Just Sick

I’m ending my last week of work with a bang - or rather, with a cold. Which seems extremely appropriate. I have been working at the preschool for six months (hmm, seems like longer). For the first three months I got sick about every other week, and for the second three months about every three weeks. So that’s at least ten times in the last six months. Mostly it has just been colds, plus one bout of Bronchitis and a probable sinus infection. The problem is, I start to get well and then I go back and get inundated with all those germs all over again.

Tomorrow is my last day of work! Whether I am sad or happy about that depends on whether a kid is being cute or having a horrible tantrum. Mostly I am happy. I will miss having kids around, since there won’t be any on our new team, but I’ve experienced quite enough dirty diapers for the time being. And now that I won’t be around constant runny noses, hopefully I can be healthier for a while. At least until I head to China and overwhelm my body with a whole new set of germs (plus pollution). As one of my friends once so kindly told me, regarding my frequent sicknesses, “If this were a hundred years ago, you probably would have died young.” Comforting, but perhaps true. Good thing we live in the age of Airborne.

In answer to your questions

One of the most common questions Kevin and I have received over the past few weeks is, "Where are you going to be in China?" And we answer, with as much detail as possible, "I don't know." Guess what? With three and a half months left to departure now we do know! So let's try that again.
You: "Where are you going to be in China?"
Me: "Weinan!"
You: "Hey, that's great!...But, uh, that means nothing to me, you know."
Me: "Excellent. Now I can tell you something you don't know and thereby sound smart and informed."

Weinan is located in central China in Shaanxi province (not to be confused with Shanxi province next door). It is 39 miles from Xian, which is where the Terracotta Soldiers are. Weinan itself is a pretty small city, something around 300,000. The area is mountainous with a famous mountain (Huashan) nearby.


I am happy about this location because:
1. It is north of the heat line! North of the Yangtze River, the buildings are actually heated during the winter! I might be able to teach without gloves.
2. It is not too far north. It looks like the climate is pretty agreeable, not too much colder than Yangzhou, though probably a good deal drier. It is still a good deal south of Beijing.
3. It is a small city, which is what we requested. I like to visit places like Beijing but it makes me feel a little claustrophobic.
4. Xian is only about an hour away and has an international airport! It also has several western places, so hopefully we'll be able to find some things there we can't get in our city.
5. There are mountains nearby.
6. The Hanings, my former teammates, will be in a city close by during the fall.

Speaking of teammates, Kevin and I will have two teammates this fall - a single girl, Christina, and single guy, Wes. They have both been around in China for at least several years. We don't know them yet, but they look familiar. We'll be finding out more about them in the upcoming months and much, much more during this next year.

I have included three images for your benefit.
1.The first is presumably a panorama of the valley area of Weinan. I say presumably because I found these things on the internet and everyone says you can't believe everything you find. I've never actually been to Weinan so for all I know, it could be a picture of Mississippi.
2. The second is a map of China with Shaanxi province in red. I took the liberty of marking the approximate locations of Weinan (where I will be), Yangzhou (where I was) and Beijing (where everyone knows about).
3. The third is presumably a photo of Huashan. This is doesn't look much like Mississippi, so I think it's the real thing.

*All of my information comes from what I could glean from scant references on (that's right) the internet. No doubt when I get to Weinan half of my information will be proven false. Hopefully we'll be finding out some more pertinent details soon. I just hope the part about the heat is true...

Distantly close

I think I miss my family more in America than in China. For one thing, China is a whole different country on the other side of the world, so it makes sense for it to be far away. While California is quite different from Georgia in many ways, it is not oh-so-foreign. (Although I must say, many people are a little afraid of the South. They think they'll stumble across a lynching or something.) They even have a few Chick-fil-a's out here. So now that I share the same country as my family and we are even on roughly the same day/night schedule, it seems like they should be closer.

Another thing is, I am around a lot of people with family. In China, most people don't have family nearby. English teacher friends have family on the other side of the world. Even students are separated from their family for the first time and feeling it much more than me. But here it seems like lots of people have all kinds of family around. All those born and bred Californians. A number of the people I work with are even born-and-bred Pasadenans. I wonder what that would be like - to live all your life in one place? It sounds confining.

Some people even live in the same place as their friends, which I think is a pretty cool idea. Difficult to accomplish, though, since it seems like people move all the time. My friends can't even settle on the state or country to stay in (I'm one to talk, huh?).
Even if I stayed in one place though, it wouldn't really help. Usually my family is spread out across three or four states and/or various countries in the world. I rarely have more than one or two friends living in the same state. They are also spread across a dozen states and/or various countries, plus the whole of China.

I admit that I have seen more of family and friends this year. Getting married is apparently a good way to accomplish that. I have seen all of my close friends once or twice this year. I have seen all of my family twice this year. So this is definitely a step up from the normal summer-back-from-China. The extra 10 months have helped.

So, thank goodness for cell phones and email and skype and blogs and facebook and increasingly expensive air travel. Face-to-face is apparently out of date.