Preamble: this is not to make fun of the Chinese, it's just the way I get my laughs sometimes.
Behold.......some of my students' (past, present and friends') English names:
*Goris (f) *Yoyo (f)
*Keamo (sabe?) (f) *Yojo (f)
*Neaco (f) *Beryl (is this a name I am unaware of? f)
*Kinky (f) *Shirely (subtley different from Shirley)
*Melons (m) *Gills (f)
*Crow (m) *Hebe (f)
*Resin (m) *Coco (m)
*Yane (f) (I think of Stephen F's Anchorman impressions everytime I say her name) * 2 Fanny's
*Jupiter *Snowball (m)
*Swig (f, she wanted her name to be Swallow, but she it was too long )
*Rainia (f) *Volcano (m)
*Jingle (m)
-courtsey of other teachers
*Grean (m)
*Uranus (m)
*Venus
*Anject (f)
*Snower (f)
Getting through roll without cracking a smile is generally seen as an accomplishment

know I complain a lot about China, so this blog is going to be 100%, totally and unequivocally dedicated to the things I love about living here::
*taxi drivers who continue to talk to you long after it has been established that you have no idea what they are saying
*the bird-man outside my apartment
*Chinese dumplings
*Chinese babies
*my students
*the gardens (especially the bamboo forest)
*people speaking at screaming volume level but just having regular conversations
*creative modes of transportation--especially regular bicycle riders holding on to the back someone else's moped (in order to arrive much more speedily) and homemade tractors
*tea houses
*public transportation
*recorded bird sounds playing on people's apartment balconies
*laundry hanging anywhere possible (phone wires, trees, tennis nets etc.)
*an addictive simplicity
*Lanzhou noodles
*West Lake in all of its newness blooming
*hiking in the mountains (hills?)
*canals
*merchants who smile when we are bargining
*the chaotic and overwhelming environment of the fruit and vegetable market
*ancient Chinese couples holding hands by the canal in front of my apartment or West Lake
*Engrish

Being that the majority of my week has occured on my bed, I will substitute requested pictures for boring stories:

My Elizabethian cat::


Me and my wheelchair. On the way home from the vet, Seth told everyone we passed that we'd been a car accident in Chinese. If it looks like I had had a bad day, I had:


My birthday cake(s), so yummy!

Happy Birthday Chris!!!!

I took my cat to get fixed this weekend and to be declawed. It didn't prove to be as blogable a story as I thought it would be. I took a student with me, and there were almost no understandings. Well, there was one initial misunderstanding when the vet thought I had come to be fixed.....but after that got cleared up..... And, I am sure that my student now thinks I am a psycho because I cried when I had to hold her and they put the shunt in and because I just dropped a whole month's Chinese's salary on a cat. But, I did some research and found out, apart from simply wanted to decrease the pet surplus population, that her yowling would go in cycles until WINTER unless I fixed or bred her. I love sleep too much for that and kittens are the last thing I need now. And though Seth said, "oh I'll fix 'er" I figured the money might be worth it.

I also got to take the motorized pedicab for handicap people home! Pedicabs are outlawed in my town except the kind that assist the handicapped. I've wanted to ride in one since September! YESSSSS. Saturday some of the teachers from Wenling came up and we enjoyed West Lake and the botanical gardens on a simply divine day, had an Indian supper and then went to karaoke to rock out. We joked the whole time because all of us felt like we were in some sort of Make-A-Wish-Foundation outing with my wheel chair and such a beautiful place. (not that we think Make-A-Wish-Foundation is funny....)

Today, my closest friends came to cook me a Chinese lunch for my birthday. It was so good. Sometimes I forget how wonderful they are and when everyone is in the same room it is almost too overwhelming. We laughed a lot and ate a lot of such good food. We are doing a cooking exchange. Once a month we take turns cooking Chinese/western. Its my turn next so toss out some ideas for some dishes that do not require baking, cheese, olives, tomato sauce, bread or meat. (please) I haven't enjoyed an afternoon that much in a long time.

Happy birthday week to: Jane (n/a), Rachel(n/a?), Chris (25), Beth FB (24), Sabrina (24), Kristin N (24)!

In honor of Amanda.....

(and all the rest who have been pestering me to update this)
This week's news:
*I was in bed more than I was out of it.
*Did some tricking.
*All most all 150 of my students signed the cast (with much wonderment, apparently that's just an American custom)
*Had (and still have) the suspicion my cat is going into heat.
*Did a one-legged anti-rain dance for Cyprus' forecast.
*Realized that the inside of bag I take everywhere smells like my mother's purse did when I
was a child (and still does) and started wondering what Freud would say about that. (smell==minty gum, tissue fluff, things that have been wet and then dry et. nauseam)
*Had a sandwich party
*Been an unusually ardent Chinese language student
*Missed home
*Played the nose trumpet
*Made too many promises to keep
*Practiced poetry with my students

(are you happy now A??)

Please open your.......

The hits keep coming.....I woke up today with the "getting-things-done" mind set. I started with checking my email (always a bad first choice). The American doc had emailed me to let me know the panel of obligatory blood tests he ran when I was in with my foot had come back and he was worried about some stuff and wanted to run a few more. So, instead of my to-do list, I went to the hospital for a little chat. He had noticed some things were up with my heart and liver function (weird, never been a problem ever before) and wanted to run some more blood tests, an EKG and a heart and liver ultrasound (I think everything is actually fine, that is not the point of the post).

Everything was going smoothly as we headed into the heart ultrasound. The Chinese doctor who was performing the tests couldn't speak English, so a Chinese nurse with less English than my students was translating for her. After the liver ultrasound, the doctor said "somethingsomethingsomething" and the nurse said, "lay on your side," so I did. And then the doctor said "somethingsomethingsomething" and the nurse said, "Now please open your Bible." "My what?" I asked surprised." "Your Bible, open your Bible." I was suddenly confused as to if I was at church or the hospital....or if the nurse was about to give me the last rites.......the bafflement on my face must have been a clue to her wrong vocabulary. "Your Bible," she said again, resorting to pantomiming and reaching behind to the middle of her back." "Oh!" the truth was dawning, "My bra! You want me to undo my bra!" I practically shouted, cracking up already. "Oh, bra......b..r...a...bbbuuurrr...aaaaaa.....aaaaa...bra......" she repeated. "Yes, bra." I confirmed. I continued to crack up for the rest of the examination, giving the oblivious doctor fits............open my bible......ha!

In my isolation, I have taken to stealing from others' blogs....today's winner is: Fellow English teacher, Erin in Wen Ling::

"Instructions on the back of the vegetable peeler I purchased (spelling errors included):
-Wash it with edible scour before using.
-Don't use it except vegitables aand fruits.
-Take care while using it.
-Don't use it when some dirty things on the holder.
-While use if on the small one,pleaase taake care of youfinger.
-Child can't use it himself, if use it, please under your
-If it is transformative, please don't use it.
-Don't use it unduly in order to prevent distortion.
-Don't use to cut hart things,it's easy to be bad.
-Don't put it near fire.
-After using it, please wash it and dry.
-Don't wash it with metal brush and hard clothes
.-parents reference."

The past two days, my second family here, has taken me out on the town in my wheelchair. Yesterday to dinner, today to buy some DVDs. Once again, if not already the center of attention as a foreigner when I walk down the street, I certainly am wheeling down the street. It doesn't help that Seth is general busting-a-gut laughing at the whole situation. Today, the caramelized-fruit-on-a-stick-seller even gave Jane and I free caramelized strawberries. As much as I get frustrated with Chinese sometimes, they really are so kind and concerned.

In retrospect, I realized I have NEVER seen an every-day Chinese person in a wheelchair, maybe once or twice someone begging, but never just someone going on with their daily life--never even an elderly person. And, I have only seen one person on crutches. It is all very weird beard. What do they do with all of the injured and feeble?

newly obsessed with Trespassers William....they are sort of like HEM meets Imogen Heap meets Sia. Love it!

Funny thing happened today. My ankle was still sort of killing whenever I......moved.....and I also needed to get some prescriptions renewed (which loyal readers will remember was an fiasco at the Chinese hospital back in the fall) so I decided to pay the only American doctor in Zhejiang province a visit. I wanted to hug him as soon as I saw him (though, he was missing almost all of his teeth and its not that I am prejudice against those with no teeth, it just made me a little nervous!). He was just so.....American...in a good way. He is also I psychologist (his main job here is to draw attention to mental health and modern resources to help) so we sat an talked for awhile about China, moving, adjusting, loneliness blah blah. When he finally got to looking at my ankle he said "G*dd*mn girl, you really bruised the hell out of it."

Upon examination of THE SAME x-rays from the Chinese hospital (where they told me no breaks, only injury to the soft tissue) he realized that I had fractured my foot in two places and torn a ligament and ripped the Achilles tendon. Well, shoot a monkey.
So, here I am.....cast.......crutches....and wheelchair for long distances. No weight may be applied for 3-4 weeks!!! BU HAO!

In line with misdiagnoses, two American friends from a wee city down south came up the past weekend because their hospital there had said they probably needed appendectomies, so they wanted a second opinion at a mildly more modern facility before going under the knife. In Hangzhou, they were told that they did not have appendicitis only severe constipation (excuse me for publicizing this girls). The only problem is that they went to the same Chinese hospital that misdiagnosed me....hmmmm...tricky.......Kristin, Brian and Audrey we need you HERE!!

(this was apparently saved as a "draft" instead of being right published..........)
I fell again today. I must be hitting a growth spurt (believe it or not). I fell off a curb at city center in the rain today. I was up, then I was definitely down and off the curb watching Seth (still talking to me) walk into the distance while forgetting the language to call him to help and Chinese people swarmed around, concerned. I was so embarrassed, first falling, then sitting in the rain in a puddle until we could hail a taxi in rush hour. Chinese people were staring at me like I had two heads. I am not the kind of person (I hope) that falls often and makes a large deal out of the attention, but it is really is pain like I haven't felt in a long long time, and hopping not walking, is the order of the day....or week/month etc.

Luckily, Seth realized I wasn't participating in the conversation and turned around to see me on the pavement, hailed a taxi and then took me to the hospital (no broken bones was the word) and then home. Most of all, it scared me--scared/scares me to think if I had been alone. I couldn't remember English, much less Chinese--and I don't even know "I've hurt my ankle!" I was/am so helpless.

I am definitely ok. Alive. But I might be in bed for the next year so please call/email me for my own entertainment. I am drunk on rum and filled with painkillers, so I will sleep now, but call if you have extra time!..........