Not much to say...

There isn't much going on here at the moment. We have Friday off due to a workers holiday, so Nathan and I will be spending the weekend climbing Sanquingshan. I'm pretty excited, but I know I'm going to come back super sore. It's pretty on par with Huangshan, so I know the views will be spectacular.

Aaaaaaaand, that's all. Sorry. I wish I had more interesting news to report on.

Folks in America, don't get swine flu.

Well then...

Okay, I've figured out what I want to do. I'm definitely going to work on/start a magazine. I've already started to figure out the content, my customer base, who to sell ad space to, etc.
I would like to find an internship in Beijing this summer for a magazine if I can. I may have to wait to find that until I can get to the city though.

I need to buy Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe Photoshop, an external hard drive, and a Nikon D4.
I've figured out that a 160G external HD will be about 420 yuan, a Nikon D4 will be around 3500 yuan, and the Adobe Pagemaker and Photoshop I can get for about 10 yuan each at this dvd place I know. Haha.

I may give private English lessons this summer while I'm in Beijing so that I can save up for these items. Not sure about that until I get my courseload. May be too busy studying the Chinese.

Summer school is all paid for, I got the reciept in my inbox a few hours ago. Glad that's taken care of, it's really a load off. I used my paypal and wiped out my checking account, so now I'm left with about $40 in there and all that RMB I have saved in my secret hiding spot. I ended up having to pay an extra $54 to use the paypal, but I found out it would have been almost 500rmb to transfer that much in RMB if I had opened a Chinese bank account. I figure the $54 is worth it.

I found Bank of America being shady with my savings account today. I was checking to make sure I had the funds to pay all of my tuition with my checking account when I noticed that there was money missing from my savings account. In order to keep Bank of America from charging a 'bank maintanance fee' I have to retain a balance of $300 in my savings account. Well, after I got my nice tax return from the government, I made sure that the balance in my savings was exactly $300 so Bank of America would stop charging me. Today when I checked the balance it was at $292. For some unexplained reason there was a $3 'bank fee' and because that brought the balance down to $297, they had charged the $5 'bank maintance fee'. What the hell? I got on the customer service chat thing that they provide so I could chat with a representative. When I asked what that $3 fee was for I got this message, "I've got some good news for you! Because we value your customer loyalty I can reimburse those fees to you. All of it should be credited back to your account in the next business day." She wouldn't answer me when I asked why they had charged the $3 fee. I know, I just know, it was so that they could bring the balance to below $300 and have an excuse to charge me that $5. If you have a Bank of America account, keep an eye out for that stuff. I'm thinking of shutting down my Bank of America savings account when I return to the states. There have been a few strange incidents like that, and I don't trust them anymore.

That's all from me. Laundry to do, then sleepy time. I should really tidy up the house, but I'm having too much fun with my magazine project. Whee!

My China Career Goals...

Some of these are serious, some are just for fun (but I wouldn't pass on them if they came up):

• Be a model for the home shopping network
• Be a regular on a Chinese soap opera
• Work for a magazine in Beijing or Shanghai, preferably Elle or one of those types
• Club promoter
• Own a bar or club
• Own a restaurant
• Front Desk manager at a hotel in Beijing or Shanghai
• Write a book or two

I've pondered grad school recently. I could easily slip off to Korea for a year, earn the money, and return to China. However, I have also realized I have NO IDEA what I want to be when I 'grow up', so I guess grad school should probably wait until I figure that out.

Teaching is not my future. I need to figure something else out.

Crap Weather

Nathan and I didn't do much today, but yesterday was pretty okay.

We woke up late yesterday, got ready, and dinnered at David's pizza place. His dad wasn't there, but it was sooooo nice to have pizza after all this time. We walked around downtown despite the rainy weather and found some shops I didn't know existed. I found a few gorgeous LV purses I plan to go take a look at again tomorrow or Tuesday. They're too lovely to pass up! Haha.
On our walk back towards the school we passed this lit up building on the lake and went to have a look. It turned out to be a nice little area where you can drink tea and watch a show for 15rmb each. We bought tickets and spent about an hour enjoying the nice outdoor atmosphere and music. It started raining harder while we were there so we cabbed home.

I'm teaching interviews this week because I can't get karaoke videos since youtube is STILL BLOCKED! BAH!

Nathan and I are going to San Qing Shan for our may holiday, I think it will be lovely.

Here is my hair, I hate it:

I'll probably like it in a couple week when it's a bit longer.

Things I did today...

• Taught a class about American universities.
• Got my hairz chopped the heck off. Pictures later when I am not so sleepy/having a bad skin day.
• Ate baozi.
• Watched a singing competition.
• Came up with the idea to have a karaoke class next week since my students are willing to sing but not to speak in class....?
• Bought a Japanese fashion magazine.
  
• Bookmarked all the clothes I want to have made in my various Elle and other fashion mags.

That's all.

Tomorrow... more of the same.

Edit:// So when Mom was here, on our way to catch the train to Nanchang I had to run through the train station with no shoes on. I got a small cut on the bottom of my foot, but I got it all cleaned up and band aid-ed. Well, all this time later it still hadn't healed and was somewhat sore... so I decided to get a pair of tweezers out and have a dig around in there... I just pulled a rather large piece of glass out of the bottom of my foot that had been in there this whole time. D'oh. Guess it'll heal now.

Cool

So, this was an interesting day full of Chinese language triumphs.

Nathan wasn't feeling well so I took the bus downtown by myself to catch the train. I got off after a few stops and hailed a cab, because I wasn't entirely sure which stop was near the bus station. The driver was an interesting fellow who definitely thought he was a race car driver.

I made it to the train station very quickly and headed in to buy my ticket. I've never bought one by myself in Nanchang, but I didn't have a problem at all. Ticket in hand I made my way to the waiting room, which was baking hot. I'm not a fan of Nanchang train station.
While heading to board the train a young man came up and tapped my shoulder stating that, "We have the same ticket." I just nodded as he waved his in my face, and we boarded the train together and found seats. We chatted for awhile but he left me in relative peace. I'm pretty sure he spent a majority of the train ride attempting to think up questions he could ask me. Bless.

I 'yo bailed' as quickly as possible after the train station and found myself a cab (the trick to avoiding the cabs who cheat you is to grab one just as they're dropping someone off near the entrance of the train station.) This cab driver was very talkative and even after I told him I didn't understand half the things he was saying we still managed to have a good conversation.

The best news of the day?! I got my acceptance letter to BLCU!!!! Now I just have to send them my monies by June 1st, so I guess I'll get a Chinese bank account all set up and rolling since I have the money now. May as well get it to them... although I may wait to see if Nathan and I can get an apartment together for the summer first.

Right, I'm wiped. Off to unpack and eat.

Wiped

I am wiped the hell out. My students are exhausting and I've got a cold and I have been going to bed too late.

Today Cary made pizza and let me eat a lot of it. Apparently I have a rather gregarious appetite. Super. But it was really good and I haven't had pizza in quite awhile.

I've spent my evening looking up bad words in Chinese.

I taught my kids the F-word in class. They already knew it.

I'm going to Nanchang this weekend.

These journals entries are getting more and more bland. Maybe I'll have something interesting to write after this week. I'm having a 'girly' day with my friend Cici on Saturday, so that will probably provide a few antics to write about.

Until then, Happy Easter!

Nada

Not much to say.

Kids were awful today. No one was in the mood to learn and we all wanted to just be outside where it was a gorgeous, warm day.

Went shopping at Walmart and saw some Bangladeshi's. They pointedly ignored me. Nice.

Played badminton with Cary for about an hour until some punk ass little brat Chinese kids started harassing us by yelling 'hello' and other things then throwing rocks.

Studying Chinese now.

The end.

Wuhan 2.0

So... Friday afternoon I headed down to Nanchang. I rode the train with Sophie and some of her friends. It was packed! When I arrived Nathan greeted me at the station and we headed off to Metro to pick up some groceries for a curry night.
Nathan cooked curry which was delicious! He's a superb chef. Pearl joined us for dinner and we had a nice chat while watching Anthony Bourdain.

Saturday morning we woke up early-ish and Nathan made pancakes. Fei Fei joined us and got to try her first pancake. We, (Nathan, Nikolai, FeiFei, and I) headed to the train station to catch the train to Wuchang (one of the Wuhan burroughs). The train ride was pretty quick, three hours or so. One of Nathan's students had recommended a hotel which turned out to be excellent, located only a few minutes from the train station and right on a night market street. It was a steal at only 100rmb a night. We checked into this great hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed to food street, we were all hungry. It was packed! We all ordered food from different stalls, and I managed to order noodles by myself sans MSG.
We decided to go back to the hotel for a bit then it was time to hit the bars. We had a cab take us to a bar street near Wuhan University and found one that was suitable to play a few dice drinking games at until we were ready to go to a club. Eventually we tired of the bar and headed to a club that was down the street. We were ushered to a table by an incredibly nice manager and along with the bottle of vodka we ordered, given a free bowl of fruit, french fries, and cucumber. It was fantastic. The music was okay, and we had some fun times dancing around. There was a group of French people, the only other laowai, who were polite and came over to introduce and offer us drinks. After a few hours of dancing, drinking, and socializing we were beat. We left the club and found a late night restaurant where Nik, FeiFei, and Nathan all enjoyed a various assortment of food such as snail and a whole duck (which Nathan ate by himself.) We went back to the hotel after that.

Sunday we had a lot of things planned. We rose pretty early considering how late we were out and headed to the Yellow Crane Tower. It was a beautiful day and we had a great view from the top of the tower. Nathan and I enjoyed walking the grounds and I found a great deal on some antique looking silk paintings, 3 for 20rmb. I am eager to get them framed now for when Nathan and I have a house together again. After walking the grounds we decided to go to Wuhan University to poke around the campus. It's a beautiful campus and I enjoyed seeing the grounds. We eventually found our way to the large lake (East/West Lake?) and walked onto the narrow docks. Poor FeiFei doesn't know how to swim so that made her a bit nervous.
It took us ages to get a cab near the university but we eventually managed it. We had the driver take us to the ferry, then caught the ferry to the other side of the river and another of Wuhan's burroughs. We grabbed dinner there, but I think there was a bit of MSG tainting our food and I didn't feel so well afterward. We decided to head back to the hotel and passed out.

This morning we got up early and headed to the train station. Because I was going to Jiujiang and Nik, Nate, and FeiFei were heading to Nanchang, I had to sit in a different part of the train. I said goodbye to Nathan in Wuhan. The train was packed, I spent most of the time reading and napping.
I found a nice cab driver once I got to Jiujiang, and now I am home. This week I'm teaching my kids slang, and I've had a good time looking up words to teach them. I am eager to see the dialogues they come up with.
Tomorrow I have plans to play badminton/frisbee with Cary and some friends. I am also going to meet up with David's cousin, Kevin, to hang out this week and I have arranged to see Jiujiang University campus with Qiao who is seeing if they offer Chinese classes there for me. Busy week!

Montezuma's Revenge....

I should think of a Chinese name for this.... Confucian's Revenge...?

I was very unwell in a very unpleasant way this morning. To the point that after two trips to the toilet during class (luckily I had short vids associated with my lesson that I could show during my bathroom breaks) I canceled the rest of class, canceled my next class, and walked home.

Ew.

However, I have strangely not been 'sick' since getting home. And I haven't actually felt that ill. My body is whacked.
I will take a couple pepto's before bed though, just in case.

Today was April Fool's Day, and for some reason the people in this country view this as a major holiday, or at least think it's one in the western world. I have received a number of texts telling me to have a 'Happy Fool's Day'. Right.

I'm off to read. Happy Fool's Day to you.