迷失的老美

Yes, another update! And it hasn’t even been a month!

I left of with some personal issues that needed to be resolved.  The US Embassy gave me a really hard time over photos for the new passport and thanks to their assholery it took 3 months to get a new one, not the 7-10 days they originally promised.  This matters because I had to skip some class to go there.  I ended up skipping a final last semester that had a date change I was not aware of and when the paperwork caught up, they tried to drop me.  I apologized a lot and have committed myself to being the best student they have.  I offered to take no credit at all if they just let me go to class.  Today, they decided to give me another chance, with credit.  I will not let them regret that decision.  Lesson learned, the Embassy is less efficient and understanding that the infamous Chinese bureaucracy.  So, now I have my passport, at long last.  Final application went through on the 9th, and today on the 27th it was finally ready.  They claimed it was  ready last monday, but it wasn’t, they apparently can’t read names on new passports.

This weekend, Sophie has been working as an interpreter for a company managing the Valentino line here in Beijing.  It has been eating all her days, usually late into the night and I was being an asshole about it.  I fully and freely admit I was being an asshole.  I was worried about her safety, I was worried about everything.  Worried most about a fight that might come from me bringing it up.  I finally let it out because I had to, because I’m honest to her like that.  It turns out that the boss runs an IT company too and she wants to be able to introduce me.  She also really loves this kind of work and sees a future in it for herself.  A good, high-paying job, with great perks, that she likes! So rare in the world to get something like that.  God, I was an asshole.

Flavius, my first santee from SA when I was in Japan came to Beijing yesterday, with his girlfriend, WITH COOKIES FROM PORTUGAL!  Sophie was going to work late, but try to make it for dinner or something after dinner.  Imagine my shock when she was done before 4!  I took them to eat at a Thai restaurant for lunch, then we went shopping.  爆花 met us at 国美 to find a phone for him, but in the end he decided against it.  Then we took them for some fun over at 秀水街.  I taught them how to bargain there, which is an artform by itself.  The sellers were rude to Sophie and tried to ignore her.  That pissed me off and I got agressive in the bargaining.  I have dad to thank for this legacy.  Nothing like making them cry and swear at me for getting prices lower than they give to Chinese.  Have I mentioned how much I love this place? How much I love life here? How much I love Sophie?  If I have before, it was not enough.  I have been wanting to show Sophie some of my real friends, friends who I respect, friends who I trust.  It is so rare that I can do that here, and after meeting so many of her friends, I have felt in great debt in that department.  Yesterday was great.  I am really glad that she was able to meet him.  I took her out to TGI Friday’s again for dinner

Weird stuff: Mom actually wrote that letter in Chinese and enjoyed doing it… that’s scary.  But not as scary as Mer getting interested, getting a job in a Chinese restaurant, and wanting a Chinese dress for Prom.  Oh Sophie, your dream might be coming true sooner rather than later.

Note to Mer: If you get into the calligraphy at all, you are eventually going to want to know what it is you are writing.  How fortunate that ISU has a Chinese department

If that guy bothers you, feel free to give me a name and a number to call, I will chew him out for you.

我真是个坏蛋。我妈想 寄Sophie的妈一封信。她写好了，就问我给她翻译。Sophie版真好，我的真奇怪。但现在我让她自己写汉语版。哈哈哈 加油！

现在我想睡 ，但这层的鬼子这么吵！睡不了了 5555

bBlog is a piece of shit, sorry, but it is. Wordpress now.

Ok, so…. loooong story. Well, everyone back home knew about us, but it didn’t go as bad as we thought it would. In fact, it went over great. I love 礼州 and I can’t wait to go back and see everyone again, I really felt like family. But I am getting ahead of myself it looks like. First we stopped in 成都 for a few days to see JJ and all of Sophie’s good friends from 四川师范大学. It was really great, hard to describe really, but it was great. Lots of pictures of all that too. On our very first night, Sophie lost her backpack in the taxi. I managed to slowly replace everything in it that I could. I think she appreciated it.

What else… ah yes, food. I finally learned about good food in 成都. God, the food….

We eventually ran out of time in Chengdu and it was time to go home to 西昌. We got stuck in 硬座 instead of 硬卧 and it was going to be annoying. I ran off and tried to get us upgraded when the train left the station, but it was to no avail. Then, for some odd reason, the cop on the train followed me and took us aside. In his opinion, the Yi People 彝族 were not to be trusted and there were too many in our car. His actual language was worse, but we will leave it at that. We got upgraded to 硬卧 with no hassle at all. 偶真是百人啊。

到了西昌太早让家人来车站，所以我大车了。偶不晓得了礼州那么远，但没事，我说过“我要请你回家”，所以我就请她回家了！

到了家。。。偶们两都这么紧张，开门了。第一次见爸，但我觉得他像看年轻。。。不可能是她爸。他没杀死我。

We did a lot of things over the next few days, all in preparation for the start of the holiday itself. Buying things, making things, seeing people, hanging things, tearing things down, etc. And then it got busier…

Grandma is cool, Jiugong is cool too, in fact, everyone on her dad’s side is incredibly cool and the more time I spent with them, the more I considered them family. It’s been a month now since we got back, and I still miss them dearly.

Valentines Day

This was my first Valentine’s Day that I have ever cared about. I did my best to make it perfect for the girl I love. The best chocolate I could find, a massive bouquet of flowers, and I even let myself get ripped off for a nice vase. Money is a tool, if it makes her happy, it is worth it.
社会语言学论文… A reason we went to 成都 was to pick up survey results for Sophie’s paper on complement responses. It turned out to be a disaster. The students didn’t take it seriously and it was basically useless data. In the end, I helped guide Sophie into doing real fieldwork and helped gather some American data once we decided that gender aspects were going to suck. The paper magically got done, I will say no more
I honestly wish that I had had the patience to update this more during the festivities, but I didn’t find the time to do it. There is just too much to write about now. Fireworks, food, life in Lizhou, getting sick, cousins, pigs in the bathroom, slaughtering chickens, eating pig brains, dragon dances…. it just goes on and on.

I’m just going to sum it up this way. It was the best experience of my entire life, and I love you Sophie for letting me be a part of it.

So, what’s been going on back here in BJ.

The food sucks, and the air is dusty and dry. It was always like this, but it seems worse to me now. Food prices are also incredibly overpriced, especially considering how bad the food is. The street food is boring too. Classes are better this semester and now I got in touch with Dr. David Cahill, who is being very cool by letting me audit one of his courses. A real class! That requires actual thought! I feel so much better already.

Ok, what else… oh yea, we are coming up on 6 months now. Hard to believe that it’s been 6 months so soon. I think back to all the time we have shared together and it seems to have flown by in a blur. A good blur though

We are planning on going up to 怀柔 and staying at 黄花成 next weekend to celebrate. It is an old section of Great Wall that has some unique things about it. It shouldn’t cost too much and it should be a great way to mark our half year together so far

Other sutff…. We got bikes finally. She got sick, then I got sick, then she got better, then I got better, but she got sick again. We are also looking into joining a gym. We are both seriously looking for more work so we can be more independent. I made my first apple pie in China for Sophie, and we made the best pizza ever by working together on it. Loan headaches came back, this is fun stuff. Passport actually found it’s way back to me, but I need the new one anyways, it also looks like I’m going to be having fun with my official visa status due to the inability to do anything while on break… the school should be able to help me sort it all out though.

I promise to take better care of this blog, take better care of my health, and to always take good care of 小猪一号