nueva.

alrighty, so....

met some great friends who i wish i had more time to spend around. But in my free time it will much fun im sure! a group of girls who dance and teach classes and attend classes so i think i will be joining them soon. cant wait!

today i ate strawberries in milk with honey drizzled over them and mei ling looked at me like it was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen. I can see how like somethings wouldnt translate pallet wise, but strawberries and milk? maybe its the dairy thing? she asked me if i wanted to put salt on my strawberries, which im not opposed to trying but honestly i prefer the sugary kind. Anyways things like this happen pretty much everyday here and i think its hilarious. Especially trying not to choke from laughter while happily eating my strawberry concoction, and mei ling staring at me jaw dropped as if i was consuming a human head with parsley bit by tiny bit....i love it here.

Also another cool thing is that i definitely get to go to Vienna in the summer now with natlie and portia for her choir field trip. So will be back in tx for most of june and then shipping out at the end of it for vienna for a week or so, then if i decide to go to "the circus" as i now call it because i dont feel like explaining what it is anymore, then i will literally get back the day before i start so i will probably just not worry about living arrangements and stay with the folks for a week or two whilst i find a place to live closer to the highlands. This all assuming that i chose the art route. Otherwise ive got no stinkin clue.

in other news...here are some pics of things as of late....


We went with natlie to an amusement park called Happy Valley in english. I still find it really funny reading all the english signs at places like this. Especially "pleasure boat pier" as it were called. This is natty on this places version of the mad hatters spinning tea cups ride.
This is Jane, in english, or Woo Tei Ying...which is def not how you spell that but that is what it sounds like. Jane is beautiful. Its amazing how much we can communicate considering we dont speak each others langauges at all, and even this, but we speak just about the two most opposing languages i can think of. Completely different alphabets, ages, origins, and yet seem to always be cracking up together, the world is so small, its so small.
Im not really sure if this will resonate with anyone else but these are just some statues of clowns at the amusement park that were really trippy and awesome and handpainted, remind me of a time burton circus...which should probably happen..anyways this is the side view of my favorite one.
Here are his feet up close. :) love.
Natty and I rode the carousel together, and in slightly surreal moment, i realized that she is slowly beginning to trust me and becoming comfortable with me, and thing are getting better. I love this picture of here, maybe its the pose, maybe its those mirrors. She loves stuff like this, but not as much as she loves disney princesses and avatar. I have seen avatar about 10 times since being here in both english and chinese. We just keep replaying it, she told me she thinks jake sulley is handsome becuase he has muscles. I think its funny that she has a crush on teh avatar and not the actor, is refreshing in a weird way. Also I beleive we will go to japan in march to see the disneyland there, i think its in tokyo but dont quote me on that.

Obladee Obladah.

Love hearing from you guys and miss ya like ya dont know.

J

savor savor savor.

The best thing about life is that there is so much of it. There is so much flavor in my breakfast and and so much strain in my eyes from how tired i am from the amount of fun i encountered last night. There's just too much awesome in knowing that if i combine sticky rice, strawberries, crunchy peanut butter and honey that its a lethal combination of yum. Gah, even shitty stuff, poverty, politics theres just so much of it. There is so much beauty in knowing that we all have much more in common that we realize, and also in knowing that vast diversity that is the result of social, economic, biological, and hell-if-i-know factors. Dumb luck. Its the dumb luck in the world that it makes it so amazingly beautiful. And its just too much.


I dont know where it comes from and I dont know if anyone or anything, if you can even call it a thing is responsible for it, but i really feel like the ups and downs and everything i see all day everyday is something im not really deserving of. I feel like a statistic, I feel like its a miracle i get to laugh, and drink coffee, and understand what the world equivocate means, and know what it feels like to be ignored or underrated, or overrated for that matter, and read, and run, and use my body and speak and make things and function and exist.

I would take a strawberry morning like this over a million dollars any day.
I would opt to relive last summer over my next 10 meals.
I'll take quality over quantity.

I'll have what she's having.

"Franny took in her breath slightly but continued to hold the phone to her ear. A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful t listen to, rather as if it were the best possilbe substiitue for the primordial silence itself. But she seemed to know, too, when to stop listening to to it, as if all of what little or much wisdom there is in the world were suddenly hers." -jds

recent.

lunch at my usual spot for when i tire of chinese food...element fresh...with my notebook and cappuccino. I swear it doesnt matter where you go, tahiti or rome, juneau or pheonix, you can always find cappuccinos. Im glad this is something i can depend on. Basically I go here all the time and ponder what i should do with my life which i am experiencing mounting anxiety concerning... waiting for a sign.
I know im a huge nerd for taking this photo but im still fascinating by things like this...chinese coke can..classic. I got a sprite the next day...also i found where to buy nutella and im worried.

So im obsessed with food everywhere i go ive realized, which is funny considering how limited I am sometimes..but i just love food!! Its amazing how going somewhere new and not eating or consuming anything for a while makes you appreciate it differently. Like the other day i had a greek salad and realized that red bell peppers taste kind of fragrant like a flower, but yellow and green do not. Feta cheese has a bite to it, and cappuccinos are sweeter than originally thought. The same goes with music too, i went a while without listening to anything and then suddenly i listed to a wyclef song while i was working out and i heard things in that song i had never herad before. I makes me wonder what else am i taking for granted, and it makes me feel incredibly thankful. Nuance is all around us, we just have to listen for it, taste for it, look for it. pay attention, it does you good. This is part of the reason i love travel so much, it really does scramble the way you think about everything, renewing and rebuilding and making stronger you ability to enjoy and understand everything.
But basically here is what has been going on...I feel more comfortable and Ive realized its already February, which is crazy. As some of you may know chinese new year is coming up and I will be in Beijing for this occasion. Mostly by myself going on tours and such save for a friend of a friend who i might meet up with while im there, and hopefully i can persuade anybody is can to meet me there just for fun. Im really excited about seeing the wall, and about seeing "old china" Shanghai is very westernized so i hear so it will be at least interesting to see prc..old school. Also in March natlie has a week break from school so we are all going to go to japan! and specifically disney world in japan! Def. lookin forward to that and to all the incredible sushi i hope to come upon.

Also ive been eating a chocolate bar a day and reading chelsea handler's book, my horizontal life. I cant say that either of those activities is really part of a self betterment plan or anything but they are both making me very happy so im peaceful with it. Ive started running alot again too which has been such a revival. Im learning more and more mandarin but still suck at it. Things with Natlie are getting better too but i still have no idea what to do with my life, if anyone has any input please let it fly, im open to comments.

Also i realized summer is coming...im looking for bathing suits online and simultaneously scheming to go on vacation...perhaps with my italy girls. I cant believe its almost been a YEAR since ive seen them! crazy. I cant wait for this summer and i cant wait to get settled somewhere again, i just dont know doing what. I have daydreams about living alone and being a slob, yeah, its come to that. Im not sure, but i think im all for private nudity.

something else: i dont know if youve ever had two chinese women laugh hysterically at you while you try to pick something up with chop sticks and fail repeatedly, only to make a mess all over yourself...but once you get over the humiliation its about the most gosh darned funniest thing ever. Once i got over my hysterics i composed myself and calmly picked up the bell pepper and ate it, they also both thought that eating a bell pepper is in the top 5 most disgusting things you could ever do. All of this occured without any verbal communication. Oh yes the language barrier does make for some funny shit, the other day natlie made a picture of cat, when i showed it to jane and said "cat" she looked at me confused but also kind of smiled. A few seconds later after watching the wheels turn in her head she looks at me says "cab?" while motioning the driving of a car. i chuckle and explain to her that no no that is a taxi cab, a cat is like... "meow" then i burst out laughing "TAXI CAT!" and she gets the joke as we motion like we are cats driving people around for money on our backs. Now were cracking up on the playground and natlie hears this...so she yells from the top of the tower "what is so funny!?" im laughing too hard to explain so right as im trying to calm down, a little boy hobbles over to a spot right in front of jane and I, looks us both square in our faces, then squats and pees his pants while holding himself and making a face full of so much distress and shame, jane and i could only laugh harder. I swear I almost peed myself. guh, i needed that laughter. Not that kind of polite laughter you know, where youre just trying to keep spirits up and you just kind of being happy. no no, this was real, belly laughing, there were tears, and my face was red, and i couldnt breathe. Also i loved that all these british moms were looking at jane and i like we had just taught natlie how to shoot whiskey or something. I love being the "talked about" mom, its fun :)

another thing to note: i think im making peace more and more with my age. Maybe its because being around natlie has made me think of it differently. We were discussing each others zodiac the other day..I was born in 1987 so im am the rabbit, I asked portia what year natlie was born and prompted her with 19.... and of course she says "2003" holy shit. Does that make anyone else feel weird?

i think there is little that feels better than a little girl telling you that you look "oooo beautiful" even if you dont particularly. i swear, its gotta be better than karl lagerfeld telling you that ya look good that day. something really interesting about it. i wore a dress the other day and natlie was amazed. consequently it feels equally as bad when they tell you that you are stupid, even though you are not.

Happy chinese new year, cant wait to figure out what this holiday is all about.

pickles and peanuts

j

food! glorious food! and a village.

big things poppin. So i went to the town of Zhou Zhang, i think thats how its spelled. Its called "water town" or it has been referred to as "China's Venice" i wouldnt go so far to say that its venezia, but still, pretty unique in itself. This is chinas answer to the lock on the bridge in italy. all of these ribbons represent wishes. they lines the bridges, really beautiful. Just to clarify, Red is a lucky color here, not necessarily associated with red china. ( which i have also uncovered quite a bit about) Also i learned to count in mandarin, you have no idea how difficult this was just to learn to count. Seriously this language is so hard. There are four distinct tones and up to ten or so depending on which dialect you speak, and they sound incredibly the same. Also there is no word for just "no" it depends on what youre talking about specifically. Ive been reading articles about it like crazy, god bless the western person, hell the eastern person who can speak this language well. just between digits one through ten i accidentally said "chicken" and "to write" apparently a very slight change of tone from seven to chicken, and four to write. ee er san shr wu....i forget the rest...but i have been learning alot from jane and the other woman that hangs around here, they are patient with me unlike natlie. She becomes so frustrated easily, today Portia and i had to set up a meeting with her math teacher because she was so adamant that two times three equals ...four..at dinner last night that she was moved to tears when we all agreed it was six. She still thinks its four..ive never met a child with so much confidence, sometimes to a fault maybe. Anywho, heres some stuff from venice..

a TON of goldfish of some kind swarming around a green river in the water village. REally crazy, i love looking at this photo close up.

kinda like venice right? We took a "gondola" ride but really it was more like a bamboo canoe with a roof. just for the record, in smaller towns, if your western youre famous. I swear i felt like i was someone important come to visit the villagers, it was such a strange feeling..but kinda cool. walking down the street i found a chinese antique shop and bought the most beautiful jade talismen on a red string with a horse engraved on it after which i managed to remember the word for beautiful ( which sounds liek piow-leeur) and said it, both to the sparkly old man who sold it to me and to the talisman. I also bought a square red stamp wiht my name in Chinese made of marble. Good souvenir day.

Last minute we walked through the temples. eveything seemed really sacred here, probably shouldnt really have even taken this picture, whoops, dont tell. by the by, these are beautifully colored, the pics dont really do it justice.

This is natlie attempting to make dumplings, that half moon thing is harder to do than you think, there is kind of an art to it. I got it after a few tries, but obviously couldnt eat any :) either way it was still fun.

Surprisingly food hasnt been too much of a problem here save for the soy sauce thing. I was able to eat street food which never happens. This is a riceball, for lack of better words. just ball of sticky rice filled with veggies.mmmmm, tasted really good to eat something cheap and fast and shameless.

i didnt eat these but thought they were beautiful. Buckets of these things line the streets, dried out tiny shrimp and tiny prawns. sooo tiny. Ive had these in other dishes but not here, but gah you could smell those things a mile away, i thought the colors and repetition of them were really nice. click!

MMM such a good meal. Herbal tea, sticky rice, spinach and egg. you cant see but the egg has tiny fish in it. so tiny i didnt realize they were fish. Sophia and I had a great talk about sexual politics. She thinks a man should always buy a woman everything when they go out.. i then hopped on a pantomiming soap box about what "going dutch" means, i think shes coming around. Also we talked about how women marry rich old guys for their money, she seems to be in favor, im undecided.

I cant wait until summer im so getting at that awesome pool near by me.
Met two lovely new friends, a brit and an aussie. My favs so far.
Random...a guy that went to UT and runs long distance lives in the same compounds as me...ands writes sketch comedy for a chinese late night show. Yeah hes on my to meet and befriend list. Actually everyone i met does really cool stuff, nick works for an English shanghai magazine and gets to interview people that come to town (namely kylie minogue whom he called a goddess) not sure about that but im willing to consider her at diety status.
Ive instilled in natalie the world "please" and shes uses it. pat on the back to me.
Oh yes another new friend. Cory. Works for a bar here called je suis glamour on the bund ( which is beautiful you can google it) The guy first ordered the table fried frog legs, cheese, shrimp cocktail, fruit, many drinks, and some russian beet thing with sour cream....THEN when i had to decline the gluteny stuff...asked the kitchen to make a new batch of fried frog legs sans flour! what a guy! Seriously these two were beautiful people.

We had a long talk over food and drinks...life, love, art, england, aussie candy.
Hope i didnt say anything stupid, i definately recall a discussion about current politics. I was probably talking too much, and laughing too much, which i tend to do when i get nervous...i havent been out in a while so id just like to think either it didnt show or they were equally too drunk to notice. I do remember that we pretty fervently concluded that there a few things that translate:

math
food
sex
the weather
and karaoke....which we also talked of doing later, i look forward to THAT.

Ive been feeling so phony lately. Maybe im trying to hard. Hopefully ill shake this feeling soon.

fingers crossed. miss you guys.

j

phew.

phew so much to tell i dont know where to begin. okay the above image is the community where i live. It is mostly expats of the british and french persuasion in spanish style living. It is actually uncommon to live in places like this in shanghai, but i like it just the same. Great people, friendly gaurds, alot of dogs, and also you feel like youre in spain minus the whole censcorship thing :) its good for running, today was a hot day, i should have run but instead took a walk down to starbucks and my new favorite place to eat luch, zentral, which is a combo of eggs salads and such, plus they have cappuccinos so im in heaven.

These are some decorations made my the kids at natlies school, i think they are for chinese new year, theyre a lot of fun. The school that she goes to is british, its actually an amazing school, i was looking her curriculum..numerology, cooking class, african art...geez i definatley didnt do things like this in grade school, not mention most of these kinds are bi or multilingual. yeesh. a entire institue full of young genius minds. oh yeah and they all take mandarin.

so really havent lived until youve been to the chinese circus, it is just about everything you would imagine in to be. this is a bear blancing on a board over a pipe..catching hoops. gah, the thing is, circus in the us is not like this anymore because of animal protection laws, so this was really amazing. hopefully the poor animals are okay :) They seem to be happy anyway.

this is natlie and jane in century park. We spent sunday there running around and playing more tag than one should be alotted. everyone woke up sore. it was a lot of fun...i ran off my hangover after a little too much fun the night before. all i can say is thank god we ate japanese that morning and thank god for ginger with sushi...if it werent for that ginger...i dont think i would have made it through this day without getting sick. ick. note to self...limit your drinks more firmly in the future.

The problem is that i went out alone hoping to find the person i was meeting, when i couldnt find him i just made freinds with everyone else at the bar that i was at. namely two chinese girls named jessica and stella who bought a bottle of wine to be nice that they kept shoving at me. normally i would jump at this offer, but given that i had already had two g & t's just before, i very reluctatnly drank two more glasses of wine not wanting to be rude. Basically this night was just a blur...and i the future...i will alot for people to buy me drinks lol.

anways i did end up meeting some really cool people there..one guy in the band named etienne (gah my favorite name ever) who i coerced into practicing french with me, and other french gentlemen named raphaelle...with whom i will also practice at some point. Basically everyone at this bar was just awesome, and i hope i can muster up the strenght to go back there seeing as im pretty sure i acted like a complete idiot after that bottle of wine. stupid manners.

love you all.

j

yay.

oh my gosh oh my gosh. today ways great.

I started off the day by taking natlie to school and the usual morning skyping sessions. Then i dragged myself out of the house to explore. I walked down to the central area where the french market and the starbucks and places to eat and all that jazz was. It wasnt too long of a walk. Anywho, i just kind of bummed around by myself until i saw a (drumroll) ............. an english bookstore! yay! i bought yet another chinese language book but better than the others i have because it is written in pinyin (phonetic roman alphabet) It will be quite useful now when trying to converse with jack and jane in the home. Then i spotted what looked like an oasis....24 HOUR BREAKFAST and a TON of naturally gluten free dishes like smoked salmon and eggs and salads and stuff. So i popped in and ordered both, plus a cappucino, bliss. So im sitting reading my new book when what do i hear with my little ears? yup..Italiano, just to my left. so after recalling the verb for "to live" in italian on my blackberry I grew the balls to walk over to this family and ask...

"Mi scusi, ciao, Di dov'e sonno tutti?" ( excuse me, hi, where are all of you from?)

Italia!!!! not only this, but milano! not far from firenze, at least where north and south is concerned! And wouldnt you know it, i just happen to be wearing florentine colors ( purple and red) and drinking a cappucino, at this point these people love me and im thinking this is a major sign, new friends! serindipidous!

We continued speaking and i told them i lived there for a bit studying and that i was working now in shanghai. but mostly that " Italiano, suona belissima e familiare, grazie" ( italian sounds beautiful and familiar, thank you" then, Piacere! ( nice to meet you)

So really it wasnt the fact that i met new people or that i felt so comfy with italians that i feel i now have a life long ally in any country i run into them, or that i could recall italian so well, but really i was incredibly proud of myself for having the gusto to just walk up to them and begin speaking. I mean, it took some shoving myself off the chair, and i know its not the greatest accomplishment in the world or anything, but walking home i couldnt contain my smile, i felt simply fearless. yay for personal accomplishments. Then i also realized, walking home, im alone, half a world away from anything and anyone i know, and i feel okay. Not just this, but i did it all on my own. I got me thinking about how differnt a person i am from where i once was, it felt damn good. I thought " if i can do this, i can do anything"

Im sure ill have my future issues with being here, but today, was a good day. Also im learning a new chinese word every day, hopefully this will pan out well.
Im supposed to meet a friend of a friend at a jazz club tmrw night after natlie and i go to the cirucus, yay! chinese circus! hope it all turns out well!

As for travel plans i will be in Beijing for a week on chinese new year (not really quite sure what this entails yet) maybe meet up with a friend of a friend there as well. I learned natlie's chinese name today, and remembered it which is a big deal haha. Also portia and I had a great talk the other night, really starting to feel more comfy here. fingers crossed that it continues.

As much as i think i will grow to love china, I still am very aware of the government standing on many things here. Not that i would in anyway say that it is wrong, people live as they live. But i gotta say it does make me very thankful for the first amendment. I like that i can bash my government if i want to, and no one reads my emails, and i can google and facebook and not be charged 30 000 for having more than one kid ( not that that would apply to me at all lol) Anyways all this to say that i have a new appreciation for the u.s. in some respects, as much as i take issue with it as well.

I played tag today with a mandarin orange tree as base. hell yes.

pictures and stuff.

Today was a good day. Portia arranged for me to go on a tour of the city and unknowingly arranged for me to make a new friend. Sophia, as she calls herself in english, was a great tour guide but since we were so close in age and it was just me we ended up just hanging out instead. The language barrier continues to be a challenge as it was even difficult to communicate with the tour guide! Yeah all those years of languages mean squat to me here, its incredibly frustrating and im hoping to make some brit or aussie friends soon. Even so, despite the occassional hand gestures and very slow speed of speaking, sophie and i managed to have a great conversation about politicts, art, food and attitudes towards foreigners in all countries. She was a great insight to the chinese psyche for me, something i will continue to try to uncover and make sense of. She took me around to a few places today that i managed to snap a few shots at. At some point we were walking linked arm and arm very closely, something that could be mistaken for a lesibian experience in some countries but actually is just a friendly way of walking. I used to see men do it in italy it was so refreshing to see men affectionate with each other without homophobic concern who werent gay. likewise i had a similar feeling with sophie. It took me by surprise at first but then i told myself to shut up and just go with it and we became great friends. She is incredibly smart and outgoing and lovely. Yay for friends.


This is me at the top of the pearl tower, the most visible and recognizible building/tower in pudong where i live. One can easier spot this futuristic looking space needle from any photo of a shanghai skyline. Still not exactly sure what goes on in this tower but i do know that its almost the tallest in the world and that my ears certainly popped all the way up and down the elevator.


wouldnt ya know, theres a glas floor at the top, totally scary but really cool too. sopie and i had a few laughs making fun of the people tip toeing around on it. Best part of the day. Here are my tired little feet looking down.


beautiful skyline, shanghai is totally nyc in the east. a mecca of culture and entertainment with a bit of financial district tossed in there. The best part of dressing in china is that i can throw on whatever the shit i want miss matched crazy print little girl dress mickey mouse ears and walk out the door and no one really thinks much of it. vogue.


this is Hai Pao, or as he is more affectionately referred to by americans and the like, Blumby (blue gumby) blumby is actually the mascot of the shanghai expo that will be hosted in the city on may 1st 2010 so its a really cool time for me to be here. If you dont know what the world expo is you should google it cuz i dont feel like explaining, but basically all you need to know is that its a big deal for it be hosted in shanghai. Think the olympics but bigger. The government has totally cleared out an entire enormous area for this to be hosted, things have been built, mascosts created, metros made green, trees cut down. everywhere you look there is construction and its all in preparation for the expo. its crazy, and blumby is everywhere, these people have expo fever. Its actually a little strange, its all i hear about and see, and yes, i will be buying several blumby souveniers before i leave. Heaven knows theres enough of them, on the street, in buildings, in shop windows, blumby blumby blumby wah wah wah. hes actually made to look like the chinese character for "ren" which means "the people". Everywhere you see his picture or plush reads in chinese and english, "better city, better life". You cant imagine how big blumby is.


a land veiw of the pearl tv tower just before we went up in it.


okay okay. Let me tell you a thing or two. You havent lived, or rather, youve lived too much as soon as youve tried to order something gluten free in china. This means culture barrier, langague barrier, gluten uncertainties. This place is a minefeild for my stomach so this means a lot of white rice and veggies. This is what i managed to be able to eat today, still pretty tasty. Pretty sure sophia thinks im crazy after this dining experience.


this is the pre game tea that we drank at a restraunt on nanjing road, one of the main touristy slash financial roads in shanghai. pee ess tea is everywhere and i love it. Can anybody interpret my tea leaves?


this is a model of shanghai that i found in a museum. Learned how to say a new word today in chinese, beautiful, which is way to hard to type out in pinyin so i wont :) but trust me, its great. Oh, and pinyin is chinese translated into somewhat phonetic roman alphabet so it is readable by people who can read chinese characters, it is my new best freind.


Last but certainly not least, the gorgeous pagaodas in the old part of the city. This was my favorite part of the day, it looked more like China looked in my mind before i got here. Sort of Italy's venice or something. The lights makes for a really interesting feel rolling in across all those tiers. Oh, another thing, ive realized that my language of choice to revert back to in foreign situations is italian. Weird i know, i cant tell you how many times i said to someone today, "mi scusi"- excuse me. what the heck? always under my breath but still. Also everytime i saw an italian restraunt i got excited. i think its funny that i now feel some connection to italians as a lifeline where in italy there were the foreign to me. go figure. Anyways it was comforting. Tomorrow I may contact some people that i have numbers for, or i may just go to the gym and read.

fingers crossed and miss ya like ya dont know.

j

so things are getting a bit better, im beginning to shake that initial homesickness that i expected. Jane is becoming a good friend of mine. Jane, is the other woman that works for portia, she speaks absolutely no other languages other than mandarin and well my latin based linguistic knowledge is not helping me here at all. She is cool though, its funny how much you can say without saying anything at all. so far all i can say is hello, thank you, how are you, youre welcome, fruit, water, and the chinese slang for boobs, I know this becuase natalie remarked that i have nay-nays...I told her she would one day too and to cherish it while she didnt :)

anyways....Im realizing how incredibly frustraiting it is to not be able to communicate effectively with others, Im also realizing how much i love everyone i left behind, homesickness will do that to you. I cant eat anything really except for white rice and veggies and stuff but i dotn really mind im just eating very healthy. Today is teh first pretty day it has been in a while. I think Jane realized ( jane is her "american name" her chinese name is incredibly hard to remember and pronouce) how bored i was yesterday sitting inside myself wondering what my texas friends were doing, and so, today she asked me in a thick accent if i wanted to go to the park with her and play. Of course, i responded with the utmost of enthusiasm! So here I am all ready to go to the park, when somewhere between pudong and nanjing i realized what she really meant to say was "do you want to go downtown with me and buy knockoffs" so thats what we did. We played, in the knockoffs. really good knockoff i might add, i was tempted but didnt buy anything, however, leigh, breathe easy, i will bring you something as i promised.

Im hoping to make freinds here soon, that is my biggest concern. I think with the coming weeks i will hopefully know my way around and such. It feels good to have chinese friends though, it makes me feel special, untouristy. I like to notice that the people who pass us are surprised that jane is who i am walking with since i am the only person without jet black hair and milky white skin as far as i can see. It feels strange to be the alien, but also kind of cool for a reason i cant explain. Also the best thing about chinese food so far that i can tell is table manners, forget western table manners, the messier and louder the better. Its really fun to be in teh presence of stangers in which time you are trying to be polite and knowingly eating your food like a 3 year old. Its fantastic, hopefully a habit i will not bring back to the us. :)

anyways, thats all i got for now, ill update later.

missing you all more than you know

j

well i made it. hard to say if im going to like it yet. I think i made the mistake of visiting tx and dc right before i left, so now im just comparing this to all the amazingness of the last few weeks. Also its too early to tell weather or not i will be comfortable, and its hard becuase there isnt really anyone my age around right now. I just hope that natlie likes me. guh the anticipation of summer is not helping at all, a watched pot never boils right?

anyways ill update as things become more apparent. as of now, still a little jet lagged and uneasy, but i will settle in i hope.

almost gone and already longing to be back. this is a strange limbo.

fingers crossed

j