working handing out samples of crackers and standing right by the bulk candy. I tried the sesame and the peanut varieties (芝麻 and 花生）and told him about my quest to buy candy for my students next week. He asked me where I was studying and how long I'd been in China and gave me advice about what treats to buy. He asked me for my QQ (chinese IM service) and I told him I don't have one, which is marginally true as I have one but have not figured out how to use it yet.... So I gave him my cell number.

This was not my being hit on. Being foreign in China, outside of the biggest/most "developed" cities makes you a celebrity of sorts. Lots of people are excited about having a foreign friend, and my speaking Chinese more and more comfortably has made it easier and easier for folks to talk to me. It's cool beans.

I was also excited to find soybean powder at the supermarket. There are fridges on each floor but I haven't found a convenient way to buy, story, and keep soymilk for my tea/coffee. Little packets of soy powder, however, are working just great. I also replenished my oatmeal supply and bought some dried seaweed.

I probably won't post until after Sichuan, so have a great week!

Title is from Colin Hay's "Overkill". I have also been listening to the Rent soundtrack a lot this week.

"There's so much more to get than wronged"

I have been trying to take a step back from the expectations I have of myself and see who I am and where I am and should be going.

I have been praying more. I have been trying to make my days expand into tapestries of things learned and seen and loved and not just the passage of the sun over my head. I have been trying to look around more.

I was almost overwhelmed in Nanjing. Not quite, I struggled through my classes well enough (I think. My civil law professor has still not told me if I passed or not) but had a hard time reaching out to the people around me. I'm hoping I can change this when I go back; that I can let people matter to me. Of course, half our time will be over, so everyone else's focus may not be on forming friendships, but I do the best I can.

I have been realizing that it might be okay for me to get used to things being alright. Not that I'm never going to have to face anything difficult again. I'm sure I will. I will be miles away from you when bad things happen. I won't be there to hug you or for you to hug me. I will be confused and in over my head and helpless. I will be human. But it will be okay. I will rely on the knowledge that I am not the most important thing in existence. I will call this knowledge "God" and scratch the surface. I will rely on the beautiful people I have in my life, all over the world.

The title is from "Earth to Bella, Part 2" by Incubus

The wisdom's in the trees// Not the glass windows

I have been stressing a bit recently. I have not been having a bad time. I have already, in fact, celebrated my birthday twice. Shirin's birthday was on Monday, so on Saturday she and Rong Fan and Xiaoxuan and I ate hotpot. Hotpot is, I think, from Mongolia, and involves a pot of boiling water (kept boiling by a burner in the table) in the center of the table and ordering whatever ingredients you want to eat. I really like mutton and tofu "skin" (羊肉 and 豆腐皮). Shirin and I then got hour-long oil massages for about $10. On Monday Shirin invited me and two other friends to her place and we made curry and drank tea.

Today I am bringing chocolates to my first class, since today may be the only time in my life that I have class on my birthday and I have never had the opportunity to be the kid who brought birthday treats before. I have been waiting long, but I won in the end.

Then I'm going back to the bookstore where Xiaoxuan and Xiaochun took me and gonna buy myself an idiom (成语) dictionary, and perhaps something else. Got sweet mugs there. We'll see.

The weather here is quite nice. It is a sunny 50 degrees for my birthday today. I miss snow, but I'm hopeful we'll get a bit sometime in the next few months. We are very lucky to have central heat in our buildings, which was not permitted when most of the buildings in Nanjing were built, so many people are very cold in the winter.

Anyway, to stop the stressing, today is going to be a day for praying and meditating and eating chocolate and not worrying about school. Hopefully this will help me to be clear and focused enough tomorrow to make real progress on papers again. It will definitely make me happier about whatever I do.

I love you!

Today's title brought to you by Breakdown by Jack Johnson

As I face my final papers

You should imagine me standing in whatever intimidating martial arts pose you choose, sword in hand, ready to cut them down, with This Song playing. The only martial art I've been studying is Taiji, however, so to be at all realistic you'll have to imagine the subsequent beat-down happening in a slow and relaxed kind of way.

In any case, here I go.

If I turn into another// Dig me up from under what is covering// The better part of me

I am still working on being open and present, in my day to day relationships and in the deeper relationships with friends and family that may only surface in too-infrequent emails and phone calls and holidays, but offer a mirror of my progress and a reminder of who I am.

I am still working to put all the pieces of myself together. To see who I have been and who I am and who I want to be. I struggle sometimes with the self I see reflected in others. For instance, after my parents' divorce it was hard for me to interact with quite a few people who'd known me for a long time. They (you) saw the same person they had seen before, but all the pieces of me had come apart and I didn't know for a long time which ones to keep. I had defined myself by my family's life together, by our house and neighborhood, by the fact that I homeschooled, by the time I had for my friends, and I lost those things. It took a while for me to get my feet under me again, and even after I did old relationships were often a sharp reminder of how much had changed. This has been true of other transitions since then, though to a lesser extent. I change and want to move on, and don't always know how to interact with people I knew before.

I don't want that to stay true. I don't want to see my own struggles in your faces. I am learning to define myself as the intersection of all of your lives, as this beautiful point of opportunity to learn from you and share something of what I see. I am learning to look forward to the worlds of people and experiences I have ahead of me.

One of the clearest things I feel about my own identity is the necessity of travel. I didn't apply to ISU because I grew up in Ames, I grudgingly stayed in state for the tuition, and did not even consider staying in the US after I graduated. I don't have anything against the US, but it just felt wrong to be there last year and seriously added to the stress of my last year at UIowa. As much as I am struggling with my classes and my self this semester, I am definitely on the right continent.

In school news again, yesterday I wrote almost 1,000 characters of my civil law paper on the way that the Stubborn Nail House owners (钉子户） (who refuse to move when the government licenses their land for development) and their treatment in the media signal the recent developments in civil society in China. Woohooooo. I have done very little today.

Today's title brought to you by Dig by Incubus
Today's almost title #1 brought to you by 23 by Jimmy Eat World (I felt for sure last night// That when we said goodbye// No one else will know these lonely dreams)
Today's almost title #2 brought to you by Wasting Time by Jack Johnson (Nobody knows anything about themselves// 'Cause they're all worried about everybody else)

Countdown to Christian: 24 days (24, Christian Yetter! Fools round down!)

I need to stop compulsively buying bread-products

I decided I needed a break from my room and my books this afternoon and went to the store. I purchased some "High Fiber Wheat Bread" whose brand logo includes stars and stripes, so I am reassured that I am in their intended market. Their brand name, "Mankattan," is a little disheartening, but I'll take it.

Last week, I purchased some "Well Chosen Oatmeal" from Lubin. It has served me well.

I also found a produce store that sells my beloved Juse VERY cheap, and sells good quality fruit. So that's exciting.

I have been sick this week. It's kind of sad, but if you all will consider for a moment my track record of illness which generally includes one or two bouts of flu or something similar every year and keeps me out of school for at least half a week or so each semester, the fact that I have digestive problems, allergies, and am just generally a weenie, I think that you will appreciate my accomplishment in not getting sick in China for two whole MONTHS. These months including solo international flights, busy orientation schedules, solo cross-country train rides, and the stress of taking classes in Chinese.

Xiaoxuan has, of course, been very helpful in taking care of me. I have not been awfully sick. I missed one class Friday morning because I concluded I would not be able to focus enough to understand a Chinese lecture, and the sound me trying to breath with my raspy lungs and plugged-up nose might also impede my classmates' comprehension. Xiaoxuan has been instructing me on what I am and am not allowed to eat (my peanuts are too heavy and full of oil, so on my shelf they sit, and wait for me) and reminding me to drink lots of water. We went out to eat yesterday, and to the supermarket a couple of days ago, and she consulted me on the health benefits of different dishes I was considering. I have been calling her "Doctor Hao," (in English) which makes her and any of her friends who happen to be in the vicinity laugh every time. So, y'know, overall this illness hasn't been much of a downer.

I was talking to Shirin, a friend I met in Macau who's attending Nanjing Univerity, about how strange that kind of is. Usually when I am sick it is an emotional as well as physical affliction. I can't concentrate, I am exhausted, and I quickly become depressed with my inability to do anything. I've been very cheerful with my cold-symptoms and low-grade fever for the last few days, and they are both on their way out. I had some very strange fever-dreams Wednesday night. One of them which I wrote down is entitled "The Devil is a Stop Sign," if you're curious. Both my mother and Christian Yetter can attest that it is quite trippy.

Anyway.

I just bought my plane tickets to Korea over winter break. I'll land on Jeju-do at 1:40pm on January 10th! Woohoo!

I'm also plotting out my plans for Thanksgiving break. Since most of the country will not be off work (different from our two other week-long breaks) it's a prime time to travel. I think I am going to be heading to Shanghai for a couple of days to get my Korean visa and travel around, and then stay in a hostel in Suzhou for the rest of the time, and see how much time I can spend near Tai Lake, whose management challenges I am researching for my Environmental Economics term paper.

Since I've been sick, I did not meet with my Five Project family today, but I'll be heading to their house next week to hang out again.

I have my first presentation in a Chinese language class tomorrow. I'm talking about representations of the famine during the Great Leap Forward in the movie The Blue Kite, and in one of our class texts.

Okay, I think I've procrastinated my International Politics readings for about as long as I can justify. I'd like to leave you with another music video; Year of the Rat by Badly Drawn Boy. I think that the title is meant to signify a time of great opportunity, but it actually doesn't matter at all. Just watch the video (er, if you'd like).

Here are the things I am spending my time on when I really should be reading for classes:

Geography quizzes! Click on the words! Check out the link! I know all the countries in Africa now! There are 54, and no one had told me.

Books about resource productivity and the next industrial revolution which can (and perhaps has begun to) come about through the understanding that business and engineering designs that aim to be 'in line with nature' by minimizing resource use and integrating as far as possible into the natural system (as in, using solar energy directly as it comes from the sun rather than only using the solar energy that has been processed by plants or earth surface processes) isn't just better for 'the environment' separately from humanity, it is the most efficient, rational, and lucrative for humans.
... I may move to Germany just for the run-on sentences. You're in my blog so you'll have to put up with my grammar, I'm afraid...
I also checked out a book with a bunch of recent essays from Chinese scholars on sustainable development, but have not gotten very far with any of them yet.

So much music.

We have a break starting in two days for China's National Day Holiday. I'll give you more "Things that have happened" updates then.

It's harder for me to write about places when I'm living in them

It's difficult for me to pick out which parts of my day are important to my life and which simply happen.

There is a constant flow of traffic outside our dorm window. Beijing West Road (北京西路) is not the busiest street in Nanjing, but it’s busy enough. We’re not too far from downtown here. There is a 28 story building (if I counted right) across the street from us, though it, like many buildings including our dorm, has a terrace a couple of floors up to provide more space for growing things and being outside.

The streets are lined with trees. So much so that it’s hard to see what’s going on. As I told my brother yesterday, there is Something that drives by multiple times a day chiming the same four-tone tune over and over again, and it has become the Great White Whale of my dorm experience. It haunts my days and my dreams, and I cannot see the street clearly enough to be sure of what it is. Often, this sound is accompanied by a water-spraying, street-cleaning truck, but whether the sound and truck go together by design or coincidence is yet to be determined.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center is centered around a courtyard. The cafeteria, some offices, fitness center, and dorm floors are wings of the west building, and administration, classrooms, and the large auditorium are in the east building. There is a goldfish (金鱼 ) pond in the courtyard, surrounded by benches and flanked by a couple of small lawns. My roommate, Xiaoxuan, and I have thus far not been able to find fish food in our supermarket, but I’ve located another market and will be trying again soon. The fish will, one day, know me as their friend.

I am taking four classes: three in Chinese and one in English. They changed a little from what I’d decided on when I first looked at the class list, and I’m very happy with what I’ve ended up with. I’m taking 当代国际政治 （Contemporary International Politics), 人类学与中国研究 （Anthropology and Chinese Studies), 中国民法 (Chinese Civil Law), and Environmental Economics (环境经济)。 I’ve been struggling through readings (I have yet to truly finish something) and at first hardly understood anything my professors were saying. Mostly, I have been making huge vocabulary lists from each of my Chinese readings, and these have been helping me to read a little more (it is already possible for me to sometime read a sentence or two of an academic essay without having to use a dictionary). My professors’ lectures have also been shifting from frighteningly mysterious, speech-like puzzles in which I was proud to pick out words, to something like cohesive presentations. I definitely cannot yet understand everything they say, and often struggle to keep up, but I have been able to at least follow the overall flow of ideas in all my classes this week. It is possible that I will pass my classes. This is a relief.

My classmates are awesome. We come from a pretty wide range of backgrounds, but everyone here is really dedicated, not just to language, but to building ties between China and the US (or wherever, not all the internationals are American) and finding constructive ways to working in/between countries.

One of our Chinese colleagues informed my roommate and I at the end of Orientation that we were 窄女， or women who stay inside, because neither of us like to party or spend much time in bars. I think we’re just good roommates. I should say, so that you don’t think that he was just very rude, that this same young man also told me that my future was bright and full of possibility. My interests are wide and varied, and the fact that I speak Chinese and have taken engineering classes (be they only four or five in number) impressed him greatly. I’ve since made it clear that I have a boyfriend already, and I think (hope) that I did so tactfully enough that we are still friends.

I have been meaning to take pictures of the cafeteria food. It’s very cheap, and made of very good quality ingredients. It is, however, still cafeteria food, and thus very boring to eat.

There are a lot of excellent little restaurants and food vendors very close to the Center. Two classmates (one from the southern US, the other from France) showed Xiaoxuan and I a cheap little dumpling （饺子）joint about five minutes from our front gate, and yesterday we ourselves discovered a little noodle/hotpot-ish place one more street away. I already have a favorite little bakery where I buy my red bean-filled mooncakes and other snacks.

Last weekend a couple of US classmates had birthdays, so they arranged to go out for KTV (or K歌， or Karaoke). It was the first time I’d gone, and it was a lot of fun. I can’t really sing any Chinese songs yet, but one of Xiaoxuan’s friends knew that I could sing “Hey Jude” because I’d joined in when she was singing it to herself once, so she had me sing that.

I had heard Beijing Welcomes You, which was made for the Olympics last year. If you haven’t seen/heard it yet, I recommend it.

My favorite song was: 我不是黄蓉。 I think y’all will be able to follow this link, but let me know if it doesn’t work (or: if you’re upset that it doesn’t work. Perhaps you are indifferent to my tastes in Chinese pop music. I shouldn’t assume).
Xiaoxuan and I are, of course, constantly teaching each other language. We are also having a long-term competition over whose language is better. So far, Chinese is winning for being able to express a lot of things much more simply than English. For example, NiXing 逆行 has to be translated into “walking against the current,” and what’s worse: the word Tang 烫 single-handedly describes “unbearably hot food or soup.” So if you think of any particularly elegant or useful English phrases that I could use in this battle, please send them along.

ALSO. I just met a dude in my Environmental Economics class who is interested in working in environmental policy/education/who knows. The point is: so am I. There is someone else here who is definitely not going into the business/finance world, and I am super stoked about it (stoked being a rather technical term for “excited.” Sorry if I left you behind on that one).

My favorite fruits are almost exactly Clementine oranges, except their peels are green and mottled instead of orange. They are called juse (橘色）and they are delicious.

Okay. That's what I have for Random Thoughts on My Life for today. Love from China! I hope you are all well and happy!

This morning I woke up feeling brand new- I jumped up

I don't like to think of myself as prejudiced. I have the good fortune to come from an educated, intelligent family which has always encouraged me to define myself independently of mainstream culture. I was homeschooled by an anthropologist, and thus was able to name the evil and folly of ethnocentrism before most of my cohorts. More than that, I was raised Baha'i, being taught that all of the different forms of culture and color and thought that humanity expresses are what makes us so beautiful; that beyond it being an atrocity to others to judge people's worth based on external things that don't matter, it would harm deeply me to keep myself from recognizing humanity's essential unity as one species.

All the same, I find that I am very rooted in White, Middle-class, American culture. I have been introduced to some hip-hop artists lately, and while the educated and more broad-minded part of me has not been surprised at all to be amazed by some of their music, the closed-minded white-privileged part of me is beckoning to the rest of white America to look at these expressions of Black culture in the inner cities: Guys, there's art here! And truth, and hope, and beauty.

I know I am behind a lot of people in this realization. I'm grateful that I am so rarely judged as harshly as I deserve to be for shortcomings like this.

The song I'm listening to today that inspired this post is Get By by Talib Kweli, from Brooklyn.

There is a whole lot of world out there to fall in love with, friends!

Ha, and here is a link to lyrics for Get By. I also love Dinosaur Comics, like this one.

Music making the world a better place: K'naan

I've been having a great month as far as music discoveries go, and my favorite is probably K'naan. He's a Somali who's been living in Canada since 1991; he and his mother got out on the last plane. His music is rap/hiphop/rock, a different sound from a lot of the music I have, and I am really enjoying the change. His lyrics in a few songs, however, are absolutely incredible.

The first song I found of his is called Dreamer (linked to youtube). The line "We alive, man. It's ok to feel good" made me glow all afternoon the first time I heard it.

A heavier song is Soobax, which he sings to the warlords in Somalia.

My favorite is probably Take a Minute. It is so real and so powerful, and so incredibly sweet and forgiving.

T.I.A. stands for This Is Africa, and since two weeks in Egypt comprise my entire experience of that continent, I'm not qualified to tell you anything other than this is a badass song.

That's all! Happy listening, and Happy Spring!