Contentment

Do you ever feel like a lucky person? I don't think about it (luck) that often because who knows when the tides will change, but tonight I felt especially happy. My husband and I were sitting on the couch with only the lights of our little Christmas tree to illuminate the room. There was nothing distracting us; we were simply listening to Christmas music. I warned him that there was a good possibility that I might cry on Christmas morning. Not necessarily tears of sadness, but tears nonetheless. I can feel them coming on. I just get overwhelmed sometimes that I have had the opportunity to make the choices that I have made. I know that is an awkward sentence, but I can't really express it in any other way. I am so thankful for having the change to even choose to live my life the way I am. Sometimes it feels like a dream--even when some aspects of that dream go terribly wrong--I still feel so lucky to be where I am, doing what I am doing. So many things could have happened that would have made it so that living abroad wasn't even an option, but they didn't occur. And here I am. With my best friend. Making new friends. Learning a new language. Experiencing a new culture. Eating amazing food. Seeing amazing sights. Teaching some amazing kids. Some people just get lucky in life.

I hope I can share that with others.

I do wish I could wake up on Christmas morning and sit with my family in front of our Christmas tree, though. If things work out, maybe next year I will be able to come home for the holidays. That might be too lucky . . .

Speaking Chinese Makes Me Giggle

Honestly, I don't know what the deal is, but whenever I successfully speak Chinese, I want to laugh. I am not sure if there is some sort of psychological phenomenon behind this occurrence, but whatever it is, it is really funny.

We were on the way home today, and the driver asked if he should turn here to get onto Baise. I went with a dui, which means correct. Not enough to make me laugh. Denis and I both knew what was coming next. The driver starts pumping his brakes, not sure where to stop. If you make the further motion that we usually make at home, the driver stops all together, and getting him to move again is quite a tast. So we have learned not to do that. I haven't figured out how to say "go straight for two lights and then turn left right after the second," but today, I did come up with an alternative, compliments of HuaBing, our new tutor. I said, "jiu bai ba shi jiu." (our street number)

The confused look on his face was instantly replaced with a wo zhi dao (I understand) look. This is when the first giggle escaped. The second one came after I added a hao to my number (hao is the measure word for number, so he understood what I meant without it, but it was more correct grammatically with it). After I said the hao he smiled, and then I laughed, and then he laughed. And it was good : )

Some of the cab drivers are really snarlly and dour, but a lot of them are really happy-go-lucky and sort of goofy. This guy was a happy one, and they always make me a lot happier, especially after a good day, and today was a good China day. As I was getting out of the cab, I wanted to day hao wanshang, but I wasn't sure if that was appropriate as a departing phrase or if it was only used for a greeting. So I just went with a well-toned zai jian and it was enough to make him smile again and wave as he drove off.

Time to grade the papers.

Thanksgiving . . . China Style

One morning while we were running, Stephanie and I had a little conversation that went something like this (vaguely):

Nicole: . . . . (eyes practically closed . . . or I might have been bitching about something related to school : )
Stephanie: I want to have Thanksgiving
Nicole: Yeah, Denis and I were thinking about one of those big banquets . . .
Stephanie: No, a home cooked one.
Nicole: (speechless)
Stephanie: I use the home ec room to cook the turkey and other Thanksgiving-ish stuff
Nicole: Umm, well, maybe . . . (All I wanted was my buffet . . . I don't like cooking meat at all, never mind in a Chinese home ec room)
Stephanie: We would be able to use the room on Friday, November 21st from 4:00 to 6:00
Nicole: Sure, let's do it (as long as I can still have my buffet on the real Thanksgiving.

What I didn't know was that her crazy idea was really going to work out. Honestly, I thought it was going to flop, but I felt bad not helping out, and I figured worst comes to worst, it would be a pretty silly experience.

The night before we made a Carrefour run and stocked up on all sorts of American/Chinese hybrid Thanksgiving food . . . like chicken, Kraft mac and cheese, green beans China style, and other fun stuff.

After the hell that we call faculty meetings, we all headed home to start the preparations. "We" ended up being like 30 or more people. At first from the emails, it seemed like it was going to be 10 maybe 15 people, but on the day of people just kept showing up. And for the most part they really stepped up with the cooking. Only one slacker showed up with absolutely nothing (except a supremely lame excuse) and ate a huge plate of food. We ended up with an amazing spread that included some of the best chicken I have ever had in my life, amazing sweet potatoes with marshmallows, roasted potatoes, mac and cheese, sauteed green beans, fried rice, apple sauce, pasta, deviled eggs, salad, bread, KFC, cranberry sauce, brownies, pumpkin squares, and so much more. It was an amazing meal, not just an amazing meal for being in China. And, as you can see from the pictures, it was a pretty regular Thanksgiving with people, with a plate of food balanced on their laps, sitting on every available surface engaging in some great conversation.

I couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving without my real family : )

These were the green beans that I slaved over . . . washing and snapping : )

This is the Chinese home-ec teacher who stole my geen beans and cooked them himself (really, I was smashing garlic, and when I turned around to put it into the wok it was gone . . . he did a great job though : )

Holly won the ambition prize with her lemon and wine chicken--it was SO good

Since we had nothing to cook, we took pictures . . . Stephanie and me

Stephanie and her husband, James
SHSID Cooking Crew

The food tables, before they were overloaded with goodness

Me and Rebecca

We love food out of the office as much as we do in the office

SO good : )Looks like a legit Thanksgiving, right?Feeding timeAfter I devoured half my food . . .
Brian . . . he knows what will happen when he turns 25Surrogate Family
George, our warden (he is really nice)Devon, Jessica, MeSome people were traditionalists (depending on how you look at it) and brought chop sticksDenis with our ghetto presentation . . . it was all in the tasteDenis, Dan, Adam, Brian, Brian, Jon

Kaiya, Jessica, me, Rebecca, StephanieOffice ShotsPracticing our China Style

Happy Thanksgiving, from China

Shanghai Art Museum . . . So Good!

Well, this actually happened a while ago, but as usual, I didn't post on it in any sort of timely fashion . . . here it is now:

About month before we actually made it to the Biennial at the Shanghai Art Museum, we tried going . . . and ended up at the Shanghai Museum, nice, but really, when you have the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and you spent three weeks traveling through Japan and going to way too many museums (well, really not way too many, but you know how you can start to get museum-wary . . . you really want to go and get a lot out of it, but your legs and back have no interest) not the perfect destination. We had a good time, but we were disappointed that we missed our location goal.

It worked out for the best though because the next attempt enabled us to get to see the exhibit in a much better environment.