merry christmas

In America, today is the holiday that people tend to get together and give shit to each other; there is and a general feeling of warmth and goodwill between people.  I am currently listening to James Taylor and thinking about the calmness and the feelings this season used to mean to me.  But right now I'm alone and so far away from all my previous associations with Christmas.  None of this is because I'm in China--in fact, I'm no longer in China.

rainy days

The past few days I have been in a daze, feeling glossed over, mechanical.  The off-and-on rain hasn't really brought much of a cooling effect.  Today I slept away most of the day's middle hours, deciding to eat a true breakfast at around 5PM.  Part of this could be the fact that the past few nights I've been up until around 2AM which is pretty drastic for a bookworm like me.  The good news is that I've been out up so late because I have made friends with Chinese people.  From now on I will just call them Chinese friends.  There really is no bad news about this even though that may have sounded like a lead-in, but let me continue...

driving rant

So...things here in crazyland are pretty good.  I'm trying to make some worksheets for classes so it looks like I might know what I'm doing.  But enough small talks...what I'm really about to tell you about is driving in China.  The short answer to the question I'm surprised nobody has asked yet is:  Yes, personal cars should be outlawed in China.

Century Mart girl

So I've now been in China for about a month and a half and I am starting to feel serious about making friends.  I have made a handful of friends but nobody I regularly do anything with (except for my roommates, who are American).  Basically...if I don't make 100 friends by next week I really don't deserve to be alive.

This girl I am about to mention was an employee of one of the stores in a mall that happens to connected to a Century Mart grocery store (otherwise I just might not be in the mall).  Upon exiting Century Mart and entering the mall, the girl I am now mentioning looked at me and smiled a very curious, welcoming smile.  I looked at her for a while and smiled back, naturally.  I believe that's what you do when someone smiles, but I smile at people here when they look at me for more than a few seconds, and often their faces remain frozen.  But let me now get back on task...

I went walking around some more and later on saw her walking and she looked at me and smiled again, following me with her eyes, repeatedly glancing back.  Her look was not one that I often see of the people here; it was much more warm than the usual bewildered look I get.  The bewildered look is interesting; it is a look that many people here seem to have when the thought first crosses their mind that there are actually people in the world that are not Chinese.

Anyway, since I saw her I knew I was going to go back and try to see if the moments we had were truly a case of friend at first sight??  I'll let you know...AFTER THE JUMP!

new apartment

Things have settled down a bit as we have been able to rent a room from an American couple and quit living out of hotels.  The internet everywhere we have been has been sketchy and I've been unable to log on a VPN and thus, access this blog.  Tons of great interactions and miscommunications have taken place...take place on a daily basis.  I can't spend much on here now because we have to research for a trip we are going to take to Yellow Mountain.

One badass thing about our new place is that it happens to be...on the top floor and thus...we can get on the roof!!  Check it out!

Just chilling on the roof of our new place...no big deal!

More photos and embarrassing stories soon...