It's been a while

Okay, let me sit down and write this novel. I hope that I can organize my thoughts in such a way that allow me to convey the awesomeness of the past 3 weeks to you and say everything that I wanted to say all in one post.

Okay, so my first thought goes to my camera, or lack thereof. My camera that I have had for a very long time has pretty much seen it’s last days. Pieces of it are falling off everyday. The whole thing is being held together by tape so that I can still take some photos. Now, no...it is not hard to find cameras in China. They are kind of everywhere. The problem that you run into is whether the cameras that you are looking at are real or not. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if I was just getting a crappy camera to hold me over until I get back to the states. Sadly, I want a real camera. I want the Nikon D5000. I know what you’re thinking, “don’t they make those around there somewhere?” The answer is yes, they do. But I, once again, don’t want to pay 5000 Yuan or so for something that is fake. It comes to about $750 or so. Plus with me not making a ton of money here in China, it makes things a little more difficult. I had found one in Atlanta for a good price before I left but I was convinced by outside parties that I could find it cheaper here. At any rate, now I don’t really have a camera to take photos with so I’ve been having to steal other people’s photos.

It turns out that the program that I work for, TIP, is making a little commercial or some short little film. Well, I volunteered to head up the project and do lots of the filming for them. This is super exciting because it is my first real foray into filmmaking. They game me a real camera that seems kind of expensive. I have been setting up shots and all kinds of things like that. So much fun. I have also been using the camera to film some of my own things which is kind of exciting too. I ran into a little problem at the beginning. In order to get the footage off of the camera and on to your computer, you have to use a cord that has FIreWire 400 on it. Well, Apple stopped making computers with FireWire 400. They only use 800 now so I have to go buy a converter cable. Haha, one thing about Apple, they know how to make money.

A few months ago my guitar got stolen out of my car. This was painful, very painful indeed, but I knew that I would get another one. The discussion was whether to get another one in the states and then bring it to China or just to get one in China. I was thinking that the next guitar that I got was going to be a Taylor, because I really am in LOVE with their guitars, and with that I knew that I did not want to bring it to China. Plus, it would just add to the things that I had to carry, no fun. Well, a week or two ago, I did end up buying one with some of the money that we got for the last session. It has been one of the best purchases that I have made here in China. When I’m down, bored, or just feeling creative, I just pick up my guitar and start going to town. In addition to that, one of my friends here songs, and we’ve decided that we will play at one of the open mic nights here in the city. As a large group person I actually have a lot of time to do a lot of things and since I don’t always like getting dressed and leaving my room, I just pick up the guitar. Turns out that item number 89 on my bucket list is to learn Jazz guitar, so with my random amounts of free time, I have been trying to learn Jazz and Blues guitar. I am working on progressions, scales, and soloing. Hopefully by the end of this year I will be good enough to share with others.

Last Wednesday I received a letter from my best friend, Kris, that pretty much lifted my spirit for the whole week. After that, nothing phased me it was very happy. She just told me about her life back in Macon and that she missed me. Of course, it was funnier to her and I. But it was still great to hear from her via snail mail.

Following that fantastic letter from Kris came one of the best no, the best, care package that I have ever received. It took her forever, but mom finally managed to get a super sweet care package into the mail to me. She sent me tons of snack food that I hope will last me for a pretty long time. I have already done an inventory of what I have and I think that I can stretch it for a while. She sent things like Skittles, starburst, goldfish(yum), clif bars, my mouse and hard drive (hallelujah), oatmeal, and gummy bears. Sadly, the gummy bears are not the ones that I asked for but I will not fault her for it. Oh, she also included a pack of Nutter Butters that I kind of finished off within the first two days. A little taste of home goes a long way. I’ve been learning to cook. I plan to go buy my own skillet, cutting board, and knife with some of the money from my next paycheck. Not that they don’t already have that stuff, it’s just VERY gross looking. So, I prefer to use my own. I’m finding that the less American stuff you try to do or use, the further your money will go. Package from mom

Well, it’s been about 7 weeks in China. I am not positive on that statement, mind you, but I think. My Chinese is improving steadily, I think. Others say that I am doing very well, but I feel that I am a tad more critical about my skills than they are. I am able to order food, give directions, menial greetings and some commands. I can also have short conversations complete with short sentences. To my credit, I can at least form complete sentences. I am working now on more complex grammar and sentence structure, understanding the different tones of native speakers and thinking in Chinese. Perhaps I am moving too fast, I am not sure. All I know is that if I want to make my Chinese deadline of Early January, I have to do more than what I am doing. It is a very difficult language at first, but I think that it gets better with time. The hardest part is just remembering what you want to say. It is easy to mimmic someone else, but then pulling that out of a store in your brain lends to many problems. I am also getting better at recognizing characters and writing characters in Chinese. Yes, that is an ENTIRELY different lesson altogether. It is not like you just learn the words and tones and then you can read and write. No, you learn the tones and words. Then, in a completely separate occurrence you learn the Characters and how to read them and maybe write them.

This session, I was a large group facilitator. Large group is one of the most fun things ever. You feel like a rockstar, in front of 160+ students. You don’t make the same connections that the small group facilitators make and sometimes that makes me kind of jealous. Chinese people are really interesting and have lots to say if you are willing to listen and be patient with them. Anyway, in large group, I go over famous speeches, fairy tales, and a morning motivational. I think that my favourite has got to be the morning motivational because it’s a pretty positive message and usually gives the students something big to think about for the day. I got “promoted” to both large group manager and supplies manager too. They don’t really mean anything, nor do they do anything extra, nor do they get paid more. I just figured that it would look good on a resume sometime in the future. So, I take the position with joy...maybe.

Okay, so every time lunch and dinner roll around, I get very sad. There is a cafeteria on campus that honestly, is not very good. They cook the SAME thing every single day. I mean the exact same thing. No, it does not change from session to session. This cafeteria cooks the same food now that they did when I first got here. It is pretty dreadful and I’m over it. Not to mention we are required to go to lunch and dinner. I am okay with going to them. I just don’t really want to eat or spend money on anything that they have there. I don’t know if I’m getting this point across well enough. It’s not that it’s Chinese food. I like Chinese food. It is what they prepare and how they prepare it. For a solid week, I only ate 2 sticks of meat a day because I was tired of the rest of the food and didn’t really want to leave the campus. :(


Here we go, it is the last day or so of the session and the students are now able to speak Chinese. The quiet students have erupted. It is very nearly impossible to get them to stop. They are all so eager to get back at the facilitators for them not being able to speak Chinese for 20 days and they want to teach us everything. It sounds good but it’s not. It is nearly impossible to learn anything while 35+ teachers are all screaming at you to repeat after them. It is a funny change to the environmental dynamic. On the other side, I ran into an anomaly today, a person who did not really want to speak Chinese. She said that it felt weird now. She, however, is a pretty good English speaker and communicates very effectively in either language.

Sadly, it’s that time of year again. The season is changing and I am getting sick again. It happens every year so I don’t know why I am surprised. There is always about a 5-8 day adaptive period where I figure out which combinations for medicines will work this time around. I have not yet figured out the combination for this one. I hope that I can be well soon. I know that I have things that I want to do and I do not want to be sick for them.