Between lives
I haven’t been blogging a lot since coming back, mainly because I feel like I’m in a daze.
It’s strange being back in the United States, though not nearly as strange as I was expecting. I haven’t really experienced any sort of reverse culture shock, which I attribute to the fact that I’ve gone out relatively little since coming back, and I’ve interacted with very few people other than B and some of my closest friends. Other than the whirlwind weekend in DC, during which we found an apartment and I interviewed for the job that I now have (yay for employment!), my life has been eerily quiet and still.
Beneath all this stillness, I’m wicked excited to move. I got a very good impression of DC and the town we’ll be living in during that whirlwind weekend, and since B got accepted into law school there, everyone’s been raving about what a great place DC is. However, if I had been continuing to work for my alma mater these last few months, living in the area that has been more “home” for me than anyplace I’d lived previously, I would probably not be nearly so enthusiastic. It helps that right now I’m kind of in between lives, done with my China life and close to starting my DC life. Despite my love for it, right now Western Mass is so temporary, and while I’m sure I’ll always miss it, I don’t currently feel connected enough to it to dampen my excitement for moving.
It’s also crazy to think that I’m going to start teaching Chinese in just over a month. I’ve been working for this for many years, and now that it’s almost here, I’m a little bit dumb-struck.
Anyway, just some recent thoughts.
Shedding Layers
This is the best analogy I can think of to describe my feelings of these past two weeks or so. I feel like I’m taking all the pieces that make up my life, shedding them off, and giving them away.
I certainly don’t mean to intend that I’m “shedding” the people in my life — I certainly don’t want to do that! It’s the every day routines and responsibilities that I have been leaving, one by one. The realization a month ago that I wouldn’t get as much knitting done as I’d hoped to get done before leaving. The last time I went to the English student’s house to tutor her. The last invoice I processed a payment for at work. Cleaning out my personal items from my desk and then looking at it, still set up with office supplies but empty of the plants and other items that made it my little home away from home. Seeing my colleagues for the last time before I leave. Seeing my college for the last time before I leave, knowing that when I come back, I will not have the connection to it that I have maintained since walking onto its campus five and a half years ago.
Today, a few friends came over to make Chinese dumplings, a dinner party get-together that happens probably at least once every 1-2 months. I said something, probably about the food, that was like, “Maybe next time I’ll …” B gave me a funny look and said, “Next time?” I realized that if there was going to be a next time with this group of friends, it would be six months from now, and after that, who knows. And when they left, there was this silence, this emptiness, partially because they are good friends and I don’t like goodbyes, and partially because I felt it was also a goodbye to everything in my current life — and I gotta say, I like my life and most things in it.
I look forward to going to China, but more than that, I look forward to a new routine, another “every day” life to hold on to. Right now I’m stuck in the land of in-between.
Travel Blog for China
Here’s some info about the blog situation for me right now: I have a few blogs under this alias (amazingly enough, Little Swallow isn’t my real name!), primarily to keep this information private from future net-savvy high school students and also any employers that would be biased against my spiritual and/or political beliefs. Specifically, they include this blog (my personal/misc blog), my Tarot blog (Counsel of Cards), and my blog on spirituality (The Swallow Alights). When I start teaching, I may also be making a teaching blog, but we’ll see.
In addition, I have set up a travel blog under my real name. This is for two reasons: so that family can see what I’m up to without seeing the rest of my personal blog (because let’s face it, sometimes I will not always be saying glowing things about certain family members), and so I can utilize this information for future students. Once I go to China, I plan to still update this blog with more personal things that go on or misc commentary on whatever (as I do now), and I will update my travel blog once or twice a week with a more public-friendly entry about my experiences and travels. Most if not all of my photos from China will go there. I don’t expect a significant drop of entries on this blog, but it’s possible.
Hope this isn’t confusing. Anyway, if you’d like a link to my China travel blog and you don’t already have it, reply to this post or email me, and I’ll email you the link.
2009 Predictions
I don’t normally write about Tarot in this blog, but I thought I’d share: I pulled a Tarot card for 2009, which was the 8 of Wands/Staves. An excerpt from my favorite Tarot website:
Before acting, we think, imagine, speculate, talk and dream. This is the realm of air – the sky. Then, finally, we decide to make our move. We bring our ideas down to earth and put them into action.
In readings, the Eight of Wands is often a sign that now is the time to declare yourself. All the elements are ready and will work for you as long as you don’t hesitate. The iron is hot – so strike! If events are in motion, they will proceed rapidly. You may feel caught in a whirlwind, but soon the dust will settle, and you see how your plans have fared.
I found this quite suitable, as I’ve been planning to go to China to teach English for a few years, and now suddenly it’s only a month away.
According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the new year hasn’t come yet: Chinese New Year is on January 26 this year, and will be the Year of the Ox. For those interested, I found this Chinese astrology horoscope online, which goes over the Year of the Ox for the whole world and also for individual signs. I’m a Tiger, so here are some of the notable excerpts for me:
The Good:
You will be very popular this year and might be able to use this time to participate in more people oriented activities to enjoy and reap the benefits. Greater authority or responsibilities will be given to you this year, and this will be an opportune time to prove yourself. …
The Bad:
However, do not get carried away as the challenges this year will be sudden and harsh. …
Be careful not to allow yourself to be duped. This year, males will have better luck than females. For females, your luck will improve if you work together with males or seek help from males. …
Your wealth luck will not be good. …
You might also be prone of being robbed this year so avoid flaunting your wealth unnecessarily. …
If you are attached, there will be a stronger possibility that you will move on to the next phase of your relationship such as getting married. …
You should not take all the wining, dining and friendly smiles at face value as some people will have ulterior motives. …
Hrm, seems to be more bad than good, but from glancing at a few other signs, it seems that everyone’s in for a tough year. Maybe that’s normal for Chinese astrology? Their films and literature sure love tragedy, so why not astrology?
23-hour layover?!
I’m such a dope. I accidentally booked a mid-morning flight on a Sunday from the local airport to Chicago, and a mid-morning flight on a Monday from Chicago to Shanghai. Yes, that means a 23.5 hour layover. D’oh! Fortunately a call to United fixed that, and they were nice enough to skip the service charge, but just in case you all didn’t realize it was possible to easily book yourself a 23.5 hour layover through those online booking systems — it’s possible!
Yeah, that would have been the perfect prelude to the 15-hour flight from Chicago to Shanghai. Sheesh. At least it’s direct. Then from Shanghai, a night train to the city I’m teaching in.
Plane ticket: ordered
Wow, hitting “submit” to order my flights for going to China was really nerve-racking. Sure, I’ve been planning this for a while, but now it feels final. I leave February 1. Done.
It was also weird because ordering the flights also had the conversation of B and I deciding if he would take me to the airport Sunday morning or Monday morning. Subtext: after taking me to the airport, would he prefer coming home to an empty apartment with signs of my departure everywhere, or would he rather go straight to work to deal with a job he hates and emotions of his girlfriend leaving. That was a depressing thought, especially knowing that that day, and this next semester, will be a lot harder for him than for me. At least I’m escaping my crappy job and I’ll be pretty busy with work and networking/socializing in China.
I’ve cried once so far about leaving B and the U.S. I expect it is the first of a good few crying occassions. Not only am I sad about being apart from B, but as he puts it, I don’t handle instability in my life very well.
Chinese Movies — in China!
While many (including a good friend) are in full-swing Oscar buzz mode, I’m eyeing a different set of movies: Chinese ones!
Now of course, I’m always up for a decent Chinese movie because movies are such great practice for learning languages, but generally I find myself left unsatisfied from most Chinese movies. Oh, there are some excellent ones, and I don’t mean Zhang Yimou martial arts epics (think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — which is, unsurprisingly, an entire genre in China, and a large and popular one at that. There’s Kekexili,
But now that I’ll be going to China, I don’t have to wait until some American DVD company decides to have a U.S. release of a movie, or more importantly for my current financial situation, for Netflix to decide it’s worthwhile adding to their collection. Now I’ll get to go out and see Chinese movies, no subtitles, in real Chinese theaters as they release! This may seem like small cookies to others, but I love going out to the movies in most ways except for the price — and even that problem is solved! (I’ll be making the income of mid- to upper-middle class living by Chinese standards.)
Here are just a few of the movies coming out soon that Chinese audiences are looking forward to (the website is in English, with movie posters and trailers, some of which have English subtitles).
A quick update about me going to China: since I’m still waiting for my work permit and thus can’t yet order plane tickets and apply for a work visa yet, I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be leaving for China, but chances are pretty good that in two months I’ll have left the U.S. Crazy!
Teaching in China This Spring
There was an opening at the university I wanted to teach at in China for the spring. While not totally unheard of to find university English teaching positions for a semester, they typically do not offer airfare reimbursement and a travel stipend bonus like the full year positions. This one did, which this year might not be out of the norm; due to the Olympics, visa regulations were tighter, and consequently the university I’m going to has had no native English speaker this academic year.
So, I decided to sign up. (I think “sign up” is a better word for it than “apply”; they need someone and I don’t think they’ve had other people inquire about the position, it’s not a famous university in a city that doesn’t attract foreigners, I’m an excellent candidate with excellent references from within their university and coming from a college they have a longstanding study abroad/exchange relationship with, etc.) I’m going to start teaching mid-February, and I plan to continue teaching in China, if not at this university, for the 2009/10 academic year as well (because three semesters is a happy medium from one year being a little too short and two years just seeming too long).
I’m very excited about it, not only that I’m going to China, but also that I’m going to the one place in China that’s familiar to me. That may seem unadventurous, but I like the familiar, and it takes me a while to warm up to new places and new people; I want to make the most out of a relatively short time in China, and I want to have a familiar home-base from which to travel to lots of other areas. Also, with how much is possible with personal connections in China (or more importantly, how much is extremely difficult without them), I think I’ll have more opportunities in a place where I know people. I don’t want to take advantage of the system with my guanxi/connections (which is generally more acceptable in China, but can be also be seen as trying to subvert the proper order of things, and is something that I don’t want to abuse); however, there’s a lot to be said for little things like:
- someone helping me find a store to buy x
- a dinner at someone’s house meeting their family and seeing another modern Chinese household
- help figuring out the best way to travel to x
- having a friend to accompany me to a local event, movie, market, travel excursion, etc
- getting more insider information about culture (especially cultural faux pas that I hope people aren’t too polite to not tell me about)
- possibly continued erhu (Chinese violin lessons) that I had with a professor last time I was there
Not to say that all this couldn’t be done elsewhere … but it will be easier in a place where I know people, and it will be easier sooner. For me, this trumps the adventurous side of adapting to a new place.
Also, I like not being surrounded by other American laowai (foreigners), not only to force me to hang out with Chinese people (and not only for the Chinese language practice), but also because a lot of Americans annoy the hell out of me.
I should also state that, for the record, I am SO ready to be a teacher and not a secretary.
