blink.

Something i really like about current technology is that it gives us ease with which to document ourselves.Its fast and easy and amazing. I can blink, and there's laday gaga, i can sneeze and theres the official definition of "wigwam" For instance, i can look of a video of myself exactly one year ago today, and remember, and weep, and clap, and say...

that I don't think birthdays are really that much fun after a while, well, no, i take that back...they're fun but they no longer represent what they used to. Nowadays, i dont feel like im racing to the next one, in fact, i only just realized that i will be 23 in 7 days because i realized it was going to be Easter soon, and that always reminds me of my birthday. Ive never really been huge on them anyways, when other people were planning their wild parties and asking for gifts, i was never really keen on the whole idea. I don't dislike the whole "lets figure out how old our bodies are and track it" thing, im just really apathetic about it now. The most i need is a big hug, a great run, and a cappuccino, happy birthday....ta me.
Any-who...getting older is strange, i dont feel the push propelling me towards old age, but now feel like im deteriorating. Its weird how that happens. I know physically, im in my prime, but that worries me. The loss of efficient physicality really freaks me. The other "new" thing about birthdays for me, is that i start to make sure ive used my current year to the best of my ability, and ive started to track projected arrivals...like...okay if i do this, then this, i will be 25 when i graduate, i will be 26 when...and then holy how, im almost thirty, and where the hell did the time go? All the good is right here with me now. In my own face, in my own hands, in my fucked digestive system and horrible skin, and bouncy hair and freckles. You can learn so much from looking at your own reflection. Its slipping away so so fast, life is such a blip. Its amazing how quickly it goes. I feel that if i blink, ill be dead.

keeping my eyes open

j

Fun with Jack and Jane

Lets talk about chinese. The more i absorb this thing by osmosis the more i love it. Not the most luxurious of languages like italian, or the most velvety like french, and definitely not full in the mouth like spanish. The columns of air totally dispersed differently, and the most difficult thing about it is discerning when you sound like a four year old, and when you're actually saying what you mean to say. I suppose the best way to describe it is..irregular beats..it is a very strange pattern of inflection that spoken mandarin produces, its not hilly with emphasis at the end like Italian. I would say, its more...like a typewriter. You can almost hear each spoken word corresponding to a click or two, and then to a sentance, and then to an indent. Its funny because chinese grammar is very basic. It is without tense, plurality, conjugation, or gender. And yet somehow, it unites the most people in the world linguistically. Oh yeah, and i can speak it, kind of. The most difficult thing about learning Chinese is that it is all by ear, anything ive learned written has been in pin yin ( the phonetic romanized way of pronouncing Chinese characters) So really, the only good way for a westerner to learn Chinese is by ear and through conversation, otherwise, id say you're effed, you're really effed in the a. Another thing i realized is that if you know a good amount of chinese characters, you can actually choose which way you want to write what you mean...soo..for instance...you could use the original mandarin character, the simplified character, or...you could spell it phonetically with characters replacing the syllables of western words. ( ie. Jie Xi for Jessy) Gah this crazy language keeps surprising me, i love it i love it. Other things...it is possible to be able to read mandarin without speaking a word of it...cool right? because the characters are ideograms(representing concepts), pictograms ( representing things) and hybrids of the two. Something even more fascinating, because the characters repeat themselves to create other characters ( ie. the character for "tree" printing twice means "forest") it is possible even to infer what the characters mean without having any previous knowledge of it. The symbol "ren" for "man/person" literally looks like a person walking on two legs. Gah this thing is so cool.

Anyways...now to bitch.
I have no idea what im doing, when im doing it, and how the hell am i gonna pay for any of it.
On the upside...i have some good travel lined up for a while.
I am past the point of becoming, and just am, overwhelmed thinking about it all. Really, its awful, so i throw myself into work (studying mandarin) and hope that i can sink into it and something in me will budge to the point of decision.

Today Natlie threw a fit in the living room so I told her to go away that i didnt want to talk to her when she was mean. So she sat pouting on the floor when jack came over to her and asked in chinese..."why is she ignoring you?" natlie answers " I dont know" to which i piped in " you know why!" and then realized....holy shit i can understand Chinese...and so did jack apparently because he looked at me like i had just spoken in tongues and shouted with wide eyes "ta zhi dao Zhongwen!" ( she knows Chinese) take that mei mei.... :) smiles smiles smiles smiles smiles ahhhh...still not great at it, but hell, its been three months, and i can have conversation. hell to the yes. please dont judge me for using that dorky phrase.

As for Jane, she has become my best teacher, and teaches me a new word or so everyday. We both really enjoy i think, hope it continues. My favorite recent chinese word is...well its not, but it sounds like "wah-wah" which means drawing or coloring. So...something fun to say to natlie now a days " hey, you wanna wah wah? cool, yeah i really wanna wah wah, i love to wah wah, i could wah wah all day, can i wah wah with that color now? xie xie"

Stressed beyond blowing a gasket.
overwhelmed beyond what whelmed means
shakin' in my black leather boots.

Gimme some feedback. no?

j

Theory to practice never works out.

If things really were small, and simple, then all would go according to plan. I would spend the next year in nyc, and the next two in Lund. Id find exactly what im looking for and then some. Id sell my car, and find great use for that money. I'd be just who i wanna be, and then some. But really, things arent that small, and life is not that simple. Someone always throws a hitch in the get-a-long. So im going to float...float...Im going to be malleable, and all i can really hope for is that i am happy, and that i find the courage to make up my mind soon, and that i always have a home in at least one person, if im lucky, a few.

its all about having fun anyways. Trying to push above the pressure,

j

Listen.

Listen. I'd love to update you, but i cant...there is simply too much. Let me attempt to give you the run down via quotes and buzzwords.

Funny things natlie says: "I know my brain is telling me to, but i don't want to hit you"
"conversation rocks!"
(on my way to hip hop class) "you're going to hippo class?"
( to fi, at dance class, out of the blue) " are you a penguin?"
(while walking past an Indonesian woman) "INDIA!"
(while walking past a Pakistani woman) "INDIA!"
(while eating with her hands) "INDIA!"
(when choosing the wii character that has a bindi) "INDIA!"
....natlie really likes India, but were having trouble get her to grasp the difference between Indian people and American Indians....hmm.

running running running with anderson cooper, cnn has become so comfortable.
learning learning, mandarin is not as hard as i thought.
dance dance dance....yo yo wants to get married, and i was early to class.
Fi Fi Fi....the girl is hilarious.
Fresh fruit
Coffee
New books
pin yin
man jeans
plans plans plans
no plans
sunshine
freeze tag
language language...talk talk talk
procrastinate
run run
think think
eat eat
guilt guilt
read read read
ache ache
time change
class class class
study study
restless
sweden?

Not to mention the many realizations Im coming to surrounding language. I love it. Oh my god i love it. its so pretty, its so pretty, its so pretty. How do i love thee? why do i love thee? let me count the ways...

1.it controls your mind, and to learn more languages is to free it, to think aglottia is to challenge it. Language is nothing but agreement that "hat" means the thing you put on your head when its cold.
2.Thai people laugh online like like this " 55555" because the thai word for 5 is pronounced "ha", Spanish speaking people laugh like this "jajajajaja" for obvious reasons.
3. It effects your relationships, once you have the ability to speak another tongue and express yourself in it, you will constantly be struggling to make yourself fully understood. Its a can of worms..but in theory, the more multi lingual a couple is together, the closer they are because that many more ways of expressing themselves exactly as they mean. Its just probability.
4. It effects your psyche, and cognitive biases, ie..gender image, self image, sexual desires, understanding of caution, and ability to memorize and think about objects and relationships to them.
5.It connects us, it makes us human, it excludes us from most other animals, our language system is incredibly complex and intricate and seasoned. It is deeply intertwined with culture.
6.People speak the translation in their own understanding of it, for instance chinese people invert their questions....You want go where? Ni yao qu nali? So do i...for instance, "yidian dian dian etc.." a little bit...so i now say...." a little little little bit..etc" instead of just a small amount or a little. Likewise, ive added question indicators to the ends of my sentences, as with Chinese..."ma?" is added to make a question...like..."ni hao ma?" ( how are you) so now i catch myself saying things like.... "You are good, yes?" or "It is this one, yes?"
7. It feels good to say, it tastes good in my mouth, and its gratifying to understand, and be understood.
8.its incredibly vast, like biodiversity, and corresponding to almost every other discipline, it is a fluid concept, and can be manifested as most anything.
9.Spoken language, It will betray you. It cannot rival art or touch in its ability to communicate.
10. it is both scientific and quantifiable, and poetic and nonsensical.
11.It allows for funny situations...creator of the classic "lost in translation" phenomenon, and reason behind websites like chinglish.com...language is the best comedian.
12.Its associative...and adapts to what it can, through the body.
13. How babies babble...how babies are born with the ability to make any sound.
14. it creates little triumphs, it will excite and encourage you
15.It equals and creates identity. Portia told me she feels like a different person in English than she does in Chinese.
16. Its exclusive, hard, and liberating, and it explains human patterns more than most fields because it links most of them together.
17.It gives you power beyond what you are sometimes aware of..ie..Natlie is the only true bilingual person during the day at the house...if she doesn't cooperate, she can do anything she wants...turn Jane and i against each other...or build us up...she can get what she wants easily if she is aware enough.
18.It is manifest from necessity, a need to be understood. language uses itself, to study itself, and that is really unbelievable.
19. it is possible to read Chinese without being able to speak it.
20. I like to think about exactly when the Phoenician symbols became Greek, became Roman, like what day, what hour, who flipped the a sideways? and why? was it a mistake? did his girlfriend give him shit that morning and he decided to condense the alphabet to spite her? you are what you say more than you are what you eat, and less than that too..because your words will always betray you, and they will always be your greatest resource.

what i say and what i mean.

What im saying is...what we've agreed on, what i mean is, abstract. All i wanna do is talk about language and its implications. All i wanna do is make stuff. What i mean is, i want to do both. what i want is a way. what i know is i can, what i understand is, it takes time. Everything takes time.

What i want is a sunny day.
What i want is rest.
Fresh vegetables, a joke, a swimsuit, a hug, a long long long long road to run with.

This has been really good for me, but i cant wait to start again, my bones and blood can get so restless in my skin from time to time.

I was just clicking through some photos in my library. Theres nothing sadder than memories. Its awful, the thought of life past and the ache for the uncertainty of the future. Will i want to look back on the pictures i have yet to take? Will I even be around to take them? It is the dwell that kills us. its melancholy and mysterious, to look at the photons reassigned to paper that once bounced off my grandfathers face the day he married my grandmother. To realize youth is finite, and such, life. To know life is precious and slippery enough to want to hold on to it in pictures. To ache, ache, ache. To yearn yearn. and to compare your life with your own a year ago, and with others. I love photos, for the art in them, and for their power. and i resent them for the grief they so often cause me. Reliving anything is terrible, its awful to revisit bad because i am reminded o it, its equally terrible to relive good, because its never quite the same, and the loss of that is blue. And im blue, and so are you too. Its terrible to love anything seasonal, but thats all we are really, seasons.

j

I'll tell you in a letter.

Dr.Woodbury,

Perhaps this method of answering my many questions about linguistics is a bit unorthodox, but I've never considered myself anything close to orthodox really, so I'll continue unphased. First, my name is Jessy, last name Cole. Its good to meet you...I hope. I hope you don't mind my emailing you out of the blue, but I ran across your name and job title on a website related to linguistics while I was searching for a bit of direction as well as information. Really it was something that you had been quoted as saying that caught my attention because I identified with it.

"I began to see linguists as intellectual auteurs, moving freely over a huge, open intellectual landscape, treading as needed from formal models, to the physics of sound, to social organization, literature, music, and history; and needing to be, often or always, writers, artful travelers and listeners, good thinkers and hearers, good sleuths and solvers, and very, very good teachers. And I wanted to be all those things. "

I know its odd, but perhaps I could prompt you for some wisdom, sage advice, little pearls of what have you..?

Well okay...where do i begin. I'm an artist, I've always been an artist. But I think I've always been a linguist too. I recently graduated from Baylor, which is also what pushed me further to write you if only for familiarity sake. I studied studio art in college, which is a far cry from linguistics, or not really, depending on how you think about it. But really, I loved and love art. However, I am finding myself at a place where Googling and books are just not enough for me to able to make an informed decision about what to dedicate my life to. I really think i need to hear it from someone who knows about the study of language.I know art and language art not mutually exclusive, and actually quite overlapping, but in terms of what I'm really looking for now, i need to pick.

I sort of accumulated a couple of languages during college, sort of by accident, and then eventually intentionally. By the time i graduated i found myself wishing i had studied linguistics instead. Still, without a single linguistics class under my belt ( but with several anthropology courses and the glimmering dream of becoming a polyglot) I somehow still cant manage to look away, walking towards the arts and looking over my shoulder longingly at language, staring back, ever so somberly ( its pitiful ) So i started reading...everything...Noam Chomsky and David Crystal's "how language works" and "The power of Babel"...I spent way too much time in the library and made friends with the employees at Barnes and Noble. Oh, and I moved to China. So I'm living in shanghai now learning to speak Chinese, and scarcely read and write it, all the while awaiting my graduate school application results and feeling a bit of trepidation as to whether or not I have the skills necessary for this, and also sort of wondering If I have any clue what im getting myself into.

I suppose my problem really is...I have no undergraduate work in linguistics, and normally, i suppose a linguistics undergrad would have picked up on the stuff that i have a feeling I'm clueless about. Specifically, I know i have interest, and i know i have talent, and I'm smart and capable and resourceful. But what do I do now? Do you think it is worth it to risk everything and jump into an expensive program and uncertain field that i have no idea specifically what I would do with when i graduate? How much does language give back to you? Do you feel that you're interests are relevant to the world? Do you feel relevant yourself as a linguist or do you feel that the study of language is something that gives to you and only you? Do you have any resources or directions to point me in as to what kind of work is available for graduates with an MA in applied linguistics? What are your specific interests as they relate to language? Isn't language awesome?

I know what my specific interests are as they relate to language, but I don't know how or where to go in order to study them further. I am incredibly fascinated with the anthropological implications of language, and the evolution of it. I am also more specifically interested in gender relations as they relate to language, and how self image is impacted by the structure of one's mother tongue. Psychology as it pertains to language I suppose is the larger, umbrella term for it.

I just need some direction, i suppose im looking for a little validation as well, inspiration, insight, anecdotes...about how you decided this is what you wanted to do. And really, any help is help at all.

I suppose its crazy to babble on like this to a perfect stranger, but really, its crazy to live in a place where the air pollution accounts for the 54 year old life expectancy of a traffic cop too.

Ni hao indeed,

j.

Sunday.

Something tells me its all happening at the zoo. Mei Mei jack and I went today, and i gotta say, Chinese zoos are nuts because animal protection laws don't exist here as they do in the states, so you can...do things like...shake hands with bears and gets freakishly close to lions, and RIDE CAMELS all at your own risk of course. But anyways, i got to see and touch a lot of super cute things today...my heart almost burst. These are some pigs...oink.

Yeah, they were all about being up close and personal with the wildlife...hmm.. something tells me they are not without accidents.

ahhhhh the camel i rode! i have a wicked cute photo of mei mei and I on the camel but its on jacks camera, i suspect it profile picture material.

This face is priceless. Also the pigeons are pretty in china...what gives?

E I E I ...
oh.

J.

Mei Guanxi.

You know, I remember this. I remember feeling like and thinking like and being like natlie. Its been back, way way back, back there in the dark parts of my memory, places i haven't accessed in ages, but lets blow the dust off shall we?
At what point do you no longer sympathize with a child, and being to empathize with them? When is it that feelings of sorrow or pity for tears are no longer sufficient, and you begin to actually take on those feelings for yourself?
I remember this.
Feeling like bath time time was the end of the world. I had no perspective at all.
My best friend moved away. I did have perspective.
I broke my arm. I dont remember it.
I wanted to grow up to be a ballet dancer.
I wanted to grow up to be the first woman president.
I wanted to be a writer.
I've done better than those things.
I remember that feeling i got when boys were around, when pretty girls were around.
I remember playing effortlessly, for hours, and hours and hours, through sickness, through cold, through bathroom breaks. I didnt care. jessy. want. play.
and nothing else.
Everything was funny.
I had to ask for everything.
I wanted to do it myself.
I wanted that toy on tv
I wanted to be left alone in my closet.
I remember the feeling of embarrassment. I suppose i still get embarrassed, but its so seldom, and usually, now, its totally manageable. It isnt the kill- all that it once was.

Im just sayin' I think this experience, although trialing, has been good for me, if only to shake the dust off, if only to try to see through someone else's desires (i.e. people who want kids) I mean, i really get it , i totally get it, but its not for me. And power to the people who want to and can go through with it. Kids are a great thing, and they are a very real thing, and a very hard thing. There are so many what if's , sooo many decisions, so much sacrifice, so little sleep. I totally appreciate it, totally. But ive been told that i better serve the world, being who I want to be, and that is not a mother. And i choose to believe this.

Listen to yo momma kids, shes giving up more than you know.

Its amazing how much I relate to natlie these days. Having a child is something that will absolutely change a person im pretty sure. And while Im really not up for ever owning one, i gotta say if I did happen to chance upon one, one of these days, I think i could perhaps make a little room for it...

But good god in heaven jesus mary and joseph stalin, I AINT NOBODIES MOMMY!

ick.

"dont worry jess, i think people who are our age and know exactly what they want to do are freaks anyways" -wg

...this actually made me feel alot better today about my decision making problems, actually, its the most comforting thing ive heard in the midst of all this.

Later baby,

j

Sleep? Everyone knows theres no such thing..

Wow, wow, wow. I think its safe to say that my sleeping habits are going to be permanently impacted from my time here. Here's the run down...First off, being in china is weird enough to get used to. add to that the fact that i never sleep long because i am with Natlie in early morning, taking naps during the day when possible, and then going out at night and waking up early again. To add insult to injury, the Chinese don't do daylight savings time...or time zones...so its like 5 hours of daylight all the time in western china...they would.
If this weren't enough, I am basically going back in time for the longest April 3rd i am ever going to experience when i fly to Honolulu in another two weeks or so, I have no idea if i will sleep at all while im there. Then i will return to shanghai for about a month, just when i have time to adjust to this eastern and erratic sleep schedule again we are going to Hong Kong in may, so i will likely wear myself down there. ( also i would like it noted that spell check for mac just suggested "thong" for hong kong") Then, of course, I will leave for Texas, for a month. That's gonna throw my rem cycles for a loop again. As soon as i have garnered some sleep normalcy back in the good ol' us of a, i will then fly to Vienna to meet portia for a little over a week where we will have full days of choir rehearsals, more tiredness, also during this time we may or may not go to London to chill depending on how natlie is rolling with the Vienna kids. Then portia has to go back to San Fran during that time to deal with green card issues before she can return to shangahi, so im taking natlie with me and meeting portia in san fran...THEN...im sliding into home in atlanta...for a few hours, before i start my first day of class presumably, the next morning. Someone slap me, i need a reality check, who is this woman and why is she so incredibly and unnecessarily nice to me all the time? Portia...adopt me?

I really feel like my internal clock is going to explode.

Now im gonna show some favoritism. currently..

book: Let the great world spin by Colum McCann
song: Dizzie Rascal, Dance wiv me
drink: oolong tea
game: Super Mario bros for Wii....with natlie
type of dance: Reggaeton
dance partners: yoyo, fi, and Andrea
shoes: the red kicks
food: boiled bok choy with water sprouts minus the bouillon
show: its always sunny x50
article of clothing: the slack comfy jeans that fi convinced me to wear
Bulgarian: Ivan
gym equipment: the elliptical
daydream: cooking in and decorating my next living space. all my own.
major world religion most compatable with my personal philosophy: Dao
daytime activity: searching for scholarships...and money..and direction..conveniently located on the world wide web. Has anyone ever googled the phrase "what should i do with my life?"
Chinese phrase: Wo de Zhongwen bu hao. duibuqi.
British phrase: I just rock up lookin' like a' absolute dick. cheers!
Chinese atrocity: the mobile execution vans
Chinese oddity: the Chinese people's very low tolerance for cold, and corresponding hand signs that go with numbers 6 through 10.

non favorites: rice, pollution, lack of sleep, distance from Texas.

qi? balanced. check!

j

Off the grid.

Some quail eggs, that Jane and I peeled for dinner. They were about as gorgeous as they were yummy. Add to list of things i must eat when i return home.


KTV kind of blows my mind here, the images on the screen are always really bizarre. I have no idea what this says, I can only recognize one character in that line of them, but i do however, recognize the Chinese Charlie Chaplin staring down at them. For some reason, this captures the mindfuck that is china sometimes.

I can really put my finger on why, but ive really been off the grid lately. Totally a homebody, Calm and collected, not willing to sacrifice sleep for fun. Must be a phase. I get the feeling that a little time in the sun and some quality time with morg will bring out the hyper in me again.

I am however really liking my Reggaton dance class that fi and i have been going to. I love the girl that teaches it too, her name is yo yo, and ya gotta love that.

Oh yes, Im also experiencing slight dread and also amusment at the idea of getting off that plane in honolulu and most likely blinding all those beautiful melanin filled islanders with my alien-white skin. Seriously, whoever im staying with probably wont even have to turn on the lights while im there, im glowing. I'm claiming adaptability, its considered beautiful to be lilly white in china. so there. I can only imagine the sun burn that will ensue.

Oh man, the thought of that is really throwing off my qi.

Jess

like a new pair of shoes.

There are many oddities that need attention, or maybe don't, but definitely illicit wander. There are a number of burning questions that i had upon the the thought of living in Shanghai. Like why is it that it seems it takes twice as many Chinese words to translate an English phrase. And now i know, that it is because there are no conjugations or changing of verbs relative to a tense, and so you must add a string of varying modifiers in order to make sense. For instance, "Ma?" must be added to make a question, "Le" to indicate the past tense, and "ge", to count things. The articles are really what keeps this Rubicon of a language together, without it, any logic it seems to claim at all would be futile. And then there are the tones of course...its not Chinese grammar that is a hurdle, its tone, and vocabulary, and oh, good luck learning those 30 000 plus characters, ill just stick to pin yin thankyouverymuch. But really on the upside, I am learning quite a bit of mandarin, despite my refusal to study at all for my lesson today. fail.
Or perhaps, why in a place of such a checkered political past can the people visit their embalmed leader of the past and weep over him, and better yet, print his confident innocent looking face on their money.
How can a place where "the good of everyone" seems to have a permeating presence, claim habitat to a bunch of people pushing and shoving and spitting and yelling to get what they want?
Why is death such a token thing here..and eating not?
How can a people who seem to be obsessed with technology and the furthering of it, and who seem to be incredibly intelligent, not repel the idea of the government having such a strong hand in their media?
Or maybe i wanted to solve the elusive mystery of the peace sign, that everyone flashes along with the a smile at the slight whiff of a camera. I figured that one out too.
And really, i have yet to understand, how in a country where it is incredibly rude to leave your chopsticks in the bowl after you have finished eating, is it totally socially acceptable to hack and shoot gelatinous phlegm and to relieve yourself (yes, in that way) all over the city?

life is funny.
I feel like ive really done something good for myself by coming here. Financially yes, but also, ive learned things that i would not have cared to learn otherwise, and that is good for anyone i think.

Forget Sartre, Camus, and Aristotle. This weekend Fiona extended the only philosophy one ever needs to know as we dodged a blue taxi through the green man crosswalk on Shannxi Lu.

"Oh just do whatever ya want jessy! youre gonna DIE in 50 years or whatever!"

Said in a sarcastic and very matter-of-fact northern british accent...That pretty much sums it up for me. yup. shes brilliant.

Zai Jian

j.

Pointless, in the best way possible, i think.

Im going to be in Hawaii in T minus 3 weeks and oh. my. gosh. do i need to trim the fat. I feel doughy.
Lets get serious now.
were talking bikinis...
BIKINIS!
next to HAWAIIANS!

this is no laughing matter.

what is a laughing matter is this book im reading called Lost on Planet China. It is hilarious and totally accurate. J Maarten Troost is hilariously informative, if that's possible in this memoir about his time in china. I find myself laughing out loud in public by myself reading it. And i only have two chapters left, sad day. Anywho, if any of you plan on going to china any time soon i would strongly recommend reading this. A great history lesson without the history book and with alot of fun.

So...lately? hmm i rarely blog without intent but i just started typing thinking it would go somewhere, just to type. So...
Okay ive been getting A LOT better at mandarin, i mean really, i still have the vocabulary of a 4 year old but people always seem to understand me so i feel like this is an accomplishment. I may actually even be starting to teach english twice a week if things work out, so im sure that will improve my mandarin as well.

In china news...My good friend here, fi....went to Thailand, upon returning she was welcomed or rather unwelcomed back by the freeeezing rain we've had here lately(something i will not miss) and was walking through the cross walk. on a green pedestrian light...when she was clipped by a taxi's side mirror that pushed her slightly off her balance but not enough to move her out of the way and long enough for the same taxi to DRIVE OVER HER FOOT. yeah. this is what i mean, do not. under any circumstances. play chicken. with Chinese drivers. you-will-die. I mean it. She looked down at her ugg boot and f'real saw a track mark across it. Meanwhile the pedestrian world keeps on spinning, no one notices, no one stops, the taxi drives away. This in no way surprises me. The driving here is absolutely bonkers. The only place i speculate it might be worse is Mexico City. People and cars are equal here, i dont even know why they have those pedestrian lights, they aren't used at all. I mean she really could have died, and the sad and very true thing is that if she had been actually hurt by this rogue taxi, no one would have helped her, they would have stared, and done nothing. You think im kidding perhaps, exaggerating? no way, not at all. People will watch. you. die. in front of them here and do nothing.

sobering but true. J Maarten Troost actually discusses a similar situation that he was faced with when one man started a fight with him. Ill wont give away that story, you'll have to read to find out.

In other news, im more comfortable. Ive gained more control over my dietary issues, and... wait?
whats that?

i think i may have gotten back a little spring in my step.

j

Fallin' up. Gettin' down.

I sat down at lunch today to finish the chapter in my book about Tibet. I seriously want to go to tibet now, however lofty in terms of altitude. Apparently passing out from the thin air is not an uncommon thing, although, i wouldn't be surprised if that was just Chinese visitors worn down and deprived of blue sky and normal oxygen levels. I must say, the Chinese air is famous for its pollution. Portia told me today "The sky is never blue, on a good day, its pale." The sky is blue somewhere though.

get up.

There's a man with a funny laugh in the corner. Seemingly inappropriate for the conversation he's having. A business man, hip and rich, and squawking away through his rice noodles. Laowais never really are quite aware of how to handle themselves when nervous, or maybe he just loves to laugh. I prefer to believe the latter. Oh yes, Laowai is a term for foreigners here, i dont think its in good taste but its kind of funny when you refer to yourself as a loawai in jest, sort of self deprecating, its good for a laugh or two.

get up.

People whose laughs i miss....
Sam Hough, need i say more? It is fantastic and can only be experienced.
Hollis's silly and unapologetic belly laugh, in the most inappropriate of places. heh.
Justin's inhale of air to create a lofty sounding, im playing chess and drinking bourbon with a monocle feel.
And Deandre's smack-to-the-face cackle when he really thinks someone is ridiculous, like that girl in the you tube video who smacks her head on the tv.
Sean, you and your low pitch, mischief-managed-i-just-put-a-tack-on-someone's-chair... "heh-heh"
Oh and Kelsey's laugh, which isnt even really a laugh, but a silent mouth drop and stare, that curls into a grinch-like smirk before puffing out some air after the fact.

laughs are cool, like thumbprints or noses, they are diverse and personal. Its good to remember and catalog people with these things. Try it, think of everyone's laugh that you know, its not hard and wildly entertaining.

I laugh like a mouse, whatever. When i really think something is funny though, its the silent laugh, oh the silent laugh, those are the laughs you cant even forget.

I feel better today. I feel more like i can handle things. Climbing up the stairway to homeostasis, and looking forward to be able to control it. I seem to be falling, but only in the right direction.

Tonight im going for hip hop and a drink with fi. yelp! eep! yay!

In all my frustration trying to understand natlie, i buried myself in anguish relegating my presence here to a failure. Then i realized, duh. Holy freaking duh. Natlie doesn't speak Chinese, she doesn't even speak English, she speaks Natalie, and the language of Natalie is "play." I think its amazing that i am so far removed from the notion of "play" that it has taken me this long to really get what makes her tick. And that it. play. and nothing else. All of her meanderings and efforts are centered around this basic idea "me want play". How could i be so stupid? Its amazing how you can almost completely write something or someone off, even when you really think highly of yourself in this manner, just because you are blind to the underlying motivation. Its so easy, its hard. So close to my face, that it was blurred. Duh, jessy. Natlie. want. play.


I lift my pointer and index and thrust it into my fleshy neck, and wait, for a resting heart rate, for no discernible reason.

Stick your neck out. Keep your head up.

Do the hokey pokey.

j

grumble grumble. vulnerability psh.

I feel very idle. Like im just trying to get through the next three months. I dont want to be comfortable all the time, but right now i do. Formidably, i just want to whine. I just want to eat some chocolate and curl up in some familiar arms and make dirty jokes and not have to discipline someone else from day to day. I think im not so much homesick as much as im just sick of here. I sort of feel out of my element, not culturally, just situationally. Still, i like to deem myself someone who doesn't quit things. Especially things that i know to be somewhat valuable to me in some way. Except...on the flip side...there is the question of choice.

It is good and it is wise to be malleable, especially when experiencing the unknown. But it is also wise to stand firm in things that you want. Perhaps it is most wise to be formulate an adaptive combination of the two.

Ive collected advice in my head for years from people that i just really respect, and always the advice i most value has a theme.

"stand up for yourself jessy, it makes everyone else happy and you get what you want"
"we're too old to be doing things we dont want to do"
"i mean, its your life.."

I mean, i just get so fucking sick of being bullied sometimes. I think, because I am generally pretty agreeable to be around, and generally pretty easy going, that people mistake that for passiveness. So. let it be known, I am not passive, perhaps i didn't say anything because i didn't think it mattered enough to make a fuss, but yeah, when you cut me in line it pisses me off, and yeah, i was using that chair, and no, i don't think that is a fair price. Really, my ability to swallow what i really want to say is mostly a product of my idea that it is more efficient to suppress what i need in small situations. Is this a small situation? It is certainly a finite one, so maybe i shouldn't worry about it? I guess it kind of walks the line of how long i am willing to put up something disagreeable with me.

step with purpose, right? So really it seems that i should just do whatever i want regardless? I dont know, I do know that i miss everyone, and i do know that i feel like ive kind of plateaued here in terms of how my life will be from day to day. Im certainly learning all the time, but im not sure its redeeming enough for me to want to stay on.

Im tired of the rain, i would kill for some natural beauty out here, the lifeless concrete, the air, the general mentality of "i gotta get mine screw you". Id love a drive somewhere green, and some fresh air and sunlight. Id love to not play tag today. Id love to eat nothing but fruits and veggies for a week....coupled with nutella. Id love to legally look at youtube and facebook. Id love to get on the same level with someone else, have lunch, a glass of vino, sleep all day and play all night, read without ceasing, a saturday, a sunday, a monday, whatever, wear something i dont have to get dirty, and id love to have someones physical arms around me. It would be nice to be hit on too. meh.

Flailing. a bit. but keepin' it together.

j

Ladies and Gents...

Today im gonna talk about...food. are you surprised? no. what? you know you like it.Partly just to blog and partly to make myself a list, with some pizazz. The thing is, ive had some dietary slip ups gluten wise and im just now kind of jiving with being able to eat here. It has made me gain a little weight (which isnt unusual ive dealt with gluten pudge before) from all the starch and body chemistry and quite frankly depresses me slightly. And so, as im regaining control of my body and giving it a breather finally, i am also slowly rekindling my excitement about food. okay, so ive compiled the list of foods that ive discovered here that i absolutely cannot live without. Okay i can, but im really gonna try to make/find these things when i get home. Im really excited to see how this influences my cooking when i get back. One, the above picture is typ of Chinese cuisine, just about any vegetable wilted or shredded and then soaked in vinegar or something brothy, and always always always accompanied by rice. To eat something without rice is a sin.


Mu er. Or "wooden ears" a yummy little fungus that grows on trees, and tastes..ah how it tastes..perfect with rice of course. cook these little guys up with some salt or vinegar and presto! buon appetito! I suspect i will spend some time in the Chinese grocery store near my home lookin for these.

Oh my gosh, If there were one food item i could take home with me from china, it is this. Tang yuan. Im pretty sure the literal translation is like sweet soup or something. Basically just these balls of glutinous rice ( which despite the name are gluten free) and then filled with chocolate or sugar or yuminess on the inside. You can make them by hand and they are typically eaten for Chinese new year or lantern festival, but we buy them frozen and i eat them for breakfast. Sometime they are green or pink or blue, i like the green ones best, and you bet your chopsticks im making these by hand when i get back.

okay. something i never would have thought to try on my own but was pushed too. This is a lotus flower root. It is boiled and then stuffed with sticky rice with sugar. Wowee, so good. Sometimes its in soup or other things but its best with the rice, of course, rice, duh.

The chinese for this i dont know how to type in pin yin but its sounds like "qual-oon-qua" or as we know it, dragon fruit. mmmm. this is definitely available at home, i just took it for granted. A tad sweet, not mealy but more stringy like an orange but not quite, and filled with little black seeds, it almost doesnt look real. The best thing about moving anywhere is discovering the produce...i think. Dragon fruit, hit it up at your local whole foods.

Alright, i know what youre thinking. Okay i dont, but whatever it is it cant be right. This is a fermented egg. The first time i ate this i didnt even know what i was eating because it was chopped up and in soup. I actually thought it was a mushroom until i was corrected, confused, and then delighted. I can even begin to think how to make this but ima try. google to the rescue, too bad china doesn't agree :)

This isnt Chinese but get off my case, im on sensory overload. This is actually Korean, and i had heard about how much i would love Korean food because it is mostly naturally gluten free, but i didnt get a chance to try it until i was in Beijing. Nikki and i found the most random restaurant and i recognized a picture of Korean food and of Korean writing so i insisted. Then after posting a picture of it, the lovely liz went informed me that it is called Bi bim bop. Which only makes it better. Just a bunch of spicy rice and veggies! with egg on top! and you mix it all together! I swear to Buddha im going to korea one day for two weeks just to eat. Also to do: make more Korean friends with domestically inclined parents or grandparents, get invited over for dinner.

Ive really only tried/seen a few moderately weird things. Scorpion and starfish on a stick. I tried some pig ears (bland) and what can only be described as a spicy tendon on a stick. But really, i dont know if its that im not getting out enough or what, but i have yet to see/hear of these cat brains and dog and horse meat that everyone in the us seems to think the Chinese eat. Still i would not be surprised, there is saying, and its in Chinese of course, but the translation is "everything under the sun that crawls swims or flies with its back to heaven can be eaten" I think this was in response to the famine that happened a while back, but still, kind of a cool part of Chinese culture.

while perusing the facebook feed illegally today, i also ran across a note that my friend mike, who i met in beijing had written about our visit there. While describing our tour he entered the following statement, and i laughed out loud, partially because it was funny and partially because i feel happy about being able to laugh at my misfortune:
"After this we had lunch, where Mike and I learned that our Shanghai friend (who's name is Jessy) is allergic to basically everything. She can't eat anything with ANY kind of sauce on it - which is unfortunate, because it's China, and food NOT covered in sauce is about as easy to find as a driver who is actually aware that there are OTHER cars on the road. Anyway, post lunch we went to our final stop of the tour, the Lama Temple."

So what can we learn from chinese food? Vinegar vinegar vinegar, pork pork pork, broth broth broth, rice rice rice rice rice rice rice rice. the end. oh and the occasional scorpion. Wash it down with a glass of hot water and you may just think "Hao Chi" (tasty)

nom nom nom!

j.

Ta Shi Wo de Mei Mei

Chinese new year is oficially over, sort of, actually it doesnt really have a set end date but it seems to have culminated in last nights firework finale that was so loudly and proudly displayed at about 10 pm. Wowee, there were a TON of fireworks going off last night, more than the normal amount that have permeated the sound waves of the last three weeks. Jack has a friend who is a fireman that confiscated a bunch of fireworks from people this month and naturally jack got to keep them. Im starting to really like that guy, hes much more mischievous than i originally thought. Im also using chinese pod like mad, and learning a good amount of mandarin actually.

My salad, what else? Ive been seriously trying to trim the fat lately. This whole rice with every meal thing has not been kind to my figure. I am going to try to spend mornings and nights for this month in the gym and on the street, quite literally, running my ass off. Also the chocolate thing has got to stop, at least for this month, i have to be seen in public! in a bikini! in april! in Hawaii! o yeah thats another thing, change of plans, im not going to hong kong instead im visiting morgan in honolulu for my birthday/i love her/i need to renew my visa. serendipity!

Mei Mei, which me means little sister, this is what both portia and I call natlie, she felt the need to take this photo on the elephant in oldtown at night. As much of a handful as she can be, i actually have become much more comfortable around her, and everyone in the house i think. Knock on wood. She has made me laugh alot in the last 48 hours. Another thing...Today, the Feng Shui master visited portia while Mei Mei and I were at Emily's house playing. I dont know about you guys but all i have ever known of Feng Shui is moving around furniture..um, there is alot more too it than that, and people take is seriously, very seriously. The feng shui master visits every year and tells the owner of the house what to do. Today, I helped Portia move a desk out of the way of the door to a bathroom that i was not aware that we had because it had been sealed off for an entire year, because last year, that is what the feng shui master told them to do. We moved around every picture hanging on the wall all over the house. Portia is getting rid of her bed because this type of bed " isnt good for her" but last year it was. Every year portia buys and gets rid of a ton of stuff depending on what the master tells her. Keep in mind, this is a totally rational, totally successful, incredibly smart international lawyer who graduated top in her class from Yale law school. I was partially amused, partially astounded, partially amazed at the feng shui happenings today. I have to say, i really think it was one of the coolest things ive ever seen. The seriousness and nonchalant manner in which all of this was happening should be noted as well.

Also portia and I had a very long talk about life and what it means. God and Dao and Buddha. Phsychology and reincarnation. And fortunetelling, She knows an english speaking fortune teller, and Im putting that on my list of things to do in China.

In the meantime, just missing you, and working on attaining funds for whatever i do in the fall/summer, and various other ta-do's.

consider yourselves updated,

jie jie (big sister)