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).

// but ain't none of the glory mine

I spent time with my Five Project family for the second time today. I wasn't really sure how it was going to work out after meeting with them last week. As I said- although the goals and participants of the Five Project are clearly explained, they assumed I could tell them how autism is understood and worked with in the US. I can tell them about the people I've met, of course, but my goal in this project is just to build a friendship and support them. I don't have any expertise. The father, son, and a young cousin came to the HNC today and we hung out in the courtyard for a little over an hour. It was a little uncomfortable at first as we got used to the place and the father kept trying to make his son be polite, or whatever, for me. Which isn't really a concept that applies to people with autism, in my understanding. They communicate what they are experiencing to the best of their ability, which is simultaneously much less and much more than many of us are capable of.

Anyway, after a while the father decided he was ok with me just hanging out with his son (he stayed in the courtyard- one of his parents is going to be there at all times to make sure his needs are taken care of). I talked to him a bit, but sadly cannot really understand much when he talks. Most of his communication is nonverbal anyway, though, so it's less of a problem than with most people. He feels strongly about the value of picking up leaves and flowers and putting his hands in water. On these things we agree.

I am continually trying to get my head around what is happening when I (or a classmate) try to communicate outside of our native language. Much of the time I am still thinking in English, so Chinese feels like an extra layer that blocks me from the meaning behind someone's words. I try to trace the meaning of Chinese words by lining up the points of English I know they touch, but this keeps me at least one step removed from the deeper form and significance of what is being said. I am trying to shift to thinking in Chinese and just filling in the necessary gaps with English, but it's coming in more fits than starts, I feel.

NOTE: the title of this and the previous entry are lyrics from Gnarls Barkley's song "A Little Better" They ain't mine.

well, I can sing you a storyline// and if you like my story, fine

Well, dear ones, here I am again. I was not very busy at all over the National Day break, but I spent most of my extra time letting myself just be in Nanjing without having to do anything. I did a bit of reading and a good deal of thinking for all of my classes, and also a bit of random wandering around the city.

Xiaoxuan and I (with a few other classmates) had decided to get out and see some of the sights in Nanjing during our week off, but our trip to 夫子庙 （Fuzi Miao- the Confucious temple) convinced us that this was not a good plan. The crowd exemplified the Chinese phrase 人山人海 (ren shan ren hai- mountains and seas of people). Xiaoxuan and Rong Fan both asked me at different times if I had ever seen crowds like that in the US. I told them ‘kind of.’ I’ve seen groups of people that tightly packed in big cities or big malls in the US, but the knowledge in China that this population density stretches across such vast areas, the knowledge that in Nanjing I am surrounded by 8 million people in one (granted, quite large) municipality, is overwhelming on a new level. That evening we decided against paying 30 yuan to go into the park itself and instead walked back to “Aqua City,” a large shopping complex with a lot of expensive foreign stores. I bought myself a coke and just walked around looking at people and stores, explaining that in the US most of my clothes come from second-hand stores. Clothes in most stores were about as much as new American clothes are in the US, some slightly more expensive since it is so foreign and fashionable.

Another evening an American friend and I ventured to Nanjing’s Downtown. We, again, mostly just walked around. She needed a set of drawers for her closet, and we both decided it was wise to buy economy-packs of toilet paper. We quickly realized, however, that the evening before National Day was not the best choice of times. We found ourselves heading home around the same time (about 10:30pm) that the vast majority of taxi drivers had decided was quittin’ time. After half an hour or so of unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab at one of the busiest intersections in downtown Nanjing, Stephanie left me standing by the side of the road with her drawers and our collective 40-or-so rolls of toilet paper and ventured upstream to try her luck in less populated waters. About another 20 minutes later she pulled up in a taxi, with the driver crying “hurry! I’m not supposed to stop here!” I threw the TP in the backseat and pulled the drawers in behind me. We had a lovely chat with the driver on the way home. Also: we made it home. I called it a win.

I actually started drawing over break, which I’ve hardly ever done before. I don’t let myself draw, I say “I can’t draw,” because I’m not very good at making realistic pictures. It is, however, a fantastic exercise for my brain to just let myself start filling a page with shapes. It’s interesting, because when I worked at Prairie Flower (Waldorf) Preschool, that’s what we told kids to do. Not to worry about what they were representing, but just to enjoy the process of colors happening on paper. But I still feel like it’s illigetimate a lot of the time, I stop myself from picking up my pencil because I don’t know what will be on the page when I finish. I’ve (once again) proven to myself that this doesn’t matter. I’ve got a few pages that are really fun, if not amazing technically. And drawing them helped me wake up my brain in ways that no amount of article-reading or paper-writing can.

Let’s see. I’ve let too much time pass and am going to dump a lot of stories on you at once, I’m afraid.

I met with a family last Sunday through The Five Project, with hooks volunteers up with families of children and young adults with autism or other mental challenges. They assumed that since I was American I could tell them all about how autism is treated in the US and what they should do with their son. I, and the Five Project coordinator who came with me, corrected them that I just want to provide a “friendship” flavor of support, and they seemed like they might be ok with that. They’re coming by the Center this Sunday afternoon, and we’ll see if we can make our relationship productive. Their son was very sweet. He learned my name and made eye contact (on his parents’ promptings) and thanked me for coming to their home. I think his memory of me, however, will be most involved with the strange way my hand smelled (like my soap, I hope), which formed the main topic of our personal interaction.

I am helping out at a weekend school where another friend works tomorrow morning. More on that after it’s happened, perhaps :)

…You can, perhaps, tell that I decided a while ago that I was spending too much time on the Center and with other Center students, and have been trying to add more variety to my schedule. I may have overdone it, but not of my weekend commitments come with obligation at this point, so it should work out happily in the end.

My conversations with classmates are benefitting as we all get more comfortable in our “target” languages and are feeling like we can talk about real things, and not just what we are doing today or which state or province we were born in. That is really cool. Hmm. I’m having trouble saying something both meaningful and Chinese-internet-appropriate about them, though. I’ll report back when I can articulate myself.

To complete your snapshot of my life: other than the above, I spend time just about every day talkin’ to a cool dude in South Korea, some more time wishin’ I was in South Korea with him, a fair amount of time reading, a lot of time twirling my hair and staring out of windows, and am happy almost all of the time.

All’s well in Nanjing, friends.

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.

So, this 13 hour time difference is confusing me. When I send emails to the US, I'm getting used to the fact that the day there passes while I'm sleeping, so replies seem to magically and almost immediately appear. I came back from dinner this evening thinking a day would have passed for you in the US while I was eating.
No, Dear Self, the US is not part of a time-warp, and neither is China. You're just on different sides on the planet.

Carry on, all!

School schedules

This year's mid-autumn festival coincides with the National Day holiday in China, so we have an extra long break so that students and staff can go home and be with their families, or travel, or observe this 60th year anniversary of the foundation of the PRC (中华人民共和国）however they see fit.

These two overlapping reasons to celebrate do not, as it happens, mean that our program should have more days off than a normal National Day holiday. So, to make up time, we have classes tomorrow (Sunday the 27th) and the Saturday after break (October 10th).

I'm spending my one precious weekend day in the library (图书馆）staring at an indecipherable text on the development (阶梯 literally: ladder) of law. When I go to class, I understand what my professor wants us to get out of these readings. When I read them, I get very little.
I also have 8 consecutive school-free days beginning Thursday. So there's balance, in the end.

I'm going to move on to International Politics now. The article I'm working on for that is called "Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionary Thought" (现实主义， 理性主义， 革命主义）。

I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna make it...

In other news: I started a Taijiquan class yesterday, and it feels really good to have something that makes me use my body thoughtfully. I think it's going to help me a lot. A classmate has also started offering yoga classes three times a week, and I'm gonna join in as soon as I buy myself a yoga mat.

I also am going to be hanging out with a local family who has a 5-year-old son with autism, (through a very cool NPO called The Five Project, which was founded by a Center alumnus) for an hour or so every week. More on that after I meet them!

Xiaoxuan (which is actually just her given name. Her full name is Hao Xiaoxuan) met with an American classmate yesterday. They are going to be "language partners" and practice speaking an hour of English and then an hour of Chinese a couple times a week. She inspired her friend Rong Fan and I to make a similar alliance. Hopefully this will help my comprehension of classes as well as my confidence in spoken Chinese.

Goodness, but I have plans for myself. We'll see what works out. It'll be a good year whatever happens, I think.
Life is good.

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!