Yep, niche has been found.

It never fails to amaze me how quickly things can change for me in this country. Good to bad, bad to worse, worse to "Screw China, I'm moving home" and last but not least, and my personal favorite, "I can't believe I was considering leaving?! This country rules and I will continue to ride this steady wave of good fortune until my visa wreaks of expiration." Today was perhaps, one of the most promising days I have yet to have in this country. I got a really great tutoring gig, tutoring a 14 year old boy who is taking the TOEFL exam in December. The pay is great and his family is awesome.  I got lucky, this is a genuinely cool kid. His pronunciation is great, but his vocabulary is definitely lacking. But that doesn't even matter. More importantly, we have great chemistry, and I feel that 2 solid months of one on one tutoring is definitely going to expand both his vocabulary and grasp of the English language. And at the end of the day that's really all that matters. I have finally stumbled across a job, and I use th term 'stumbled' loosely, that pays me on time and who respects me as an educator. Finally, 5 months into living in this country, I have found a job that doesn't hassle me when its time to get paid, and who doesn't harass me in terms of lesson planning and student “happiness.”

Living in a place like China, it really is the little day to day things that happen to you that make you take a step back and reevaluate your life here, while simultaneously allowing you to realize that most of these things will not be a part of your life once you leave China. Take, for example, the 17 year old girl who works at the neighborhood coffee joint that I frequent. This evening, and I'm not kidding you, she took the index finger on her right hand and poked it straight into my left breast. Yep. Poked the shit out of my t*t. Why? I dunno. Perhaps the fact that she has never seen a woman over five foot four who has tits? Could be, I suppose. Any other country in the world and I would have perhaps reacted. But she just giggled, completely oblivious to how what she had just done might be regarded as offensive to a Westerner, such as myself. Seeing as Starbucks is a pretty good walk from my house and job, I frequent this particular neighborhood coffee place almost daily. Probably best not to rock the caffeine boat that takes me to work every evening.

“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.”  Maxwell Maltz

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions”  Rainer Maria Rilke

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”  Zora Neale Hurston

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”   Oscar Wilde

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”   Oscar Wilde

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”   Oscar Wilde

Have I finally found my niche?

After leaving the job I had at a little piece of hell on earth I will refer to as 'kid castle,' things are starting to look up in my life in China. Found a great job with a great boss and great coworkers. I am teaching business English to adults and doing some classes with teenagers. Have definitely realized that  I am SO much more suited for teaching adults and older kids than the younger ones. I can't be a clown in a classroom. I don't want to dance around like a singing monkey and amuse kids who speak no English for hours at a time. I am an educator, thus educating those who are willing and capable of learning is the ideal situation for me. Tonight I had my first class. 15 adults all from the same company. Some big wig company that pays for them to attend English class once a week. We had a ball! We laughed, we learned, we talked about cultural differences and touched on business etiquette. After class they all wanted their picture with me, so of course we got a brilliant class pic taken that I will post as soon as they email it to me. So the never ending job search has officially come to an end and I am happy as a clam at the super laid back adult language school that I'm working at now. Never thought I'd actually get to type that sentence in any of these blog entries.

Going to look at a house tomorrow in downtown Hangzhou. This is funny for a couple of reasons. There is this website here for expats called, tellingly, hangzhouexpat.com. Its a site that is used frequently by expats such as myself for looking for apartments, roommates, jobs, etc...So last night I get a phone call from some French dude named Paul. I agree to meet him in the lobby of his hotel as he is new and also looking for room-ate/place to live. Wow, Paul and I were about as opposite as two people could possibly be. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty easygoing gal. This guy was wired so tight that I swear if ya put a chunk of coal up his ass, one week later you would have a diamond. Anyhoo, the funny part is not that I met Paul (banal Paul, as I refer to him) last night. (Seriously, my little toe has more personality.) No, the funny part is that after we met and essentially hated each other, I find out today from a guy I've been talking to for the past week in regards to renting a room in his house, that he has ALSO spoken with banal Paul. And so the story goes...tomorrow, Alex (British guy), banal Paul and myself are meeting at Alex's house (THE potential house), for drinks and dinner. The clincher, and its a good one, is that banal Paul has no idea that I am the 'American girl' who is also looking for a place to live and will be joining them for dinner. The expression on his face when he sees me will be priceless. Alex has already mentioned he will have the camera at hand. Banal Paul made passes at me last night that wouldn't materialize in a million years and I'm pretty sure I bruised his ego. But sh*t, I'm looking for a flatmate, not a hookup. So, Alex sounds cool as hell. His only stipulation for tomorrows shindig is that we each bring a bottle of red wine and that it cannot be Chinese red wine. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, indeed! He is away on business all the time so will essentially never be living there....leaving me and banal Paul, ha! Has 3 bedrooms and he said its like a cozy, nice log cabin. He said, and I quote, that "...its not Chinese-y." If any of you have ever lived in China, you know that this is something to look forward to. I'll leave it at that. Well, wish me luck tomorrow. Fingers crossed and would love to live downtown and right off the tube line. Is it possible that my shit is finally starting to come together in this damn country? Possibly. But then again, this is China. Anything and everything is possible.


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!

ALSO!!!  I found out my parents are flying me home for a month from January 20-Feb 10, for Chinese Spring Festival!!!! (chinese new years...biggest holiday of the year in china and no one works. I am BESIDE myself with excitement!!!)  94 more days til i get to return to the best country in the world!!!

Chinese National week in Jinyun, part 1 of probably many parts...

*no camera cord for now. but a ton of amazing pics to come!

Well, now that I am finally in Jinyun I wish I wouldn't have been so apprehensive about coming. What a wonderful time I am having! Seriously, I needed this trip more than I even knew I did. So far I have only gotten agitated (err, pissed off) twice. Both times in the morning. Morning one: I am awoken at 6:52 am by the hideously loud sound of robotic like voices that are projecting from a loudspeaker, from a truck that is parked right outside my window. Make that 8 trucks, actually. I guess it was some advertisement. This is how they roll in China. 6:52 am? No problem. Parked in a heavily residential neighborhood on a national holiday? No problem. Pretty sure that 'f*ck' was the first word to escape my mouth yesterday. But seriously, once you wake up and come to and realize what it is that you're getting pissed off about, its pretty hard not to laugh at the whole situation. Which is exactly what I did. This morning was a similar situation, but much, much, louder. 6:56 am, I am in a blissful slumber when all of a sudden I hear what sound like a million gunshots going off at once. My ass must have jumped 2 feet out of the bed before my feet hit the floor, and I seriously debated 'hitting the deck.' Wait, I'm not in America, China doesn't have drive-bys, do they? So this morning marked day 2 of me waking up in a slightly pissy mood. It wasn't just a few fireworks that I heard, it was more like 50-60 of them. It lasted a while. And they were loud. Very loud. And it didn't just stop at the 50 or so deafening fireworks right outside my window. No, there was some kind of grand effing firework finale after the initial one. Good times. My initial reaction this morning to the 7 am party taking place below my window was, "Ok, cool. Its Chinese National week and I'll give them a break." However, when the mom of the family that I'm staying with informed me that it had nothing to do with the holiday and was solely for 'celebrating' a new advertisement for a car, I started seeing red (sorry China, no pun). Looking forward, kind of, to seeing what kind of random surprise the morning greets me with tomorrow. If it trumps this morning there will be no pissy moods, only abundant laughter, I'm sure of it.

'The Culprits'...probably t minus 1 hour before I passed out. However, this round table was probably some of the most fun I have had since I've been in China!

Yesterday, for Chinese National day, the family I'm with took me to a lunch/dinner (they pretty much eat all day) at some friends of theirs. They also proceeded to get me obliterated drunk, much to their amusement, off of Chinese whiskey...Chinese moonshine. Literally. They make it themselves, fermented with fruit, its strong and its absolutely delicious. Lets just say I was passed out napping on a bed next to some random girl by 4pm. I had a blast! I was essentially giving one giant English lesson, while attempting to take notes in my 'chinese language journal,' as they taught me different phrases in Mandarin. I probably said 'cheers!' and 'gan bei!' at least 50 times during the course of the early afternoon party we had.  As I have said before, laughter and effortless smiles mitigated any language barriers that might have existed. And once again, I felt alive! So grateful to be in China and experiencing everything that I am. The mother of the family I'm with, Jane, said I am a very strong drinker and she was so glad I could try to keep up with the men. Not sure if I should take that as a compliment, but I know that's how she meant it. I minded my manners and apparently knew just when to stop drinking. The stuff is wicked dangerous. You feel and taste nothing, and then all of a sudden you wake up in a bed with a random Chinese girl. Classic. Today was an even better day though! I fell in love...with this town. I have dubbed it the 'Colorado of China' and I am seriously thinking about relocating. Its gorgeous here. Nature at its finest. The air, the mountains, the river, the laid back way of living. This gypsy might be spinnin' her traveling wheels once more. The beauty of this life I'm living. When the wind does blow, I am free to go with it.

Holy shit, Alfred is back, and in full effect. This will make for a grand day of blogging tomorrow. Sh*t.

Above, a picture of the minstrel truck advertisement crew that camped out outside my bedroom window on morning #1.