Cute

WARNING: the following blog post violates federal standards for melodrama

Coming to China, at least in my mind, was supposed to be my one way rocket to adulthood; a swift Jackie Chan chop between me and my "past life" of childhood and collegiate life. Farewell smashmouth, pokemon cards, and fun dip! See ya never sleeping in till 12, forty bowling, and hanger bangers! I stepped onto the airplane feeling ALL GROWED UP!

Until a fateful conversation with a flight attendant about 20 minutes later:

Scene: Outside a bathroom, grown up WOMAN awaits her turn in line, patient and sophisticated, just like a real woman would. MAN flight attendant, mid-forties, approaches with cart of drinks.
MAN: Hi there! Excuse me, just moving through to the next row.
WOMAN: Oh sure (moves to make way for cart).
MAN: Saaay, how old are you?
WOMAN: Twenty-two.
MAN: No! You can't be! You don't look a day past fourteen.
WOMAN: Oh.... noooooo.
WOMAN instantly is reduced to a petulant child, regressing dangerously towards fetushood with every passing second. She is tempted to either go into a ferocious diatribe in which the offending flight attendant would rue the day he was born or throw a wailing temper tantrum. Instead, she responds with a withering giggle.

Yeaaaa. But how would you like to be mistaken for fourteen at TWENTY TWO! That's an eight year difference! Maybe at eighty that would be charming but not now!! Come on! Even as a child I didn't like being thought of as cute. I was a vicious beast! WHY must my ice-cold heart frozen forever by the wolfish winds of worldly woe be housed in face of a newborn bunny?

"Okay, that's cool, minor setback, but I can recover," or so I thought. For my first day of work, I was determined to be all grown up for REAL this time, no more messing around. So I put on my big girl clothes. I was wearing make-up, shoes with buckles, and a CARDIGAN. I was throwing all my chips in this round, it wasn't even enough for twenty-two anymore, I wanted to look ready for RETIREMENT. Bring it world! Even BUNNIES grow up someday!!!! (Sorry, this post is getting really out of hand).

I get to the center, and I'm doing great! I shake hands like a grown-up and use mature words like "Hello" and "Yes, thank you." I get assigned my desk, sit down, start arranging my papers (like a grown up), when all the sudden one of the Chinese teachers comes over. She looks very friendly, and I think to myself, "Ah, pip pip cheerio! A fellow colleague to converse with." She takes my hand like someone would do to a young child, perhaps one of say, fourteen, and she tells me.... "Hello, the other Chinese teachers and I, we all see you this morning and we think oh! she is so cute! you look so young, you are... adorable!"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Game over. Pull up your permanent seat at the kids table, Sands. A tragic Peter Pan, doomed to eternal imprisonment in Never Never Land. Might as well sew your ID to your forehead or grow a beard cause no bartender is ever gonna believe you're twenty-one. Of course there are benefits, as late as 16 I could still get a children's movie ticket (under 12) and I stopped out of shame not because I looked any older. Sigh.

Then a interesting occurence happened. My roommates (sans Chris) and I went paintballing with friends from work. First of all it was hilarious, the place required us to use their camo regalia complete with a face masks and SWAT jackets. The guys we were with could pull it off, but us smaller people looked like Ralphie's little brother from "A Christmas Story."

Check out my hilarious roommate Meredith's blog for a brilliant recap of events: http://www.chinesesturgeon.blogspot.com

To make a long story short, I essentially discovered that I may not be able to get people to respect me as an adult, but I can make them fear me. A whole new, slightly terrifying side of myself emerged. While Meredith was experimenting with bolder techniques such as screaming "ZIG ZAG PATTERN" while she kamikazeed through the course, I was a stealth demon, sitting pretty in a tent picking off people one by one, like a sadistic "Blueberries for Sal." Maybe it was hours of watching my friends play halo and goldeneye growing up, but I didn't even blink. The paintball gun was to me what the brush was to Michelangelo. I was KATNISS!! (hunger games reference, this is not helping my anti-fourteen campaign).

Anyways, I sniped Kevin in the foot and had no mercy on Meredith. She screamed like a plucked turkey every time I shot her but my taste for paint could not be satiated! To make matters worse, every time I hit her I was seized by a fit of giggles which was not only speaks poorly of my capacity for human empathy, but also gave away my hiding spot several times. She eventually repaid my cruelty in a final, brutal duel, but not before I had already ventured irrevocably into the wilderness of my inner assassin. It is a disturbing feeling to go to bed worrying that you might have nightmares about yourself.

Anyways! Bringing out my paintballing alter-ego was empowering in a way. I may be cute, but I can paintball with the most merciless of fiends. In the words of Miley, maybe I have "the best of both worlds." Someday, hopefully, I will look my age. And if not, by that time I will be so feared in the international paintball circuits that it won't even matter.

Toodles!

PS if you still want to be friends after that post, you might want to join our online "read a BOOK" book club. We're reading Sons & Lovers by DH Lawrence, and I promise, I will be much more civilized in those discussions.

Mopeds and Maddy A

One month after leaving Silver Spring, Maryland, my three favorite bands all conspired to come to town, blatantly rubbing salt in the open wound of my homesickness. I don't know what I ever did to Fleet Foxes, Wilco, and Joe Jonas to deserve such a spiteful act of cruelty, but so it goes. As long as Tupac waits till I get home to stage the elaborate comeback we've all been dreaming about since seventh grade.

Having just missed the presence of my idols, I was feeling a bit miffed, like I was missing out. Until another US celebrity saw the injustice in this and decided to come to me...

As part of my epic quest to become a world renowned English teacher, I've had to go to a bunch of epically boring training sessions scattered throughout Beijing. Last Wednesday, my boss signed me up for session about encouraging kids to speak more. My beloved roomie Chris was also signed up to go, so we waltzed in that day at 2:30pm, only to find out that we had messed up the time and were half an hour late. Oops. At least no one from center was there, right? WRONG my BOSS was also at the training session unexpectedly. BUSTED.

Anyway, after the training, my boss comes over to talk to me. Thinking I'm about to get a verbal beat down, I'm manically going through my mental rolodex of excuses and preparing my most pathetic puppydog face. He walks closer, and CLOSER, and in a big, BOSSY VOICE....

he asks if I want a ride back to our center...

ON HIS MOPED

SWEEEEEEET!

So having dodged that bullet, I follow him back on the subway to his apartment, where he's got his shiny red moped parked outside. I should've prefaced all this by saying this guy is only 25/26 years old, a graduate of Pitt, also a History major interested in law, and HILARIOUS! We were cracking jokes like two old comrades from the scouts (girl scouts), it was fun (in a strictly platonic way, don't worry Mom and Kyle). By the time we got to his apartment we were buddies. And then we got on his moped....

WOW, to say mopeds are fun would be the understatement of the century. I love to bike, but this was like a bike on steroids with WINGS. I have a new appreciation for characters in books and movies who discover new modes of transportation (A WHOLE NEWWW WORLD, I felt like Jasmine, (platonically) riding the magic carpet, or like harry just getting his nimbus 2000). Unfortunately...

Mopeds are also terrifying! Beijing traffic is horrific, like one big traffic jam somehow moving cohesively at 50mph, and we were right in the thick of it. It's the ultimate combination of "this is so cool," and "this is soooo stupid." I also felt like a huge nerd/creeper, because all the other girls riding on the backs of mopeds were so smooth; legs crossed gracefully, riding sidesaddle, arms folded in their laps or holding a purse. Meanwhile, I'm straddling the seat, suffocating my poor boss (who was probably seriously reconsidering his offer), my arms belted around his ribcage in a panic stricken death grip (again, do NOT worry Mom and Kyle, I was only trying to survive) and alternating whooping and screeching like a depraved baby owl.

Okay okay okay, BUT ENOUGH EXPOSITION. Here's the whole point. As we are weaving and racing through the streets, too fast too furious, beijing drift, I see a big stretch limo with a siren on top of it. "Greg, its a limo police car!" I say. And then there's another one, and another one. It's a convoy! And then a svelte little BMV drives by with a small, blond woman inside. Greg and I turn to each other...

"was that who i think it was?" Greg says.
 "TURBO SPEED" I reply

We zoom up to the car, and lo and behold, it is! ITS MADELEINE ALBRIGHT! The very first female secretary of state under Clinton, I did a report on her in third grade! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!?! Luckily, Greg was also a history major and equally as excited about this.

We sped up and drove parallel to her car. Trying to come up with a gesture that communicated my deep respect and admiration, I wound up doing a weird, vaguely British hand wave. That seemed to confuse and frighten her, so I ditched it and went with a hearty American wave and a thumbs up, which she threw right back at me. Take that Joe Jonas.

So it was a good day. I became great buds with my boss, which is a huge relief, and we shared the eternal bond of having sighted Madeleine Albright in Beijing. When I mentioned a "small, blond lady," all my coworkers thought we were gonna say Lady Gaga, and then they were hugely underwhelmed, so I've learned to tell the story a little differently, but I still think its awesome.

Once again, to all family and friends back home, thank you for all your great emails and for being such great friends, you all really got me through the first month, and now that we're very comfortable and having a lot of fun, I'm very grateful I stayed, not just so I had the chance to meet Ms. Albright but so I could keep on exploring this great city with my awesome and sassy roommates. We've been having a great week, celebrating the National (week-long) holiday vacation with trips to the Summer Palace, Great Wall, and Ikea haha, which I can hopefully write about soon. And I got a haircut! But that is a blog for another day. It was a tough transition at first but it was made bearable with all your support and encouragement, and looking back I'm just very thankful. So thanks again!

PS BOOK CLUB: My friend Kayla and I are starting an online book club, so please get in touch through email or facebook if you're interested, and create an account at goodreads.com, everyone is welcome! Hopefully it can be one more way to keep in touch and keep doing all the things we like, poems, songs, paintings, everything. Okay, will keep you posted how that works out.

Sound of Maosic, Far East Side Story, The Importance of Being Communist, CabaRED…

…welp that was embarrassing. In addition to puns, one of my great
fondnesses in life is zee THEATRE, specifically musicals, arguably
“the purest form of art.” What could be better than watching grown men
and women flying around in costume, spontaneously bursting into song
when the doldrums of dialogue can no longer support the unbridled SEAS
of emotion?? NOTHING THAT’S WHAT.

Unfortunately, like puns, I often find my enthusiasm for musicals is
not widely shared among my friends. This has led to many nights spent
alone watching my PBS DVD of Company. It’s okay, sometimes while I’m watching it, in the silence of my loneliness, I come up with some
great new puns.

BUT WHATEVER HATERS.

Anyways, maybe to make up for owning me so hard first week, Beijing
proffered the olive branch in the form of musical theater. First, I auditioned for a production of a hybrid Hamlet, to be performed both in Chinese and English, infused with dance and music, and I got a callback! BUT OH SNAP, too bad the callback was the same night I had
tickets to see a touring production of Kiss Me Kate at the Beijing
Exhibition Center!

I had thought my beloved roommates would want to revel in this
experience with me, because who in their right mind would turn down
the opportunity to see Kiss Me Kate in CHINA?!?! Apparently everybody,
and I wound up going to see it accompanied by my three TRUE friends, Me, Myself, and I. But oh well, that just meant more musical for ME,
haha!

Turns out no one in China was all that interested either, because only
about 150 people showed up to pepper the seats of this massive
theater. Again, your loss WORLD, because my nosebleed seats got
upgraded to FRONT ROW!!! Victory is so sweet.

The production itself was not too shabby, but the real joy was the
AUDIENCE. We were few in numbers but we had a lot of heart. I thought
it would be all foreigners, but it was overwhelmingly a Chinese
audience. And they were there to party!

There were huge Chinese subtitles projected on the sidewalls, but everyone seemed to be
focused onstage. Linguistically, it’s a huge step to be able to
understand another language when it’s performed and sung, especially
in the mid-1900’s rapid-fire banter of Kiss Me Kate. Either the people
in the audience were truly tickled, or they were eager to show they
understood the jokes, but they laughed UPROARIOUSLY all night. I was
the only one who laughed at a lot of the cultural references, but when
the woman behind me burst out laughing at a !!!!!!PUN!!!! I almost
turned around and gave her a hug.

In this seeming crowd of strangers, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, I
had found my place amongst my true pun-and-theater-loving brethren.

PS. I took a lot of videos of the show on my iPod, but from previous
experience, I know a lot of you wouldn’t watch them and the quality is
like watching Blair Witch Project underwater, but if you really want
to see them, ask around at Christmas and I’ll be more than happy to
share :D

People are People

Sometimes being in China can be so unfamiliar that you kinda feel like an alien who crashlanded or like you're living in an alternate dimension. This most often occurs to me when I get really lost or try to read something. This can be a bit isolating, and also fun pretending to be an alien.

It's also strange to look and speak differently than the general population and to be treated accordingly. Even though Beijing is exploding at the seams,and foreigners are flooding in, I still get stared at on the subway, have kids point at me, get asked to take pictures, and get heckled by vendors and ignored by taxi drivers. This either makes me feel like a movie star or a loser, depending on my mood.

But other times, there are moments that make me fall in love with people here and the general human family all over again. Here are two:

1. When I got food poisoning two weeks ago, I was DONE. All I did was drink gatorade, watch Modern Family, and sleep. The worst part was my daily venture out to get food, cause I never knew when nausea or dizziness was gonna hit. I would stumble out the door to Subway(a pretty safe bet here), clutching my stomach and scoping out possible places to vomit.
Anyways, on one of these field trips, I was waiting for my sandwich and dizziness hit hard. I went to Subway's seating area and collapsed on one of the tables. I didn't really care what anyone thought, so I just put my head on the table and waited for it to pass. Lots of people were staring at me, cause I already look different and on top of that I was acting like a goonie.It might be on youku (chinese youtube), I saw one guy point a cellphone at me :(
As you can probably surmise, this was not a happy moment for me. Feeling pretty dejected, I looked over at the next table and saw a man with his family. He looked really concerned, not in a "what's-this-freak-going-to-do-to-my-children" kind of way, but just genuinely pitying me, and when he saw me look up he smiled, not in a "wow-you-hit-rock-bottom" kind of way, but in a "it'll-get-better-hang-in-there" kind of way. That smile got me through the day, and I hope I can give it to someone else someday. Human empathy rules!

2. I also had a great conversation with a student's father today. First of all, he was hilarious and explained his inside joke with his friends where he asks them if they want to do something and follows it with "Are you Morgan?". For example, "Yo! I'm going to play poker, are you Morgan?". And they say either yes or no based on whether or not their wives will let them, cause it's Morgan FREEMAN, like "sure I can play poker, I'm a FREEMAN." GENIUS!
Furthermore, he said some great things about the world, that sound a little cliche writing them down, but they really struck a chord with me, especially since we were both being very sincere in our talk. Both he and I had spent time in each other's countries, not enough to get a handle on anything really, but enough to get the lay of the land. I mentioned that I thought China and the US were very similar, despite their vast geographical distances and different history and politics. And he just spoke for awhile about "yes, you know people are people, no matter where in the world, we all have the same hearts." DANG. I loved it.


Okay, more updates soon, I gotta get back to work. Wish me luck with these crazy five year olds, no matter where in the world you are, kids still like sticking crayons up their noses :)

Ni Hao!

Hey Guys! okay, im just gonna start at the beginning.... ps sorry this is kinda long: **************************************** PART ONE: Getting Owned Given the grace of time, I’ve adopted a humorous and even affectionate attitude towards our first few weeks in China, but still WOW, we got owned. BUM BUM BUMMM.....  Kev and I arrived in Beijing together on August 29th, 2011: a day that will live in infamy. As a result of a diabolical curse placed at birth(its a long story), I’m can’t sleep sitting up. Hence, I had the privilege of witnessing every moment of our 13+ hour time-traveling-flight-into-the-FUTURE! In conjunction with the inability to vertically doze, I’m also cursed with a paralyzing fear of flying. This manifests in fun flight games like “Overreact to Small Noises,” “Guess the Terrorist,” and “Develop Superstitions that will keep you Alive.” Miraculously, we landed. No one ever joins me in applauding this feat, so I clapped alone per usual. This is when the real fun began. Because of Hurricane Irene, our flight had been delayed two hours. This was the fated domino which initiated the chain of PAIN propelling Kev and I, like newborn lambs, into the jaws of a wolf known as CHINA! I don’t really want to dwell on this, so here’s the bare bones of day 1: 4pm: Alone at the Beijing airport, cause since our flight was delayed no one is there to pick us up - buy a phone card & figure out Chinese pay phones (difficulty level 5,000) - get told to go to the hotel – commandeer 2 taxis – watch the other taxi the whole time to make sure he doesn’t drive off with Kev’s stuff – get ripped off by taxi drivers – 9pm: get dropped off at a corner – lug stuff into hotel – get rejected – call someone who talks to the hotel for us – get a room key – arrive in windowless bunker that resemble the bastard child of a prison and a mental asylum – cry like a baby – call mom and boyfriend begging to come home – mourn the eclipse of my childhood and collegiate years – 11pm: pass out 3am: wake up from jetlag and repeat the last 3 steps In the days that followed, Kevin and I, soon joined by Chris, starred in countless episodes of “True Life: I got Owned in China.” Among my favorites were Ep. 7: Trying to open a Bank Account and get a Cell Phone, Ep. 17:  Finding an Apartment and then Having Someone Else Make the Deposit Before Us, Ep. 36: Finding an Apartment But Having to Wait 5 Days until the Current Tenants were Kicked Out, Ep. 51: Running Out of Time at the Hotel and Having to Squat at Friends’ Apartment, Ep. 118: Getting Food Poisoning. We made it through though, and this stretch of time has actually given me a lot to think about. For the first two weeks, it was often a little (lot) scary. A lot of the people we encountered (especially the apartment agents) were hostile, deceptive, and took advantage of us. As we floated around, we didn’t know when we would have a safe place to live, what our job would be like, if the food we were eating was safe, and, when the food poisoning hit, I wasn’t sure what kind of medical care would be available. Furthermore, I can read or speak much Chinese, so I was navigating as an illiterate mime. China’s international prestige is shooting through the roof, but it's still very much a developing nation, with many living in poverty. Seeing beggars around the streets or in the subway is common, as well as people doing very dangerous jobs for inhumane hours and no money (painters working near really strong fumes with no protection, and construction workers with no helmets, glasses, gloves). In Guatemala, the hardest thing we did was mix cement, I could barely mix for more than 15 minutes at a time, and that was with the help of a large group. The other night I saw a man mixing cement by himself at 11pm, and when we walked back an hour later he was still there mixing.  Basically, the temporary anxieties we experienced in regards to shelter and food were nothing in comparison to the obstacles many people here encounter on a daily basis, especially the large population of migrant workers working at construction sites, restaurants, and shopping centers. Things here can be really frightening when you don’t have a steady occupation or place to live, and I have a new awareness for the (unfair) advantages that allowed us to overcome that period of uncertainty so easily, and transition into such cushy and well-paid jobs; education, and support from home. It’s even a little pathetic that I was frightened at all, as I was never in any real danger here, but I’ve just been thinking about that a lot lately. Despite our bumpy landing, things seemed to get better day by day, bringing us up to the present… ******************************************* PART TWO: Not Getting Owned As Much! My old roommate Kayla and I used to watch a reality show about addiction called Intervention where you see people at their lowest and then at the end there’s an epilogue where you see how they’re doing after treatment. This part to me was the crux of the show, just cause it was so unpredictable and you always hoped for the best while preparing for the worst. Well, after being seemingly addicted to getting owned by China, Kev, Chris, and I are happily not getting owned as much! Sorry, that was an odd segue, but I’m still a little nostalgic for Saint Joe’s and will take any opportunity I can to relive the past. But the point IS, we’ve had a lot of successes! We finally moved into an affordable duplex, 3 minutes from a subway that takes us all to work. The street outside is packed with nice restaurants, hole-in-the-wall twar stands, a bike shop!, and vendors selling just about everything (watches, DVDs, puppies, kittens, bunnies, clothes, lamps, you name it). Bumpin. It’s so nice to have a place to unpack, sleep in a bed, and shower. We set up wireless, have been cleaning things up, and went out today to get a cord needed so that Kev and Chris can slay zombies to their hearts’ content, which they’re doing right now. And Meredith Sides is arriving tonight WOOOOOO! The teaching job is also a good set-up, despite all the administrative hurdles we had to jump to get settled in. Kev and Chris are teaching at a center in Anli, and I’m off at a sweet mall in Sanlitun SOHO that has a piano keyboard for stairs. So far I’m teaching a Mommy-and-Me class on Sundays, and filling up slots for my weekday class. I was a 4 year old camp teacher all summer, so it's not too new, but still really entertaining. The kids are ADORABLE, like aggressively cute, its almost painful. I just want to lead their little peanut-headed-shrimp-bodies in fun games all day, but the goal is to teach, and their parents are intense. We try and find ways to make it fun though. I’m sure there’ll be lots of fun stories to relate all year, but so far my favorite has just been learning the kids chosen English names. There are little 5 year olds running around with names like Lion, Superman, Tricycle, and Watermelon. What beasts! I also team teach with a Chinese teacher named Kitty, about my age, who has been really nice to me and can also lay down the LAW with the kids, so it’s been really fun working with her. Basically, its been a roller coaster here, sometimes scary, sometimes exhilarating, often both. But things seem to be looking up, and the past week has been a lot of fun. And looking back, it’s makes me proud of the three of us for doing all this and staying with it. A lot of the stuff is scary just cause its standard post-grad stuff  that is challenging all my friends; letting go of college, being more independent, deciding what to do in life. It’s a little bittersweet and a bit daunting, even in a place as exciting and vibrant as China. But we’re doing it, and now that we’ve got our feet under us, starting to get into our work routines, and looking into fun stuff (pick-up Frisbee tomorrow, seeing a Jesuit priest do an open mic jazz night, and joining the Beijing dodgeball league, among others) I’m really optimistic to be here and very glad I came. Phew. *************************************** CONCLUSION: Thank You! Just to wrap us this small novel, I really wanted to thank all you guys back home, family and friends alike. One of the bright spots about a rough transition is that you’re reminded how many people are there to support you. Like I said, I was never in any danger here, in truth most of the “obstacles” were just the product of being tired, disoriented, and homesick. Still, I can’t thank everyone enough for all the emails and words of encouragement. Reading those, or being in your presence through memories, songs, etc, has brought a lot of happiness and peace of mind. Not to be overdramatic, but it means a lot, and now that we’re getting our stride, I hope to pay you back with lots of fun stories. Okay, I love you guys a lot, and wish everyone the best. And there’s always a spot for you here if you want to come teach English for a year!