For the loyal followers of my blog, you now that I'm on my third bike after various encounters with thieves. I had my doubts about coming back after 2 months and finding my bike. Loe and behold, there is was. Elated I ran over to greet "Aunt Jamima" as we all lovingly call her. Only to find that my bike seat had been stolen. All that was left was two spring (talk about uncomfortable). The basket had also rotted out. The whole way to the bike repair shop, Chinese stopped, pointed and laughed. Luckily I was with my new great friend Jackie and we both found the whole thing hysterical as well. When I took the bike in, the repair men got really big eyes.
After replacing the seat and a basket, they informed me that I also need work on my chain, my lock and that I had no brake pads left and a new bell would actually function if I bought it, and air in the tires would definitely improve...well bicycling. Near the cost of a new bike later, Aunt Jamima was kickin it once again.
Jackie and I spent the rest of the day shopping and strolling. I tried to capture the mayhem of the supermarket on a sunday, but this photo hardly does it justice. Just think, people packed in like this throughout a whole super Walmart (or Target, if you prefer).
Finally, I love old people playing mah jong. I mean, it is soooooo Chinese. You can't get any more Chinese than old folks playing mahjong outside.
Tomorrow is my first day of TAKING classes in over a year. I am scared as hell, but I met a new Thai friend tonight, and I think if we stick together we will make it.....first day of school picture to come later......

Finally, I love old people playing mah jong. I mean, it is soooooo Chinese. You can't get any more Chinese than old folks playing mahjong outside.
Tomorrow is my first day of TAKING classes in over a year. I am scared as all g, but I met a new Thai friend tonight, and I think if we stick together we will make it.....first day of school picture to come later......
ps i can see blogspot now, for no reason at all, so feel free to leave comments, I can actually communicate back.

I can't help myself.......

I can't sleep. Jet lag....or jet leg as Si Si Jie calls it. Happy to be here, but missing home....My cat got fat while I was away.....Someone tell me a story.....Chicago....I miss thee

Home!!!

Sorry it has been so long!!:
Summer has finally hit--pummeled, rather--our fair city. Going outside between hours of 10am and 4 pm is not even a question. For a city that is supposed to be the paradise and leisure center of China, the weather could really use some improvement......amazingly cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer.....not that I am complaining....ok, actually I am complaining, I just don't get it.
This week is a terrible combination of good-byes, closings, and excitement. It is so strange to me that my first year of teaching is over. There was a point this autumn at which I really didn't plan on living through it. I'm not sure I've ever had to rely so much on other's since I was an infant. My friends and family at home for emotional support and encouragement, and my friends and family here for getting through the day--supermarket, busses, phone calls, doctors, vets etc. We've ("we" meaning you, my blogspot-reading audience and me) already had the discussion about how switching cultures/countries turns one into a child if not an infant....I can't seem to get the analogy out of my head though. All this to say, thank you to envenomed who has been so so so good to me this year. I can't wait to see you.........3 days!!!!....*gasp/sob/laugh/cheer/sleep/pull out my hair*.......I'm having trouble sticking to one emotion these days.....

The story of the resurrection......according to Cammie

Exactly one week after Xiao Mao's death, I was on my way to a Saturday afternoon of coffee and a traditional shadow puppet play, when I was distracted from my concentrated crutch-walking by something moving......it was something with a tail....the women who work the reception desk for the foreigners' apartment building were playing with a kitten. A tiny, tiny kitten. A gray, tiny tiny kitten. Jane instinctively covered my eyes (my hands were full of crutches) and Wang Jie (one of the receptionists) scooped up the kitten to hide it in the shed (to protect the sensitive and emotionally-frazzled foreigner). Before she had a chance, I called out to her to stop. I wanted to see the little cat. I figured someone was visiting with it, or it was one of the other tenant's.
"Whose is she?" I asked, holding her fuzzy little body close. "No one's," she replied, "She doesn't have a mother."
"Where did you find her?" I asked. "The dumpster," Wang replied, pointing toward the back of the building.
I knew in a moment that there was no question. I had planned especially NOT to get a new cat, especially not a kitten, especially before I decided if I was staying in China or not, but this little cat had been found in the very dumpster I had left Xiao Mao in one week before. AND it is Easter. There was really no choice. Xiao Mao has been resurrected. (the real question, my sister says, is whether or not the dumpster lid was opened or closed......) I never took the whole "9 lives" thing literally.....but.......

Funny how you can look at something and know it is not going to be a big deal in 5 years, even 1 year or a few months, but you still can't convince your heart of anything different. We were supposed to bury Xiao Mao last night in the Bamboo Forest, Si Si was taking me there. But plans didn't work out. We planned for this morning but it has been raining cats and dogs (*sarcastic laugh*) all day. So, traveling any where on crutches was out. Plus, neither of us had a shovel. So, there Xiao Mao sat, in an apple box in my living room. Realizing that a two-day old cat can't be any good as a house decoration, I made the only decision I could.....the dumpster behind my apartment. It is cleaned out everyday, so at least she won't make anyone/thing sick.

I've had a lot of time in my house lately, I watch the bird man from my front window and the trash man from my bedroom window. Every afternoon he comes by and hand picks all the garbage out of the dumpster, carefully feeling each bag for signs of recyclable items (you get money for recycling here), pulling out the prizes he finds. It always makes me sick. No one should have to dig through trash to make money, plus I always give my recycling to Yang Aiyi so she can make money. I feel like I am cheating him, he takes my trash but doesn't get any benefits. Anyway, the apple box is something that would be a nice find. I didn't want him opening it and finding a dead cat. I wrote on it, saying dead cat inside please don't open it....Si Si says he will open it anyway.....if you need money you need money.

I couldn't stop thinking about the rain all day. I know she is just a cat, and I know she is dead now but I had to keep trying to convince myself that she wasn't suffering, cold and wet in box in that dumpster with the rain pouring down. It reminded me of how I used to try to talk myself into understanding that my stuffed animals were just fuzz and cotton and that they didn't have feelings or emotions so it was ok if I left him/her in the closet. I never fully convinced myself.

Xiao Mao died this morning of an internal infection from her spaying operation.

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!..........

toilet humor

I fell in my toilet today. It all happened so fast...I am not sure if I can accurately describe what went on. Anyone who has been to my apartment (I realize that this is a small portion of the reading audience, but still a significant percentage) may have noticed that when any amount of pressure is applied to my toilet seat, it becomes a volatile flying saucer which has more than once sent "users" sailing across the restroom (the sadistic side of me loves the sounds of surprise that emanate from the bathroom when new visitors experience flight). All things come full circle though. Over time, I have learned how to perch delicately enough to remain on the stool.....but my time away must have muddied my memory. The only electrical socket in my bathroom is about 5 inches down from the ceiling above the toilet. When I want to plug in my small heater to dry my clothes in the bathroom, I have to stand on tiptoe on the toilet seat to plug it in. Unfortunately, the day before I left, there was a small electrical fire involving the socket and the said heater which mangled the rubber and metal of the plug on the heater. Though the socket was replaced, I was having trouble fitting the mangled prongs in to the socket. While in the middle of this, I shifted my weight, and the toilet seat went airborne, cruising across the bathroom striking first the kitty litter and then the cat food---sending litter, food and water flying. Somehow, I must have jumped off the seat to avoid flight, throwing the heater into the living room to avoid electrocution, but then landed, two-footed, into the toilet bowl......jamming the toes of my left foot in the crook-part of the bowl and soaking myself silly.

I do so many ridiculous things while I am alone. Its a good things no one knows about them!

Up for a swim?

We found this sign on a beach in Hong Kong, I don't think I am alone when I say a shark bite is more than an inconvenience.....but thanks for the apology.....

I accidentally wore my pajama pants to teach class on Monday. It was my day of regretting the slimming tea. I had changed into black pants in the morning, but as I got sicker and sicker, I switched to my pajama pants to increase my comfort. I was on my way to class when I realized I forgot to change, and there was no time to go back. It is like those nightmares when you go to school naked....only not quite so bad. Anyway, let's hope that is not an indication of the rest of the school year!

Thanks for all the support and encouragement. It means so much to both me and Zheng Si Si. Thank you, really.