I finished a book for the first time in nearly a year

Apparently a semester winding down has jump-started the former glory of my reading habit, and in the last week I have finished 2 books that I started last summer. I don't normally review books on this blog, but I'm feeling extra-literary, so here goes.

I bought this book specifically to bring to China and have something to read on the trip over here and I was settling, and my plan was to have my mom send more books as I was ready for them. It seems like a good enough idea, but I just never got around to actually reading this book that I had heard so much about; I would bring it with me to Sunday dinner at my favorite Muslim noodle shop, read maybe 10 pages or so a week. I didn't read more than that in one sit until I was stuck on the boring side of the Changsha Airport heading home for Spring Festival, but when I got back to China I neglected it, again. Mostly my own laziness is to blame, but also partially at fault is how painfully slow this book starts: I don't understand Swedish history, politics, or economics, and those were the predominant early issues. Also, from the background I had read on the Millennium trilogy, I knew that there were 2 main characters--Mikael and Lisbeth. Spoiler alert: these two don't even meet until 328 PAGES into a 600 page book! All that being said, the book deserves the international hype is has gotten. The characters are interesting and not totally likable, which I really like, and after those first 300 pages the story takes off like a rocket (bad cliche, I know, but I'm out of the habit of creating good ones). I read the last half of the book in 2 days, and was utterly disappointed that I did not yet own the next two. I actually bought the second one, my first ebook purchase on iBooks, but as of right now I can only read it on my iPhone...and reading another book that size about 30 words at a time is disheartening.

Two of the most surprising gifts I have ever gotten were given to me by my dad a month or so before I left for China. This man, bless him, does not have the strongest history when it comes to presents that are practical or applicable to my actual life, so for him to give me two books on teaching in China, out of the blue, was a total shock. The first one I read while I was still in America.

This is an autobiographical novel written by a woman who taught for a year in China in the late 1980s, one of the first big waves of foreign teachers allowed in the country after the Communists came to power in 1949. My mom can attest to how freaked out I was by this book, and she had to remind me, repeatedly, for at least a week that it had been 20 years since Rosemary Mahoney had been there, and things would not be so bad for me. It's a really gritty look at China emerging from the scars of the Cultural Revolution into the capitalistic late 20th century, and as teachers living long-term within China's borders, we get to see so much that tourists miss. Even though it was set in 1987/88, it was my first glimpse at the kind of life I would be living here in the Orient: something utterly different than the one I had in the States.

The second book my dad gave me was slightly more recent (published 1998, from letters from 1993/95), and I started while I was still home. Maybe I was burned out reading about China, and I know I was under stress from one of my summer jobs, but I only made it 96 pages in (out of 326). After finishing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this was my next choice, and I finished it within four or five days.

If anyone ever cares to know what my life here is really like, this is the closest you're going to get. These teachers were working through the Colorado China Council and writing back to a woman named Alice Renouf, telling about every aspect of their lives here in the East; a few of the featured writers even worked here in Changsha, my current hometown! The little bit that I read last summer was interesting, but after living here for 10 months this book was like reading stories from my own friends. I was sooo sad to finish it, because I wanted to read more, and I felt connected to these people, even though it's been nearly 20 years since they lived here. Teaching in China is like being an RA, it's this common understanding that unites people faster than many other things can. In reading this book, I learned that some aspects of foreign life in China have changed drastically (some teachers found hidden microphones in their apartments and their American family members received phone calls from Chinese officials to make sure they weren't spying), but some things are exactly the same as they were back then (foreigners have always attracted attention, and I suspect they always will). Stories about traveling, communicating, eating, and working in China made me laugh because I've been through many of the same issues. The editor also pulls in some fascinating tidbits from psychology about the process people go through when they move into a totally different culture from their own, and she has letters from people who weren't able to adjust and either didn't come back or cut out early. I really can't say enough good things about this book, and I obviously identified with it in a big way. It makes me happy that I have been keeping journals the whole time I've been here, because maybe someday they can be published for the next generation of ESL teachers in China. I'll close with a quote from one of the letters that absolutely sums up how I feel about where I am, geographically and in my life.

"I don't regard China as two years abroad. It has been two years of my life, as natural and connected to my life before as it will be to the days after."

prepping for margarita night

I have been absolutely wiped out this week, and for no good reason I can find. I totally busted walking down the stairs behind our guardhouse on Wednesday, and even though my whole left side hurts there's not yet a wicked-awesome bruise to show my pain. (I think I may have mentioned how most Chinese walking surfaces are non-porous, so water sits on top, not to mention leaves and algae, in this case.) We found out Monday that we were getting our health check on Wednesday morning--if we've left the country, we have to get one to renew our residence visas--and we had to cough up 400 yuan for it. Yeah, we just got paid last Friday, but I didn't think to budget for that. Good thing I'm tutoring every week! At least that day we also got to sign the primary contract for next year, and I got the raise I asked for--yeah! On Thursday, I discovered mouse droppings in the kitchen, much to my dismay. I'll be the first to admit that I'm horribly lazy when it comes to dishes, and I had definitely let it go way too far, so I was hoping that once I cleaned the dishes and countertops that the mouse would leave. My hopes were shot when I was woken at 3:11 a.m. on Friday by a mouse trying to CLIMB ON MY BED. We didn't have mice problems at home in L.R., just one time that I can remember and it was funny that time, because it was me plus my mom and our cat and dog playing with/not caring about the live mouse "terrorizing" our kitchen. Living on your own and dealing with pests is a whole new ballgame. I let our FAO liasion know, but she was not helpful at all (I expected as much) so I bought a cheap sticky trap at Wally World. Last night, not even late, I heard the mouse in the kitchen behind the fridge; I creeped in and turned the light on, and it poked its head halfway out before seeing me and hiding. I tried to gas it out with bug spray, but it ran behind the sanitizer and started to scurry up the appliance cords. I put the trap by the fridge, where I had seen the mouse, and shut the kitchen door for the night. When I went in this morning, I found the poor thing in the trap, trying every few seconds to peel itself off. My attempts to put it out of its misery were hopelessly clumsy, so I really hope it was the only one--if they didn't poop everywhere and wake me up, I wouldn't care so much.

Anyway, I think in one of my last few posts I mis-calculated the number of weeks until I was done teaching, which is actually currently one and a half. Amy is skipping out early and having another teacher cover her last few days so she can travel with her brother, and since next Saturday she is leaving to meet him, we are having one of probably a few final shindigs. I even stopped at the bakery to pick up a little surprise!

"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it

I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over"

did I even need more reasons to love my mom and brother?

Here's a little backstory. A few months ago, I decided to commit to the world of e-readers because books are heavy and don't travel well or cheap internationally. After doing research, I decided that I wanted a NOOK Color, because it was from an actual bookstore (as opposed to the Kindle from Amazon) and would have the most book options. I asked my family if they would buy it for me, with money I would put into my American account, and bring it when they visit in July. I also asked my brother to do some research for me, including going into Barnes & Noble and clearing up some questions I had about international use. Every now and then, my mom would mention the iPad, and ask why I didn't want one of those since it can be an e-reader and more. An iPad would be fun, but it was way more money than I wanted to spend on myself; also I knew basically what it could do, but since I never saw myself owning one, I never looked into the product or did any research.

Then on Thursday when I was Skyping with home, my mom said that I needed to turn on my video because Keenan had something to tell me. Turns out, they had been planning (for about 4 months now) to surprise me with an iPad2! All of my NOOK obsession had them freaked that I wouldn't like an iPad if they just showed up in China with it (bahaha)! So here it is:

It will be a combination birthday/Christmas gift from several family members, and I get to see it on July 20th, when the Abners are reunited in Beijing! Obviously, I'm really excited, especially after sitting down yesterday and watching the Apple Keynote when they introduced the iPad2, seeing what this thing is capable of and some of the really cool apps. Also, I'm glad that my family will not be having to send me packages for the holidays. I love getting mail, but to send a small box to China runs about $40 in shipping each time, and I hate that they have to pay so much money. This way, they can give me giftcards and I can buy more apps or ebooks or whatever.

We're down to three and a half weeks of teaching here, and boy, is it dragging on! The Sports Meeting was last weekend, and ended up being a fair bit of fun. I won third place in my division on the hammer throw, and if I'd bothered to practice I could have easily gotten first. I mean, seriously, I played softball for a total of about 10 years, and some of these Chinese women actually didn't know how to throw anything. (Summer, I thought of you!) The shotput did not go as well for me, as it seemed that all those same wimpy women had actually been trained in shotput--they had the technique and everything, it was fascinating to watch. I was interviewed for NUDT TV, and got to march in the opening ceremonies with other teachers and staff members. It was hot and sunny, but all the bleachers were roped off for students of the different colleges, who sat all weekend cheering. There are a few pictures on my flickr account. This week, I've been asked to tutor what I'm told are 8 eight-year-old girls, so I'm going to meet with them and their families tomorrow and see if this will happen. I need to tutor this summer and make extra money so I won't starve without two months of pay, but to be honest, my laziness is kicking in and trying to dissuade me. Also yesterday, Amy and I went to Juzizhou Island, which is in the middle of the Xiangjiang River in between the east and west sides of Changsha. It was rainy, and therefore a little miserable to begin with, but on top of that there was nothing really open. Much of the architecture is copies of various Western styles, and they were blasting Western classical music on the speakers, both of which bothered me, because I don't enjoy seeing the Chinese eschew their own culture in favor of something they think is superior (and which I could see if I stayed at home). The big draw of Juzizhou is the tallest statue of Chairman Mao in the world--it's only his head, but it's 32 meters high! It's on the very southern tip of the island, so it took over an hour of walking to get there, but we hit a lucky point between tourist groups and were able to get some quick photos, which will be on flickr shortly. The four of us are trying to plan a long-awaited trip to Shaoshan, Mao's home village, but it's being complicated by the mutual tightness of money as the other three friends apart from myself are preparing to move back home, which means sending expensive boxes full of belongings ahead. Amy only has two more weekends with us, since she is heading out early to travel with her younger brother, so I get the feeling that the next month will be very busy.

On a final note, I have decided to change the title of this blog. "hello, december" comes from a journal entry made more than a year ago, at a time when I was feeling very, um, dramatic? Romantically depressed and melancholy? Whatever, it's a time in my life that's passed, and my blog title needs to reflect that. The URL/actual address will remain the same, but the new title comes from a quote from one of my all-time favorite TV shows, "Grey's Anatomy":

"Slow rides make for boring stories. A little calamity--now that's worth talking about."