Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Chinese New Year..Super Bowl Sunday..and whatnot...






Holy hell. Chinese New Year officially ended 2 days ago and the fireworks have not stopped for at least a week and a half...and still going strong. And I hear that they will continue to go off for the next 2 weeks. Brilliant! Nothing like waking up at any given hour to the sound of a drive by taking place outside your window. Literally. Anyhow, tomor is super bowl sunday..which means i must awake at 5 am in order to be able to get dressed, apply makeup, blow dry hair, hail a cab and make it to the bar by 6:30...which is one hour prior to kick off. Owner of bar, awesome Dutch guy, is letting a few of us arrive early as to utilize their kitchen to make an 'American breakfast."


Had a blast at Super Bowl party!! Perhaps even overdid it a bit. Actually, I absolutely overdid it and it was great! 3 days later and I am still recovering. I got to Seven Bar around 8 am and didn't get home until almost 7 pm the following night. My phone died at Maya and I had to crash at this gay German guys house because I couldn't find my way home. 




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ALSO!!!!! Found out that one of my best friends in the world, Evelien Raave, is coming to visit me for one week from the Netherlands for New Years!!!! I met her in Madrid, we had Spanish class together...when we actually went, lol...and i have not seen her since our trip to Paris in 2011!!!! SOOO excited to see her and have a great friend to get into trouble with in China...let's just say that Eve and I are pretty talented when it comes to having fun and getting into shenanigans!



i am home. i am in Houston. i am listening to these songs that at one point wrapped around me like a blanket in that foreign land. that made me feel at home. the melodies, the beats, the rhythyms, the lyrics...the artists! i listen now, and they still envelope me in a cloak of warmness. thank you God for music. for it has made me survive.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Forethought, hindsight, and the normalcy of nowadays...

Considering this is my China blog and I am no longer in China
 should refrain from writing in it. I should start a new blog, perhaps. But then I say screw it, because I realize that I'm probably the only person who'd notice or care. That being said, I've decided that this will be the official home for all of my current and future journal entries. People keep encouraging me to write, and I want to, but its difficult (for me) to create when not living in the midst of some outlandish adventure, or in a 3rd world country. I thrive on challenge. I suppose its inspiration that I feel I might be lacking. For the first time in my life I am grounded. I am not a gypsy living out of a suitcase and fleeting from one city/state/country to another. This is good...and terrifying. With my wanderlust stymied, I am finding that this different and 'normal' lifestyle I'm living is actually an adventure in and of itself. I'm amazed at the capriciousness of life. How unaware we truly are of the ebb and flow in our lives. And how blind we are to the reverence of it all. Routine, is foreign to me. Knowing that I'm not leaving the city I'm living in, is foreign to me. I have found my place, for now, but thoughts of visiting foreign lands remain ubiquitous in my mind. Knowing that I will travel again, but not knowing where or when, is enough to keep my wanderlust at bay.  Although it feels as though I'm closing a chapter in my life, intuition tells me that the book has yet to be written.

"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back."


"Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility."    Charles Baudelaire

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."    Henry David Thoreau

"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free."     Nikos Kazantzakis

"What seems to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."
Oscar Wilde 

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."    Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."    Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.”    Anne Morrow Lindbergh






~Gunnar Shroyer, RIP

Saturday, August 2, 2014

my back pages...



“I wrote a thousand words every day."   Jack London 

...Perhaps a lazy persons guide to keeping all of her journal entries together. i suppose writing free hand would contribute more to the creative process, but i also know that it would contribute less to the purpose of me writing in the first place...In order to have all china stories/experiences consolidated to one place.

Work is going alright, but I do have one major complaint. Recently, the other Chinese teachers have stopped sitting in my classes with me. This wouldn't be such a big deal if I spoke Chinese, but I don't, and trying to teach for 80 minutes without anyone to help translate can be a tad difficult. Putting discipline issues aside, I'm not sure how effective it is either. Call me crazy, but I imagine that the kids would probably be learning a lot more if there were someone present to make sure they understood what I was saying. Nothing frustrates me more than when they all raise their hands, "Teacha!" and ask me questions in Chinese that I cannot understand. As a teacher, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing the metaphorical light bulb go off in a student's head once I realize that they finally understand something I have been teaching.



"I think I'm having a bad China day.."   "...Yeah, China days are certainly something we all have to deal with from time to time. I always try to offset it by doing something I love that I can't do back home..." I came across this conversation tonight while reading a 'China non-job related forum' on eslcafe.com. A website that at times is the most comforting thing in existence to me here. And its funny, because for the 2 years that I lived in Europe, I probably never looked at this website once. Anyway, I came across this conversation tonight and it made me smile. Was comforting to read that I'm not the only one who has taken the liberty to classify their days into 2 categories. 'Good China days'...'Bad China days.' Today was, for all intents and purposes, a bad China day. I dunno. Maybe I should restructure how I label my days. Maybe there should also be a category entitled  'China is ok, but my boss sucks ass.' As I've said, living here, you learn to let things roll off your back. And I have. But its the things that happen to me which cause me to question my ability in the capacity of my profession, that I find very difficult to disregard. I love teaching and feel that I'm a great teacher. However, when you put me in a room with 16 Chinese kids that are all about 8 years old and who speak absolutely no English at all, I start to feel nothing if not incompetent. When I receive no help from the Chinese teachers, in regards to lesson planning and translating, it makes me feel even smaller. And the best part is when I am criticized afterwards, in broken English, by a Chinese teacher who wasn't even in the classroom during my lesson. I'm starting to think that in terms of teaching English as a foreign language, I am much more suited for adults/older kids than I am the very young ones. Hell, I didn't like subbing/student teaching with the younger ones in the states. Ask any kindergarten teacher in American why they don't teach junior high and they will tell you its because junior high teachers must be insane to put up with kids that age. Concurrently, ask any junior high teacher why they don't teach kindergarten and you will likely get a similar response. Now throw in the fact that your students don't speak your language and have no effing clue as to what 99% of what you're saying means. I don't like feeling like an entertainer. I prefer literature or relevant worldly banter over playing games. One of the scariest things, is that while I have always regarded myself as a very creative person, most of the time when it comes to me making up games to play with these kids its as if I have no mind at all. Literally. The well of creativity has been tapped dry and as hard as I try to conjure up something that might spark their interest, the entire time I'm really wishing I was teaching a business English class to a bunch of 18 year olds, preparing to embark on their first trip abroad. My mother told me that I'm too literal for kids this young. Considering that she has been teaching for longer than I have been alive, suffice it to say that I respect her opinion on this.

 I'm sitting with several of my foreign teacher friends right now, and I was just told to step away from the screen and into my drink. And its funny, because regardless, we will still sit here and talk about nothing except for our jobs until we leave. The 'things my students do that I hate' topic has already showed its familiar face. ... That being said, its still the greatest most exciting feeling in the world. Being scared of something new, does not mean that you don't welcome it with open arms. Matter of fact, I can't think of anything in my life that I have welcomed more. 

English 101 with my cab driver. I don't know how it got brought up but when he found out that I was an English teacher he lit up like a Christmas tree. It was pretty funny. The only word he wanted to know was 'money.' After I told him how to say it he proceeded to say it out loud about 10 times in a row. I also threw 'left' and 'right' into the mini lesson. Figured that as a cab driver, directions would probably be good.


Looking like scattered ants
The people from where I sailed
No engine to elevate, no wings there to soar
No captain or copilot to see me ashore
Only a gentle light, burning far off and to the west
Resonating comfort while whispering release
I held on so tight and ascended towards that light
Smiling with resolution as I saw you below
Because I knew in that fleeting moment 
It was ok to let go

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*26 days after being released; time is almost 1/15/14

Why does listening to melancholy music always make me feel anything but melancholy?


I wondered why nobody else
Openly communicated through spoken word or silence
About the shear beauty of having one's time to one's self
Solitude
And perhaps company, when paired with your audacious mind
It was as if no one aside from myself
Noted the joy of being alone
In one's head
Resting on the breaches of solitary confinement
Even though sometimes it carries me to places
Where I see what might have been
Then trying to play it cool
Is impossible for me to do
But still your sometimes light
I can see it flashing bright
Somewhere far off in the distance
And then I knew why silence was golden
As I helped solitude to quiet her voice
It was then that I thought about you
And decided it true
That I would never feel lonely again



Saturday, December 28, 2013

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” Oscar Wilde

“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”

 Oscar Wilde

So, I just had my very first Christmas without my family. And while I had a great time with other expats, the void of family was still there. Lingering and resembling that of a shadow. In 2 days, it will mark my being in China for 7 months. I still marvel at this country. Everyday I encounter something that leaves me dumbfounded. Everyday, I become more aware of the extent to which our cultures are truly polar opposites. Did it take me 7 months to figure this out? Perhaps. On a happier note, one of my best friends, Eve, gets here today. She is flying all the way from The Netherlands to see me and her timing couldn't be more perfect. I've been in somewhat of a funk lately. A very merited funk, to say the least. And the pollution here is another story, only adding to the funk. The pollution is apparently the worst it has ever been in Hangzhou. It was so bad that they actually closed the schools in Shanghai . Every person I pass on the street wears a surgical mask. Lets just say that I haven't seen a star at night, let alone the sun (the true sun), in months. A giant blanket of gray covers the sky. Enveloping the atmosphere not unlike a cloak of filth. I have decided to leave China earlier than I had planned. My original plan was to return to the states in late May. However, plans have changed, as I have changed. It looks like I will be returning stateside, hopefully, in early February. 
Its cold as hell here. 32 degrees feels colder than negative 20 in Colorado. This puts somewhat of a damper on sightseeing...which I will be doing all week when Eve arrives. I look forward to her arrival, but I am also dreading her departure. For I will miss her dearly. I am not working now, and thus my days are filled with nothing but reading, writing and listening to music. I need to find an art store and buy some canvases so I can start painting again. The isolation is starting to take its toll on me. My spirit is not yet broken, but everyday is a test of strength and motivation. All of my friends work all day, so its not like I can hang out with them in the afternoon. And quite frankly, I'm at the point where I feel that I have seen as much of China as I want or need to see. Hell, I haven't even unpacked my suitcases since I've moved into my new apartment. This gypsy lifestyle I've been living, makes permanency seem so unattainable. If you never unpack your suitcase, then you never have to repack once you move again. At least that's the way I see it. And I can finally, for the first time in my life, say with complete conviction, that I am ready to live a life of normality. I am ready to unpack those suitcases and put them in the closet...at home in Houston

                                                          

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Surviving Chinese prison, personal notes,thoughts,quotes,poems and people....


Queen dawn reigned
From the sofa's corner
Legs propped up, half smiling at him as the music played
And I talked typed faces
As he drank bourbon
And sipped some beer
The republicans weren't afraid
So you gave me your recipe
...stir the eggs gently
And wait for the batter to rise
My glasses came loose and as we looked for the screw
You came out of your disguise
And then I fell into you

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Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable."
   Francis Bacon, Sr.