The year is almost over

Well, it's almost the end of my time here in China. I've avoided writing about it. I don't want it to seem like I have disliked my time here, and want to go. Because I have enjoyed being here. Not every day was good, but I learned a lot about another culture, and about myself.

In six days I will be in Guiyang. I'll spend the night there so I can catch my 8:00am flight. From Guiyang I'll go to Beijing; Beijing to JFK; JFK to Rochester. It's about 22 hours of traveling. But I'll be home, for good, at 7pm on Thursday, June 28th.

Between now and then I have one more final to give, and about a million finals to grade. My apartment is pretty well packed. I've shipped a couple of boxes to myself in NY, so I don't have much to pack. I'm washing my clothes for the last time (yay!), and still have to do sheets and towels. I just defrosted my freezer. I need to clean out my fridge and my cabinets. I'm not ready to leave, but I will be next Wednesday.

It's sad to say goodbye to my students. I've become attached to many of them. They are sweet, and make me feel like a good teacher. It's a nice feeling.

I'll try to write at least once more before I go.

I can't believe it's almost over.

Ups and Downs

Hi all,

Well, I'm finishing my final chapter of life in China. In 26 days I'll be on a plane home. I must admit, I'm looking forward to it. It doesn't reflect poorly on China, I'm just ready for the next step in my life.

Things here are about the same. My graduating students graduated. I miss them already. They spent the first six weeks of the semester student-teaching. The next month or so they had class here at the University. And then they were done. They were a good group of students, and it was hard to see them go.

I'm trying to get my apartment in good shape little by little each day. The state of my apartment when I moved in was quite messy, and I don't want to leave that for the next people. I'm also packing up some boxes to ship back via the mail, rather than schlepping bulging suitcases across the ocean.

I have two and a half weeks of classes left, plus a week of finals. I'll have to turn in my final grades before I go, obviously.

So life is odd here - trying to stay in the moment; not to "check out" too early. But I also have a lot of work to do to get ready to go home. And I have to get myself mentally prepared to go back to the States and look for a job. Life is stressful here, but American life is stressful, as well. The stresses are just different.

Well, it's been nice. I'll keep writing for the next three and a half weeks. :)

May Holiday

In China everyone has vacation at the same time. There was a week off in October, and another here in May. It was for the workers' day.

Most of my friends traveled for the holiday. But I had just had a bout of giardia a week or so before, and was in no fit state to travel.

So I relaxed, cleaned my apartment, did laundry, ran, did yoga... It was relaxing and wonderful.

Electricity!

I took physics like 5 years ago, but I think I remember a little something about electricity. I think (don't quote me!) that if there is only a certain amount of electricity and more things are plugged into it, each thing gets less electricity. I think that in America there are regulators and stuff to prevent that, but here in China it's definitely true.

In the winter the electricity gets really low. My oven is not as hot, my light bulbs glow dimmer, my electric heater doesn't heat as well and my internet doesn't work as well. The internet doesn't quite make sense to me - isn't it about information, not electrons? Or maybe I'm just ignorant and I don't know how they can be connected.

Anyway, this winter the electricity was very, very low. I was downloading an episode of Lost from iTunes and it took 14 hours to download one episode.

Well, last week with the students being gone (fewer people using the same amount of electricity) and no one using heaters, it only took 35 minutes. Isn't that crazy!

My oven was much hotter this week, too. The students are back now, so the electricity isn't as great as it was, but it's still better than the winter.

I tell you, I'm learning so much by living here! And it isn't even things I was expecting to learn.

Electricity - who would have thunk it? :)

My living room

So I charged the batteries in my camera for like five minutes. It was just long enough to take a few photos. Here they are!


This is my favorite batik. It's teal and white and orange and is a scene of houses and a boat. It cost 20 kuai ($2.50) and I love it!










This is my living room from the front entry way. You can see the door to the kitchen (on the wall with the mirror) and to the bedroom (the other door). The batik is hanging on the wall there. I also bought some flowers that are in that vase. I just found out, though, that generally people only buy white flowers for funerals. I got many weird stares when I was carrying the white flowers around the market. I guess they were wondering who died...
You can also see my furniture. I have a couch, a love seat and a chair. I'm thinking about finding some fabric to cover the cushions. The gold velvet is a little 1970's...
This is my living room from the kitchen. You can see the front door and entry way. You can also see my water machine. It's empty now, but I just called for more water. They deliver it and it costs 6 kuai ($0.75) for five gallons. It's a pretty good deal!

I'll write about the other rooms in my apartment later. It's a really nice apartment, and I really like it! The only drawback is that it's on the 6th floor and there are no elevators!!

Doing Laundry

So Tuesdays are tentatively my laundry day. I thought I'd share with you how laundry is done here. This is a photo of my washing machine. As you can see, there are two sides of the machine, and each has its own basin. The basin on the left is larger. You put clothes, water and soap in this side. Here the clothes agitate and drain. The other side is the spinner. You take the clothes out of the water and put them in the spinner. The machine is plugged into the wall for electricity. But it is not hooked into the water.
To get water into the first basin you take the shower head off of the wall and put it in the machine. Once there is enough water, you turn off the shower head and let the machine agitate. Once it is done agitating, you take a hose off of the side of the machine and lay it on the floor. The water drains out of the machine into the shower drain on the floor. Then you spin the clothes, and you put them back in the first basin. Use the shower head to fill the basin again with clean water, allow the clothes to agitate again - rinse cycle. Drain the water again on the floor, then spin the clothes again. The spinner gets the clothes relatively dry. There are no dryers, so you just hang up the clothes to dry at this point. It doesn't take any longer than overnight to dry most things.
The whole washing process take 30 minutes or so. Only once have I forgotten about the water... Luckily there is very little water pressure, so it didn't spill over or anything!
I actually don't mind how complicated it is. It could be worse...I could wash them in the river with a bar of soap!!

Finally in China!

Well, I'm finally in China! I traveled for about 27 hours straight, and arrived in Guiyang at 12:45am on Friday August 18. Susie, another ULS teacher, and Charlie, my school's foreign affairs officer, met me at the airport. We drove back to Anshun, and at about 2:30am stopped for an "early breakfast". We got to my apartment by 3:00.

We stayed in Anshun until Saturday afternoon. I unloaded my belongings and did some cleaning in the apartment. I live on the fifth floor, which is six flights of stairs up. I'll certainly get some exercise! I have a lot to do in the apartment before I get it so that it feels like home...

We took a bus on Saturday back to Guiyang (where Susie lives). I'm staying with her until the other members of my team arrive on Friday. Kara is another ULS teacher in Guiyang, and I'm spending my time with Susie and Kara. They have lived in Guiyang since February, but are pretty well aquainted with the city.

I'm very excited to be in China. It is definitely different than I was expecting. To me it doesn't look that different from other developing countries I've visited (Nicaragua and Bolivia). There are shops up and down all of the streets. The buildings are concrete and a little dingy. The food is different, the toilets are different, the smells are different. I was a little overwhelmed by my apartment because the people who had lived there before me hadn't thrown away some of their "junk." They left used toothbrushes, and empty shampoo bottles. All of the "stuff" in the apartment felt like the apartment wasn't really mine. But I cleaned most of that out, and now it feels better. Seeing Susie and Kara's apartments makes me feel better. I'm sure that I can put things on the walls and really make my apartment feel like home...

I'm grateful for this week of "nothing" before classes start. Since I'm not in my apartment I can't work on it. So I feel a little un-useful. But at the same time, it is nice to get used to being in China. The language is still really hard, but I'm trying! And I'm getting used to riding the bus (it costs about 12 cents to get anywhere in the city) and listening to vendors tell me how much things cost.

When I get back to my apartment and get my internet set up, I can post some photos. The mountains here are really beautiful. I'm glad to be here.

I'll definitely write more later!