Work, Work and More Work

I'll get to Jenny's birthday tomorrow. Sorry, just want to jot down a quick thought. 

Today starts the new semester. It is a scary semester. But it will be fine, I know. With this said, I'm not sure if I made it clear in my blog, but last semester I had no free days, 24 hours of teaching per week (and additional classes on the weekends), and it was not good. But I did earn hella money for it, and I have that money now and it is great. On the other hand, I don't think I could put myself through that again; not that much time for that little money. I like having this free time I have; I like having time to study and work out. 

Today Callie told me Jackie mentioned an additional course for the foreign teachers- an extra 8 to 10 hours per week. I'm interested in the money, certainly, but I can't add an additional ten hours to my schedule. I might talk with the girls and say the max I can pick up is 4 hours. But I'm debating even this; I want to go do my own things. Money would make my trip to Europe comfortable (did I mention I'm going to Europe and just going to circle around for 5 weeks with an extra 4 in maybe Prague because I totally am), on the other hand I really, really like my free time. 

This is the conundrum I have while my 18 gallon jug leaks all over my kitchen. 

On the upside, I don't have snow!

My Fake Date

So last night I went on a “date” with Yvonne, a Chinese girl who is the tutor of Jenny and Callie, and we’ve been joking with each other that we’re dating, so tonight we went on a date.

I’ve been pulling all the stops with this joke, so now you get to "hear" how terrible I am at romance. Even fake romance, where there is no pressure.

When I was in Shenzhen she sent a New Year’s text in Chinese, to which I responded, “You love me? What? I can’t read Chinese.” She responded that she loved me and “happy new year” and so I replied jokingly with “If you love me, then we should date”. The response was “hao” or “Ok”.

It felt like a challenge to go over the top. This is probably why I've never had a real date.

For Valentine’s day I bought Yvonne a set of matching rings and necklaces (sets for both male and female together) and hid the female portion in a heart-shaped container of rose soaps. Then I bought a pink mirror, placed it on top of the soaps and handed everything to Yvonne when she got back two days ago. This was after asking her if she would be comfortable if I bought her gifts for Valentine's day, because though this is a joke, I don’t want to make her uncomfortable with it.

Last night she asked me if I wanted to go on a date today, and I agreed because it would be fun. I’ve never been on a date before, and figure I might as well enjoy myself on a fake date, because I can go a little over the top and we can both laugh at my being silly.

Tonight we went to the restaurant we took Callie, same seat and everything, except this time they were not out of food. I ordered a bottle of red wine, two desserts of tiramisu, pizza and popcorn chicken. Truly, only the finest food was for us tonight. The glasses for the wine were huge! And they brought out the tiramisu first- which we were both confused at, but it worked. We talked about her family, talked about what she wants to do, we joked about what we wished for with our different lanterns during the holidays and we looked over at Long Ting park all lit up at night with lanterns. We didn’t finish all our wine, but since it was my treat and my suggestion and since she had given me earrings and a necklace as a gift, I paid for the dinner. At the end of it, I took her phone to call things even.

Huge portions of wine, but it was not all consumed.

We then went to Long Ting and looked around, joking that she was Helen of Troy (she brought it up and I ran with it). It wasn’t as busy, perhaps because the lantern festival was over, perhaps because it was a Thursday evening. There were people selling lanterns, though, and we bought one that said “ai” or “love” and we lit it using a fallen piece of fuel from someone else’s lantern.

Their lantern blew away without the fuel.

Totally stole their fire! HA!
(Dunno what that means)

Then it joined the other lanterns to make temporary stars in the sky.

http://youtu.be/IUEePucrZ8w

We walked back to campus, which was about a 40 minute walk. Here’s one of the parts from the back.

We held hands in the cutesy Chinese way- which is to hold pinkies, she told me. That way you can easily maneuver your hands into the pinky-thumb promise stuff. She said goodnight and I kissed her hand, telling her that she would always have one person who would think she is beautiful. ('cause RomComs tell me all dates end with a kiss and I think that is the least personal way to kiss someone). Then we said goodbye as she walked me to my door.

I turned to go.

But lo! She quickly ran back up the stairs-

-To get her phone. 

She got her phone back and we said goodbye again and hugged, and she left for her dorm. I'd completely forgotten I had taken it at this point.

It was a fun night, and I don’t regret doing it. It was kinda fun because it’s how dates are “supposed” to go, but by the end the awkwardness was gone and we were just having fun being ourselves. I do hope that though her parents want her to stop going to school (after she graduates), she’ll have enough confidence in herself to keep going forward and seeing new things. Plus, I hope she doesn’t doubt that she’s pretty. I know too many of my own students who doubt that; I know too many friends who doubt that.

As long as she had fun and believes in herself a little more, I think, it was worth it to have gone on this fake date. : ) 

(I'm sure that within a week or two I'll be pointing out to myself how much of this post is creeeeeeepy. That is for a later time.)

Students

The students have returned, for the internet is slow again. Man, I thought I'd have at least another two days. Gotta go find fast internet for class, then.

CALLIE'S BIRTHDAY (also lanterns)

(All pictures are from Callie and her phone. Thanks Callie!)


Today was Callie's birthday. Ellen and I totally had plans. Totally. It was always our plan to take Callie out to a restaurant named Babella's and to take along Tatiana so we could have a great view of Long Ting at night.

It's close to the lantern festival, so we walked around the entrance of Long Ting park. There were dancing people (2 sets), bullwhip practicers, and people setting off lanterns. All four of us, Callie, Tatiana, and I bought lanterns. This is after a cake fight between Callie and myself and a joke that made Tatiana's day (there was confusion over a friend named Yvonne, because Yvonne sounds like Ivan in Russian, and I used my very limited Chinese to say in a creative manner that Yvonne was a woman).

Here is a picture of us, taken by Tatiana. It's Callie's 22nd, and you can see the Palace at Long Ting lit up in the background. There were red lanterns constantly going up and fireworks exploding- truly, it was a fun place.

As we walked around the entrance, we all bought a lantern and watched people light them. Some people were writing words and phrases on theirs, so we hauled our butts home to write on ours. The tradition is that the balloon takes your wish up to the sky, and if you're lucky your wish will be granted. Here's what mine looked like:

That's my tree, by the way. It's my symbol. I drew my wish (and spelled it out) and we all went outside to light our lanterns. Mine was first, and it took forever- the wind on campus was not with us, and constantly blew out my lighter or the fuel for the lantern. 

But it did fill up, and so I let it go instead of tossing it into the air. 

In no shocking turn of events, my balloon headed straight for a parked car.

We ran after it to keep it from hitting the car, but it decieved us and moved upwards quickly. I was so afraid it would somehow crash into the burning, but it continued upward, upward, until it was barely visible at all.

Next, we helped Ellen with her balloon. She tossed it up, no problems. Then came Callie's balloon, and she also tossed it up. 

Tatiana was another interesting balloon- it started dripping liquid fire drops from the fuel and then when she tossed it up, it promptly got stuck in a tree. We made sad noises with her, but the wind heard us and carried her balloon to safety, much to everybody's satisfaction. 

All in all, it was a good night. :) 

February 10-13: Nicole leaves so this post is all about her

Quick Rundown:

Feb 10- It was cold, so Nicole and I stayed inside and I made pizza. Tatiana ate with us, and we struggled to understand each other through dictionaries and phones. At the end of the night, fireworks exploded overhead and we were able to watch huge explosions and wonder how our apartment was not on fire.

Feb 11- We went to Iron Pagoda park, taking all the back paths and exploring, going to a store for some pick-me-ups/snacks. We ended up eating at the Muslim Noodle Place that night, the only restaurant open.

Feb 12- Nicole and I went to the night market and had bread for dinner. I noted a lot of mask/beauty product vendors, and we met some girls from Zhengzhou University who asked us our names and where we were from but did not try to sell us the products in their hands. The market was not vendor-full, but it was tourist/people full, and we took a bus back quickly.  Callie came back laaate into the night. I decided to learn how to pick locks so we don’t have to keep bothering the old man to let us in.

Feb 13- Nicole and I left at noon to take her to the airport. We said goodbye, I hid notes in her bag, and I miss her a lot. : (  The driver thought she was Indian. I don’t know why as we don’t look like people from India. Only as I returned did our contact request for her brother go through on my skype- 7 minutes after Nicole got on her plane.

I am sad. I miss Nicole. She definitely made a terrible semester last semester seem a lot more bearable. Well, I’ll have to finish up her and see her again soon!

Yesterday's Post- New Year's Eve

Written yesterday:  

           Today we went to a lunch with Jackie and Mrs. Ma. There was lots of Chinese food, very different from the lunch we had yesterday with Alan’s family. Where Alan’s mother fed us delicious soup baozi, the department fed us lots of different meats and cold dishes.

            After lunch we walked around campus, seeing the lake and dead-ends and other buildings. Nicole took lots of pictures, but I was unable to get them from her phone. Then we returned home while fireworks boomed overhead.

            Currently we are sitting at home watching the Venture Brothers. Fireworks boom around us and most of the stores are now closed. 

-----

            Also people set off fireworks from the middle of south gate, which meant we were really, really close to some of those epicenters. A lot of them didn’t get as far as they needed to off the ground, but they were fun to watch. 

Nicole is in China! Day 5+6 and now

I'm not sure where we stopped off; after the Hong Kong trip day we spent the day watching movies and talking in our hotel room. It was not very exciting of us, but it was fun. 

Then we had to go home via plane. 

And bus. 

And finally taxi. The taxi driver was annoying and asked for ten more yuan after locking the doors and shouting at us something. We gave him the money because 1) he had locked the doors and 2) he had our bags in his trunk. It was less than ideal, but it was at the South Gate, and I was past the point of caring. 

Since then we have hung out with the exchange students Dannysha and Ben, and listened to fireworks going off during all hours of the night. Da Ren Fa is filled to the brim with people, something that can't be helped as they're all buying food for the next few days. 

Most shops are closed; it's never a good time to visit China during Spring Festival. 

Despite that, I am very happy to see Nicole. :)