I see the light!

Only 25 research papers left to grade. I have nearly made it through!

This is the first week since the semester started that I've found myself with a little time to relax. I can't tell you good it feels. Yesterday afternoon I left campus around 2:00. That's 2:00 in the afternoon, people! Before the sun had gone down! That hasn't happened . . . well . . . all semester.

I probably should have gone home and graded the remaining 25 papers, or put in some time on this translation project that I've recently been given the opportunity to work on (more on that later), but I just couldn't do it. I was feeling so good and giddy about shuffling home through mounds of fallen leaves in the middle of the afternoon that I decided to treat myself to some new fall pajamas at Target. (Nick and Nora's pajama line, I love you!) I must admit, I picked up a few other desirable, if not necessary, items while I was there. I never have time to go to Target, so it was kind of like a little mini-vacay on a Wednesday afternoon.

Now it's Thursday morning, rainy and dark, and it's time to get back to work. But by the time this weekend is over, I should be completely finished with all my teaching/grading/grade entering duties. I can feel my shoulders slowly easing back down to normal, not-tensed-up-to-my-ears, shoulder level already.

Drowning

I am up to my eyeballs in stuff to be graded. At the beginning of the semester, it seemed like a good idea to have my students turn in a paper and a midterm right before Fall Break, because I would then have the extra time over the break to get everything graded, so when classes started up again, I would be free to do all the other things I've been putting off all semester.

Then the flu came along and ruined all my perfectly crafted plans. I didn't touch a single bit of grading until the Sunday night of Fall Break. And up until today, I haven't felt well enough to spend any significant amount of time on grading at all. Add to that the fact that I never finished grading a set of papers my students had turned in a week and a half before they turned in their final papers and midterms, and I am officially drowning in stuff to be graded.

Ugh. I'm sitting in the library, looking at these stacks and stacks of papers and tests, and dreading reading all their malformed sentences and poorly based ideas. Not that my students don't sometimes have great ideas and write really well. But sometimes they just don't. And that's disheartening. Especially when it happens over and over. And over.

It's a good think it's so dreary and wet outside today. There's no chance I'd get anything done if it were a beautiful, clear day.

Sounding the All's Well

I just realized that my last post may have been a bit disconcerting for those of you friends and family members we haven't talked to lately. No need to worry, though. All is well in the Billing-Cartwright household.

We (or rather, I) had a little bout of what we think was probably the H1N1 virus last week. It's been pretty prevalent on KU campus already this fall, and I've had a number of students missing classes because of it. It was only a matter of time before one of us got it. I didn't actually go to the health center to confirm that what I had was H1N1 because they have been incredibly overrun with patients this fall, and I knew the only thing they could tell me would be to stay home, drink fluids, rest, monitor my temperature, etc. But since my symptoms were pretty much what everyone has been reporting with this flu, we're pretty sure that's what I had.

Lucky for me (or maybe unlucky, depending on how you look at it) I got sick just as Fall Break was about to begin, so I didn't miss a lot of class, and had plenty of time to rest and get better. Thanks to hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and general caution on our parts, Ben has so far managed to avoid getting sick. Here's hoping that good luck holds out.

And now our few long days of sleeping in and watching movies over Fall Break are over, and we're back to work, whether we like it or not. That's okay, though. I'll take work over the flu any day.

Just a Thought

I'm not certain that grading papers immediately upon recovering from what was probably the swine flu is in either my students' or my own best interests.

Here's Hyllningsfest. Well, sort of.

Ben and I took the weekend off (well, we took Saturday off) to go to Svensk Hyllningsfest in Lindsborg, KS. It's become a kind of every-other-year tradition for us to get away for the weekend, and spend some time with our good friends Shannon and Alex at Shannon's parents' house. (Shout out to Paul and Linda for putting up with us every couple of years!)



This year we didn't spend too much time at Hyllningsfest stuff, though, because it was freaking cold. Way too cold to be hanging out at the outdoor arts and crafts tent, or eating fair food, or drinking beer behind the Stuga--all of our usual Hyllningsfest activities.





Instead, after watching a bit of the Hyllningsfest parade, we browsed in the Lindsborg library's used bookstore for awhile.

Then we drove to nearby Salina to enjoy a few of Cozy Inn's famous burgers: little tiny bun-wrapped packages of oniony, mustardy goodness.





We hit a few other little places (Goodwill, a record store) in Salina before heading back to Shannon's parents' house to nap. But since it started snowing while we were sleeping, we decided to nix our previous plans (see the Stuga, mentioned above) and instead go to the mall in Salina to shop and eat.



I have to say, there is a special place in my heart for the Salina mall. When I was growing up in Holyrood, when we said "the mall," what we meant was the Salina mall. It was one of my favorite places as a tween/early teen. This was the first time I had been back there in about 13 or 14 years, though. Which explains why I bothered to take pictures (or post pictures!) of a mall.





Oh, Claire's Boutique, you were my pre-teen years.

Ben and I have been super busy, so we had to cut our visit short. We drove down on Saturday morning, and left to come home super early Sunday morning. But we packed a ton of fun into our little visit.

and in news from nearly a month ago . . . .

I wrote this post long, long ago, the week of 9/20, I believe. But I never posted it because I was planning to add photos before posting. And then I never did. So this post just sat there. And sat there. And now I feel like I can't post anything else until I get this one up. So, in the interest of opening the way for future posts, here it is:

The past week has been a pretty crazy one. We are certainly hitting that time of the semester when all the deadlines converge upon one another at once. And of course, in the middle of all that, I got sick. Nothing too serious. On a scale of stubbed toe to swine flu, I'd rate it at right about miserable cold. But it was bad enough to make me miss a couple of days of class. Nothing like illness to add to the feeling of chaos.

Earlier in the week, before illness hit, we were both suffering from some achy muscles around here. Last Saturday, we went to Topeka to join Megan in running in the Race Against Breast Cancer 5K. The three of us had been planning to do the race for awhile, although I have to admit, I had a more idealized image in mind of my own preparation for it when the idea first arose. I certainly did not do any kind of training to get ready for that thing, and I felt the effects of it afterward.

Ben and I ended up signing up as walkers for the 5K, since neither of us has been spending a lot of time running lately. (Ben's actually been doing a really great job lately of getting up in the morning and working out on the stationary bikes at the rec center on campus, but for the past few weeks, my exercise routine hasn't consisted of much more than the 20 minute walk to and from campus every day. Oh, well--every little bit helps, eh?)

So anyway, Ben and I walked-jogged the 5k, and were surprised to find out that we could jog the better half of the route. We both finished at a better time than we thought we might.

Megs, on the other hand, has turned into some kind of speed racer! I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will think nothing of finishing a 5K in under 30 minutes, but when I think back to the Megan of three years ago, who flatly refused to jog no matter what, I can't help but be impressed with how fast she's able to run 5K now. Go, Megan, go!

After we ran the 5K, we spent a few hours helping Megan move into her new apartment. She's having a house-warming party next weekend, so I'll have to put up some shots of her new place. It's super cute, with hardwood floors and a little fenced yard where her dog, Noodles, can run around in the morning.

So, that was last weekend, and the week since has been a bit of a blur of paper grading, homework doing, and used kleenex tossing. Tonight, Ben is in Wichita reading some of his poetry, while I'm trying to make up for the stuff I didn't get done all last week. Sigh. Maybe he'll have some great pictures to share when he gets back.

Heeeeeere's Phil!

It's hard to believe that we haven't gotten around to introducing our newest member of the family online yet! We've certainly talked about him a lot, and we've taken tons of pictures, but we haven't put those pictures up anywhere for anyone to see. Time to remedy that situation.

As you may know, our cat, Jon Bon Jovi (Yes, it's a mouthful of a name--you can call him JBJ, or Jovi, for short), is a pretty social guy. He doesn't do so well when he has to be all alone for several hours at a time. And, unfortunately, when we're in school, Ben and I are away from the house for several hours at a time pretty much every day. We didn't want a sad kitty on our hands, so, around the time classes started three weeks ago, we decided it would probably be a pretty good idea to find JBJ a new little friend. We went down to the Lawrence Humane Society to see if the perfect little kitty friend was just waiting for us to adopt him and bring him home.

Turns out he was, and his name is Phil.

Phil is a pretty rascally little guy. He's only 9 months old, so he's still a kitten, really, and he is packed full of kitten energy. Luckily, he hasn't managed to completely irritate our Jovi, who is turning into a bit of an old man these days. (Sigh, aren't we all?) The two are the best of buds, almost inseparable, following one another around the house. In fact, our friend Rob commented last night that Phil was a little bit like Jovi's shadow.

Evenings are wrestle-mania time for these guys. It's pretty exciting stuff. And immediately following wrestle-mania is bathtime. That's mutual bathtime, where they take turns bathing each other. Then it's chase each other into and out of the box and/or laundry basket time.

Then it's wrap the kitty bodies around Ben's head time. That's the best time of all! At least it is if you're not a Ben trying to get work done.



Phil likes to chill next to the sliding doors that open out to the deck


Phil in his natural environment, with his favorite toy, a rolled up ball of paper


Jovi's so happy since Phil came to live with us

and then . . . four months later . . .

So, I am back to my blog. After a four month silence, that is.

In my defense, my absence isn't entirely due to me being lazy and/or neglectful of my dear ol' blog. My absence was, at least partly, due to the fact that China blocked all access to blogger sites during the last couple of months I was in Tianjin. And then Ben and I moved back to the U.S., and I was completely overwhelmed with getting myself re-settled, not to mention completely out of the habit of blogging. And then school started. And then, of course, chaos ensued.

So, my poor old blog just lay there and languished for about four months.

Lucky (?) for me, someone left a (fairly sarcastic) comment on one of my blog entries today, inspiring me to take another look at good ol' blog (and to erase that sarcastic comment--seriously, if you're going to be sarcastic at me, but you don't have the guts to sign your name to your sarcasm, then you are outta here).

I promise nothing along the lines of consistency here, but I think I can manage to leave a little update here and there. And so . . .

Life update: I am thoroughly entrenched in Early China at the moment. I am studying Classical Chinese and Early Imperial China in my classes right now. And I am teaching Confucianism and Daoism in my Eastern Civ classes right now. So for me, it is pretty much all Early China all the time.

Interesting? Perhaps.

Directly related to the area I am interested in researching? Not so much.

Time consuming? Oh, yes. Most definitely, yes.

it's picnic time . . . sort of

It hasn't all been work and study around here. In fact, we've had some enjoyable times around here lately. We spent last weekend in Beijing with some friends from Lawrence who have been living in Japan this year. (more on that later) And yesterday afternoon, we got together with some friends for a Let's Welcome Summer picnic.

Well sort of.

The weather has been completely summery all week long, sunny and humid, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 80's. But then, around 1:00 yesterday afternoon, just a couple hours before we planned to start our picnic, the temperatures just suddenly started dropping, the wind started blowing, and the rain clouds started gathering.

On the one hand, it was a real relief that the temperatures dropped. Ben and I have been putting off turning on the A/C because it uses so much electricity, and we don't want to have to go buy more electricity units before we leave in less than two months, but our apartment has just been sweltering for the past couple of days. That kind of muggy heat makes it hard to study, hard to eat, hard to sleep--basically hard to do anything. On the other hand, our picnicking plans were threatened by the stormy skies.

Threatened, but not ruined entirely. Instead of going out to picnic, we decided to have an indoor picnic, at our friends Miguel and Xiaoyin's house. Everyone brought a little something to contribute (we brought my new favorite cookies--peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip--yum!), and Miguel cooked up some hot chicken and cheese sandwiches to share. We munched, chatted, looked at photos, and watched Miguel teach our Chinese teacher to dance.

The great feast

Miguel teaches our teacher to dance like a Colombian



Ben and Lawrence eating the last cookie




Good times!




Who's the man? Inhye's the man.

you know you've been in China awhile when . . .

1.) You're walking down the street, and you see a guy with a giant serrated knife tied to a long pole, which he is using to trim tree branches, and while it may be kind of weird, it's not the strangest thing you've seen this week. Not by far.

2.) You think to yourself that Mr. Pizza (Pizza for Women)'s strange Harvest Gold Pizza isn't bad. Not bad at all. Kind of tasty, in fact. Pumpkin-stuffed crust and all. In fact, it may be even better than their regular potato pizza (yes, there are two kinds of potato pizza. The regular one has potato, ham, onion, corn, mushrooms, and cheese in the crust--kind of boring, don't you think?).

3.) You are so used to reading "Chinglish" translations, it takes you a minute to realize that "Naked Shrimp" pizza is a pretty funny thing.

please electricize

That's the message that comes up on my (purchased in Tianjin) electronic dictionary when the battery runs low: "Power Low: Please Electricize." Every time it happens, I get these images of Olivia Newton John in her little 1980's leotard, singing "Let's Get Physical." I guess in my mind, electricizing is something like aerobicizing. Ben, on the other hand, always starts humming the Electric Slide when I mention that it's time to "electricize" my dictionary.

Anyway, electricizing and exercising seem to be kind of a big deal around these parts. Especially exercise competitions. You may remember that last semester I participated in a "Sports Day" for foreign students. Well, we had another one of those just a couple weeks ago--the Spring semester version of the event. My camera was broken, so I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, but let me assure you: much running, jumping, ball-bouncing, three-legged racing, and tug-of-warring fun was had by all.



Ben has recently been informed that he, too, will be participating in a teacher/student Sports Day for his school. He has been assigned to a team, and today he was given his official Meijiang School Sports Day T-shirt. He was so proud of it, when I came in the door this afternoon he just stood and pointed to it. Not that I could have missed it, even without his finger guiding my eyes to the appropriate place. It is bright, BRIGHT caution-orange. You might say it is electric. I guess we can be sure that Ben won't get lost while he's wearing it. Not that he can really get lost in a crowd around here, anyway. We both kind of tend to stand out in these parts.

oh, and also . . .

just 80 days till we return to the States. Not that I'm counting or anything . . . .

bitter medicine

I don't think I even realized how long it had been since I last posted here until I got a little message from my mom-in-law (Hi, Nancy!) saying she missed my blog. I haven't been avoiding it on purpose. I think I've just been a little distracted lately, studying diligently for my class, and working my way through some issues in my head. Sometimes when you're in the midst of churning through such things, it's a little hard to write about them, or the other things going on around you.

I've definitely had some highs and lows over the past several weeks. It was a great achievement to test so well and get into a higher level class. I started the semester elated over that news. But I soon discovered that actually being in a class that is three levels higher than the class I started in last semester can be a really stressful, difficult, and time-consuming enterprise. I started the semester at the bottom of the class, and have been clamoring to move up ever since.

I am (I reluctantly admit) not very good at not being the best student in the class. I like being the one who gets it. I enjoy excelling. And unfortunately, in the past, when I haven't excelled at one thing or another, my impulse has been to cry, and then to quit. The truth is, I simply don't excel in this class, and I have spent a few afternoons crying over it. But I've also been working really hard at not allowing myself to quit. All of this is to say that the semester so far has been a big lesson in humility, and commitment, and personal improvement in general, and those kinds of lessons are like drinking Chinese medicine--they may be good for you in the long run, but they sure are bitter going down. And you have to take a lot of doses before it really starts to work.

That being said, I'm working on not allowing this class (and my position in it) to take up such a prominent place in my thoughts. That's good, because there are a lot of other things to appreciate around here, all of which have nothing to do with studying Chinese, or excelling at it. Like the beautiful warm weather (mid-70's!) we've had over the past two weeks. Or the fact that the entire city is full of blossoming trees right now, all of them spilling their little pink petals like snowflakes over the city streets. Or the cool, new cafe Ben and I have been frequenting, which is only a few blocks away from our home. Or the fact that the streets are beginning to fill up with people in the evenings again, thanks to the rise in temperature, and having people on the streets makes every day feel like a party, even when there's no occasion for it. There's a lot to enjoy around here. I'll try to keep you in the loop.



(Also: sorry there are no photos. My camera broke shortly after we returned from our big trip, and I haven't had it fixed, or bought a new one yet. Working on that . . . . )

taste test: "natural & cool" potato chips

Remember how I said in my last post (yesterday) that I would try to post once a week? Here I am, going above and beyond already :)

I first had the idea for this post the other day. Ben and I were in the little open market near our apartment, picking up some potatoes and Coke zero (which is becoming surprisingly common here), when we saw that the guy at the dry snacks stand in the market was carrying Lay's potato chips. Lay's are pretty common in supermarkets around here, but this was the first time we had seen them in our local neighborhood open market, so we decided to get some.

There was only one bag out on display. When we asked the snack guy for a second bag (they come mainly in little snack-sized bags--or at least what we consider snack-sized in the U.S.), he gave us one bag of regular Lay's, and one bag of . . . get this . . . blueberry flavored Lay's.

We quickly rejected the blueberry flavored bag in favor of something a bit more . . . um . . . familiar, but after we left the market, I got to thinking: Could those blueberry potato chips possibly be tasty? Maybe it could be a blog-worthy experience to test it out.

Turns out the blueberry flavored chips are part of Lay's "Natural & Cool" line of potato chips, although I can assure you there is very little that is "natural" about them. After surveying the available flavors in this line at the supermarket last night, I decided it was time for a taste test, so here goes:

Blueberry: These chips are, as I'm sure you can imagine, really terrible. Or at least to my very American potato chip palate they are. As soon as I opened the bag, I got a full, hearty whiff of blueberry, an aroma I associate with muffins, pancakes, smoothies, or pie--dense, hearty, calorie-rich sweet treats. I definitely do not associate that aroma with potato chips. The chips definitely taste of blueberry--or at least artificial blueberry flavoring. In fact, the flavor is so overpowering, it's kind of like eating a chunk of blueberry flavoring, if that kind if thing even exists. I usually like sweet and salty tastes together, but apparently that preference does not extend to salty potato and sweet bluebery. I'd give these a big double thumbs down.

Cucumber: I had really high hopes for these chips. I can see how cucumber flavor and salty potato chip could go together really well, the cool, freshness of the cucumber balancing the crispy chip. Maybe someone else might enjoy these, but I, unfortunately, did not. They just tasted so . . . um . . . well . . . cucumber-y. I mean, like really strong cucumber. Is cucumber a strong flavor? I don't think of it that way, but in these chips, it really, really is. If I want to eat something "natural and cool" that tastes so strongly of cucumber, I'll probably opt for a natural, cool cucumber. I couldn't stomach more than a couple of these.

Last, but not least, Cherry Tomato: These chips taste like ketchup, which might sound like a bad thing, but after the blueberry and cucumber experience, it was really a welcome flavor. I know that some of you out there (ahem, Jen K) really love ketchup, so this might be the chip for you. It was definitely the most palatable of the three, but I have to say, I'd pick BBQ flavor, or Sour Cream & Onion, or just plain Lay's any day of the week over ketchup-flavor. On the other hand, maybe I just haven't grown fully accustomed to it yet. As I've been typing this entry, I find myself going back to those cherry tomato chips. Like they are calling my name. Like...mmm...like I really could grow to like them. I'll have to finish the rest of the bag to find out.

I wish I could post a couple pictures of the chips, so you could see as well as read about them. I wish even more that I could post the pictures of Ben trying the blueberry and cucumber flavors (he was not pleased). Unfortunately, my camera is on the fritz right now--a situation I hope will soon be remedied.

Anyway, that's it for the "natural & cool" line. My advice: stick with the original. But don't give up hope on a new Lay's flavor sensation. Turns out Lay's has a line of international flavors here, too, including French Chicken and Italian Red Meat. I'll let you know when I round up the guts to give those a go.

apology

Sorry for my long absence from this blog. We are back to school in the Billing-Cartwright household, in the middle of our second week of classes for the semester. The whole back-to-the-grind thing has been keeping us hopping. I'm firmly entrenched in coursework, and Ben is keeping very busy between the classes he's teaching, and the progress he's making toward preparing for his comps. Unfortunately, all of this busy-ness hasn't left a lot of time for either blogging, or doing things worth blogging about.

In my last post, I wrote about my spring semester placement exam score. I was really happy to have done so well on the test, but my high score left me with a dilemma: what level of class should I actually enroll in? After much thought, perusal of textbooks, and discussion with my teacher from last semester, I finally decided to enroll in the Intermediate 2 class. That's three levels higher than the class I was in last semester, but two levels lower than the class I tested into. Right in the middle sounded just about right.

However, I'm finding that this level is more than challenging. In fact, I'm struggling to keep up on the work right now. We have one or two quizzes almost daily, and I have to work pretty hard to learn the new material for those quizzes and simultaneously make sense of the vocabulary I should have learned before entering this level. This all adds up to me spending 5 or more hours outside of class every day, just trying to study sufficiently and get my homework done. Between 4 hours of class every day and 5+ hours of study, there isn't a whole lot of time for doing much of anything else. Unfortunately, it also doesn't leave me with a lot of brain power to think of anything to write or say when a few moments of free time arise.

So, all of this is to say I may not be such a frequent poster on my blog this semester. I'll try to put something up once a week, but if I miss a week, don't worry. It doesn't necessarily mean any catastrophe has occurred--well, no catastrophe other than me being buried up to my neck in Chinese textbooks, anyway.

put me in my place

Our spring semester is about to begin. I'm sure that sounds strange to you students and teachers back home who are almost halfway done with your spring semester, just a couple weeks away from Spring Break. But for us the semester doesn't begin until March 2; I guess that's the tradeoff for having our fall semester stretch past New Year's Day.

This morning I had to go up to campus to take my semester placement test. Last semester I tested into (and completed) the Beginners-2 level of Chinese language classes at Nankai University. I could just go directly into Beginners-3 this semester if I wanted, but in our program we also have the option of taking a placement test to try get into a higher level class. I was hoping to skip right over Beginners-3 and get into Intermediate-1.

I had originally planned to spend a good chunk of my semester break studying and reviewing, in order to ensure that I could test into a higher level. Unfortunately, those plans were never really put into action. After spending the majority of the break traveling and recovering from traveling, my last minute plan was to cram for the last week of the break. Unfortunately I came down with the flu Ben has had, so I've spent the past few days doing little but lounge on the couch, nap and watch X-files.

With essentially no study/review under my belt, I felt pretty underprepared when I walked into the classroom this morning. Sitting in the test room, I convinced myself that, while I would give the test my best shot, I would be okay if I didn't test up a level.

Then I started taking the test, and was amazed to see how much I knew without having studied or reviewed. The answers just came to me, completely naturally, with little thought at all. Even when I came across words I didn't know, I felt like I could understand well enough from the context of the sentence to figure them out. I started to think that maybe--just maybe--I might be able to test two levels higher, into Intermediate-2 instead of Intermediate-1. I walked away from the test feeling pretty good, but a little anxious to find out if I had done as well as I felt I had done.

Well, my friend Lawrence called a little bit ago. He was standing in front of the test scoreboard outside our classroom building, and he wanted to know if I wanted him to look at my score while he was there. My heart skipped a beat, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to know or not, but I finally told him to tell me how I did.

He told me I didn't test into Intermediate 1 or 2. In fact, I not only skipped over Beginners-3, but also skipped Intermediate levels 1, 2, and 3, and tested directly into Advanced 1! I couldn't believe it! I tested four levels higher than I would have been at without testing!

I still haven't decided if I'm actually going to enter Advanced 1 on Monday. I'm not entirely convinced that my Chinese level is actually that advanced. I may just try it out for a couple of weeks, see if it's a good fit or not, and then go from there. Or I may chicken out and go into Intermediate-2. Either way, it's good to know that I really am learning, I'm really making progress in my language study--maybe even more than I know.

trip update: Dazu County

My last trip-related post was about our train-ride to Chongqing. Unfortunately, Chongqing itself was not one of the most pleasant stops in our month-long trip. So much so, in fact, that I'm not really going to post much about Chongqing. Actually the big highlight of Chongqing was the one day we left Chongqing proper to see the stone carvings of nearby Dazu County.

The stone and cave carvings of Dazu county are actually located in a number of spots all over the county, but we had the opportunity to visit only one of these spots. That one location was enough, though. The carvings are generally depictions of scenes and figures, influenced by Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist beliefs. They are incredibly intricate, and really impressive. Some of the carvings are quite large, like the reclining Buddha below. Others are broad scenes with hundreds of small figures, carved in incredible detail. It wasn't really something we had planned on seeing, but it ended up being one of the most impressive places we visited on our entire trip.

One of many Buddhas

Scenes of filial piety

Figures of the underworld

Me and the reclining Buddha

Ben's getting better!

I hope the last post, about Ben being sick, didn't worry anyone too much. The good news is: things are looking up. The meds are working! Eastern, Western, hot toddies, some, or all--makes no difference to us. We're just glad he's on the road to recovery. Thanks for all your well-wishes and prayers.

He's not 100% yet, but he's definitely on the mend. Hopefully he'll be all better by the time we both start classes again on Monday, March 2.

poor, sick Ben

Poor Ben has had a terrible cold ever since we were in Chengdu, complete with runny nose, hacking cough, sore throat--all the terrible stuff that comes with a cold. He has had an awful time trying to sleep at night because his cough and congestion (and the accompanying inability to breathe) wake him up. He just hasn't been getting better, and in fact today, he was feeling worse. And his sinuses were hurting. And he was pretty sure he had developed a sinus infection. Poor Ben.

So, we decided to go to a Chinese pharmacy, in the hopes that we might be able to get our hands on some amoxycillin (I guess you don't necessarily need a prescription for that stuff here). Ben is more than ready to get this nasty stuff knocked out of his body.

We walked into the pharmacy, and the first woman we saw asked what was wrong. I told her Ben had a cold, and she directed us to the appropriate counter. The woman there asked what Ben's symptoms were, and she started pulling out boxes of medicine for each of the symptoms. I explained to her that Ben had been sick a long while, hoping she would understand it was serious (I wasn't sure how to say sinus infection). Her response (which I actually had to call Sam to have him help me understand) was that she thought Ben had too much heat/fire in his body, and if you have too much heat for a long time, it will develop into a serious cold, but it wouldn't be unusual for it to last so long. She then pulled out some more boxes of Chinese medicine.

Meanwhile, Ben was standing, looking longingly at the boxes of antibiotics, muttering under his breath, "They have amoxycillin. I just want some amoxycillin." Poor Ben.

We ended up leaving without the amoxycillin, but with a whole bag full of various remedies, including effervescent vitamin C tablets, licorice lozenges, and some kind of pill that I was supposed to take too, because the pharmacist thought I probably had too much heat, too. We also had one box that the pharmacist identified as "Western medicine." What kind, we didn't know.

Ben's many boxes of pills

I just got done giving Ben his first dose of everything: 7 pills, an effervescent glass of vitamin C solution, and a sachet packet of medicine meant to reduce his "heat." Ben was feeling pretty unhappy about walking away without an antibiotic . . . until he did a little research and found out that the unidentified Western medicine was an antibiotic after all.

So, we've got the Chinese herbal medicine, and we've got the Western antibiotics, too. Hopefully something in that mass of medicines will do the trick, and Ben will be back to his old self soon.

trip in review: train to Chongqing

After we left lovely Guilin, we took a long train (21 hours, I think?) to Chongqing. Along the way we gained a new little friend.

This little guy is probably about 4 or 5 years old, and was riding with his dad in the sleeping berth next to ours. He was kind of scared of us at first--didn't even want to make eye contact, even though he couldn't stop watching us--but we eventually lured him in using Oreos and the opportunity to wrestle with Nathan, the supersized foreigner.

After I took a couple pictures of him, he became enamored of my camera, and asked to take a few shots of his own. Here are some of the things that caught his attention.

The guy sharing our sleeping berth who was not amused, not amused at all.

The bottom half of Nathan's face

The ceiling light in our berth

The patch on the knee of his jeans

Super-close-up of the book Ben was reading


His dad

He probably took a dozen other shots, but this last one was the one that brought about the end of his photo-snapping extravaganza.

Definitely made the 21-hour trip seem a little shorter.

springsick

I'm taking just a little break from blogging about our trip today to write a little bit about the current state of things (although I am still working on loading more photos (and writing more captions) on my picassa page, so keep checking in).

I am feeling a little disappointed to be back in Tianjin today. It may seem silly, but I think my disappointment is mostly weather-related. Most of the time we were in Guilin, Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi'an, we didn't need hats, gloves or scarves, and some of the days we didn't even need to wear coats. There were days in Chengdu and Guilin in particular when we could walk around with short sleeves, and no jackets even!

Spending so many days in that kind of beautiful weather, I kind of got my hopes up about returning to a warmer, springier Tianjin. I was looking forward to walking around our home city in a light jacket, feeling the spring breezes blow through my hair, and sensing the days getting warmer and warmer as we advanced deeper into spring.

Then we actually arrived in Tianjin, where the temperatures were (still!) at a blustery 28 degrees Fahrenheit. It snowed Tuesday night, a little bit yesterday, and some more early this morning. The temperatures haven't risen above freezing since we've been back, and we've barely left the house in the past couple of days, trying to stay where it's warm and dry.

The other night I was chatting with my sister, Megs, online. She said she had recently bought a spring-colored new purse, because she thought if she carried it, it might make spring come more quickly. I understand that feeling. I've been perusing spring clothing online (even though I can't buy it) and daydreaming about spending afternoons on warm patios with cold beers or hot coffees. In my head, spring is already supposed to be here, even if it is still mid-February.

But the reality outside of my head (confirmed by the reality outside my window) is that we are still firmly within winter's grasp. Here's hoping it will let go of us soon.

our local winter wonderland

more trip pictures!

I just wanted to post out the new little slideshow gadget on my site--right there on the top left side. Pretty cool, eh? You can see all the pictures I haven't posted on my blog, as well as the ones I have.

The only downside is that I can include only one album of pictures at a time on the slideshow. Since I've divided my photos into albums based on which city they were taken in, I actually have several albums worth of photos, so I can't make them all visible in the slideshow at once. That's actually probably a good thing. If you sat through all the photos I took in the last four weeks, you'd be sitting there for quite a while.

If you're interested in seeing more pictures from our entire trip, you can see them here, in my picasa.com account. I'm in the process of adding more (I took a TON of photos, so it's a long process), so please, check in later to see even more shots.

trip in review: Guilin

I can't speak for everyone, but my favorite city among the cities we visited was by far Guilin. We were there from January 28 to February 1. I already wrote a little bit about it here, but I'll just reiterate: Guilin was beautiful.

Besides climbing dozens of mountains and exploring their weird, rock-star light-show caves, we also got the opportunity to ride on a bamboo raft down the Li River. The weather was warm and springlike every day that we were there (except for the very first foggy day). It was amazing.

It's hard to describe just how nice it was there, so I'll let some pictures speak for themselves.





Kung-Fu Erin! Hi-YA!




View from bamboo raft




Me in front of Elephant Nose hill



Inside one of Guilin's caves

mmm...breakfast!

New Year's lanterns at Fubo mountain

On top of Fubo Mountain

Misty mountains behind Ben

In the underwater tunnel between Sun and Moon pagodas

Sun and Moon pagodas

trip in review: Wuzhen

So, I was looking back at the entries I've already posted about our trip, and I thought the best way to fill in the gaps would be to post an entry about each of the places we visited, along with some pictures. I already put up some pictures from Shanghai and Hangzhou, our first and second destinations (from 1/20-1/27). I'll just pick up from there.

Wuzhen wasn't really a destination of it's own, but still cool enough to warrant a blog entry. We took a day trip from Hangzhou to visit this little town. It's kind of hard to describe. Basically, it's built on a series of waterways, and has been restored to resemble a Qing-era village. But people just go on living and working right in the areas of the town that have been restored, so when you go to visit it, it's not like you're walking through a dead museum house of the Qing. Instead, you're walking right through the place where people live today, surrounded by artifacts and elements of a previous era.

Kind of strange.

But fascinating all the same. Also, there are demonstrations put on by the townspeople of a number of crafts, such as weaving, winemaking, and dyeing the blue and white cloth they have been making for centuries.

Ben in a Wuzhen alleyway

Wuzhen market




Play in the public square





River ferry




Ben and Wuzhen dyed fabric

We loved Wuzhen. And then we almost got stuck there. The day we went there was the first day of the Chinese New Year, and so some of the later buses were cancelled that day (I'm still not entirely sure why). We didn't know that the buses were cancelled in advance, so when we showed up to take the last bus back to Hangzhou (where all our stuff was, and where we needed to be in order to take a train away from there the next morning), we were told there was no bus for us.


Oh, man.


A moment of panic followed. And then two really nice girls from Guangzhou, who were planning to take the same bus, showed up like knights on gleaming white horses. Hearing that we, too, needed to get back to Hangzhou, they simply said to us, "Let's go to Hangzhou," and even though we had no idea how they intended to accomplish that, we followed them like puppies. They knew what they were doing. They instantly starting negotiating with a line of taxi drivers lined up outside the station. We all ended up hiring a guy in a van to drive us all the way back to Hangzhou for 300 kuai (about $40 USD). We were all a bit stunned when we realized we had actually made it back.