Half Birthday Checkup

November 13th is my half birthday -- six months since my actual birthday, the halfway point of this particular year of life -- so I decided it is a good time to check in with my goals and the things I was thinking about last May that I wanted to accomplish during this year.

I'm super into both New Year's Day resolutions AND new birthday year resolutions. I love the symbolic calendar-induced fresh start and I love making plans and lists and figuring out all the things I want to do. Careful readers of this blog/people who know me well understand that I tend to enjoy and excel at planning FAR more than executing, which is admittedly problematic...and which is part of what necessitates this half-year, half birthday check-in. 

I am well aware that there are many of you out there who scoff at New Year's resolutions and the like, with retorts such as "It's just a day on the calendar. You can set goals any day of the year. You can make changes any time."  Well, that's exactly right. So, do you? When you show me your awesome list of "March 8th resolutions" or "random Friday in September resolutions" and all you've done to achieve them, then you can feel accomplished. In the meantime, why make fun of my new calendar year and new birthday year dates? 

Anyway, today we are going to check in by opening up the journal and seeing what sorts of things I wrote last May 12th, 13th, and 14th, i.e., the day before, day of, and day after my birthday. Scary stuff, opening past journals, especially when they contain stream-of-consciousness morning pages, as these do. But, let's see what we find!

On May 12th I said that I wanted to:
- Heal our dying houseplant.  NOPE. FAIL. I re-potted it and everything and it just ended up dying and I felt sad because Brian and I got it a long time ago together and it has moved with us a bunch and now it's dead. 

-Go to five High Points this summer.  NOPE. FAIL. Totally took about sixty-five other road trips though (I'm exaggerating, but not by much) that are the main reason this goal got pushed aside. 

-Do 5Ks in June, July or August, and September, and then a November Turkey Trot. PARTLY ACCOMPLISHED, PARTLY FAILED. Could still do a Turkey Trot 5K and am eyeing the Santa Hustle.
-Go see more live music and shows. HEY! I FOUND ONE! ACCOMPLISHED! That's all I'did all summer, it felt like. And has somewhat continued through the fall. 

Then, on my actual birthday, the 13th, I was apparently way more into musing about the past than looking ahead, with paragraphs about the last birthday I went out to dinner with both of my parents, a digression into if/when/how my journey out of being a churchgoer would have been different if I had gone to Amherst, Oberlin, or Yale, as I wanted to do, and then this gem: "So many regrets. But how can we know what to regret?"  So that was my birthday head space, yikes! 

As for what I thought about doing in the year to come, I wanted to:
-"Read and read and read"  NOPE. I have not been reading much this year AT ALL and it sucks and that's how we all know something is wrong.
-Succeed at my Habitat fundraising. YES! ACCOMPLISHMENT!  Except then I didn't get to go on the October build and will be doing a Habitat trip next spring-ish instead, but I did raise the money for Habitat. Yay, Habitat. 

-Stay on track paying off credit cards. UM. NO. Unless paying health insurance premiums on one's credit cards counts as sound financial strategy? No? Huh. Shame, that. 

I did enjoy my birthday this year, though. We had a private yoga practice in the park, led by one of my favorite Chicago yoga teachers, with me and a couple friends, and then a group joined for dinner at our beloved neighborhood bar and grill spot for a birthday book swap. Maybe that cheered me up a bit for the next day's journaling? Let's see what I had to say on the 14th....

Regarding birthday yoga: "I am so grateful to the ladies who came and I feel so much gratitude to the universe, the sunshine, and the beautiful expanse of blue sky that was over my head - incredible."  Wow! That's a better mood. A little hippie-dippy, even. And, any goals, there, older and wiser Linda? 

-Be a better friend and do better at maintaining friendships.
-Plan a summer barbecue.
-Hang out with people enjoying life and just being. 

-"Every day I want to read read read" cropped up again.
-And then this articulate sentence with my plan for the year: "Write read yoga guitar baseball music." Which may make you think, "Wasn't she doing that anyway? Aren't those things always what she's doing?" Well, yes. Which tells me that over my introspective birthday weekend I didn't think I was living enough of my life. 

Looking at this last list, I'd give myself a solid two and a half accomplished. Actually probably three, but that's one plus one plus half plus half, not one plus one plus one...  (My real friends got that allusion to Clue, right??!?!)  

It would seem that in the next six months of this particular year of my life, in order to meet all my goals, I need to read (read read read read), pay off credit cards, visit more state high points, finish my "Five More 5Ks" plan, and be a better friend. Well. Let me get right to it. 

But I can't resurrect the dead houseplant. I'm sorry. Bringing things back from the dead is decidedly not in my job description. 

Does anybody every really know what day it is?

Longtime readers will recall how absurd I find Chicago's inability to celebrate anything on the appropriate date. When we moved here initially, in 2010, I was mystified and then just annoyed because this city never met a holiday it couldn't commemorate two weeks before or after the date on which the holiday falls.  Well, they're at it again. I'm looking for some 5K races to do in upcoming weeks and I'm sure glad to see there's a Monster Dash on Oct 21 and a Turkey Trot on Nov 4. Why, Chicago, why??

Calendars, y'all. They work. 

To end or not to end the Facebreak

I didn't really mean to give up Facebook for Lent. I don't even celebrate Lent. Wait, observe Lent. Participate in Lent? See, that's how much I don't....do whatever it is that I don't do with regards to Lent; I don't even know what verb to use. I grew up going to church, but it was a church that didn't really shove the whole pick-something-to-give-up-for-40-days thing down our throats. And now I've goodbyed to all that church stuff, so Lent is one of those things I watch other people do, like when my friends give up drinking for that whole time but still play on our pub quiz trivia team, which is rather stalwart of them, don't you think?

But what happened this year was, I had an incident that made me suddenly and forcefully decide I needed to reconsider my relationship to Facebook, specifically, the extent to which I rely on it to function as it says it does, to live up to its own standards, to not mess up. Of course Facebook messes up - nothing/nobody is perfect and all that, but we count on it not to. That's dangerous. It certainly worked out to be dangerous for me. (Details? Yeeeahhh...maybe I can get into the details later. I'm working on a project about that.)

And so, reminding myself of that time in law school when I grounded myself from going into Manhattan for one month because I was not proud of the alcohol choices I had made there, a few weeks ago I suddenly and forcefully just decided I should reconsider my reliance on Facebook being reliable by not relying on it, that is to say, not logging on, until I had accomplished a specific professional goal. And it just so happened that this whole incident went down on the night of Mardi Gras, with Ash Wednesday upon us. That didn't really dawn on me until a couple of days later, though, when I suddenly was like, Oh hey! I could give up Facebook for Lent! To which I responded to myself, What? A 40-day Facebreak? To which my first self responded, That reply shows me (us?) how much you need a 40-day Facebreak. (Let the record reflect that, see, I didn't even know that Lent actually lasts longer than 40 days, which is very confusing, and further evidence of how much I really don't do the Lent thing. Except when I apparently do.)

And so here we are, honing in on Easter, and as everyone hunts for eggs and bites bunnies to see if they're solid or hollow and remembers that after three days the Lord Is Risen, I'll be all mission-accomplished and I can actually check Facebook and see just what the hell has happened there for the last month and a half.

Although, you know, speaking of amounts of days, I've always been kind of confused by that whole "after three days the stone was rolled away bit" because I mean, isn't the whole thing that he was crucified on Friday night? And on Sunday morning he'd already fled the tomb and risen? That's basically a day and a half. Ya know? But we call it three days.

Counting days is hard, I guess, when it's Lenten time.

But the real question is, what should I DO if/when I end my Facebreak and rejoin the party? Any suggestions? What should be my first move? Will I have a million notifications to deal with? Will all my algorithms be hopelessly altered? Will I find out I have missed some crucial message offering me a million dollars or my dream job or trip around the world? No, but seriously, have you ever taken a long Facebreak? What did you do at the end of it?

In Which St. Patrick Checks His Calendar...and His Watch

Well, here we are in Chicago and the news and community media are breathlessly encouraging everyone to enjoy the big excitement this weekend. What excitement, you ask? Well, isn't it obvious? As WGN-TV explains in their guide, "St. Patrick's Day weekend is upon us!"

Except, as you and I know, it most certainly is not.

That never stopped, Chicago, though! -- as I first reported in 2010, the year I discovered that Chicago can never seem to figure out what (holi-)day it is.

This morning, Saturday, March, 11, the famous dye-the-Chicago-River-green event took place at 9 a.m., followed by the St. Patrick's Day Parade at noon. Tomorrow, Sunday, March 12, will be the South Side St. Patrick's Day Parade. Also this weekend are the Leprechaun Leap 5K/8K Run and the Get Lucky Half Marathon/14K/7K. Chicagoland is blissfully concerned that St. Patrick's Day, that is, March 17th - SEVENTEENTH, people! - is still six days away.

Blissfully unconcerned that if anything were to be considered St. Patrick's Day "weekend" it might be, you know, the weekend that starts with Friday, March 17th - St. Patrick's Day.

Alas, no, that is not how we do in Chicago. And by "we" I mean - decidedly not me. This particular quirk of Chicago has driven me absolutely nuts since we moved here the first time in 2010. Be it Saint Patrick or the Bastille, Halloween or Christmas, Chicago will find a way to host a big party on a date that differs from the calendar date of the holiday. Why? Why, Chicago, why why why?

I refuse to participate in any of these off-date celebrations on principle. Is nothing sacred, Chicago? You think you know better than TIME?

What an appropriate weekend to be asking *that* particular question, too -- the weekend we all (but not my peeps back home in Arizona!) get to "spring forward" and turn our clocks to Daylight Saving Time (note: no 's' on Saving) and pretend that this somehow gives us "more daylight" and demonstrate that humans are stupid (because they can't ever seem to figure out which is standard time - that would be Central Standard Time - and which is altered - that would be Central Daylight Time) and humans are lazy (the daylight is there in the mornings if you would just get your lazy selves out of bed to enjoy it!!) and humans are impractical (you have now extended Daylight Saving to MORE of the year than Standard Time -- from March to November, now, we are on  Daylight Time. So then JUST CHANGE THE TIME ZONES PERMANENTLY YOU MAKE NO SENSE HUMANS JUST SET YOUR CLOCKS AHEAD ONE HOUR ONCE AND BE DONE FOREVER WHY WHY WHY).

Time and date, man. Who knew how complicated life could be?

New Year, New You!

I think the key to being able to stick to your resolution to get up and go for a run on the morning of January 1st -- in spite of any wee-hours-of-the-morning New Year's Eve celebration you may have engaged in the night before -- is to start running five days a week on December 1st so you're already in the habit come New Year's Day. Granted, I was in slower motion this a.m. than I have been the past four and half weeks, but I had a cup of tea and a bit of pastry for some fuel and then went out there and did my miles. I saw a few other runners in the park, and on the way back, through the half a mile or so of neighborhood streets between the park and our apartment building I passed a woman walking her dog, bundled against the cold in a long puffy coat. She complimented me as I ran by: "Good for you!" Ha, ha, thanks, I thought, but it's not a New Year's resolution or any wherewithal on my part, just a habit developed through the preceding month of December that got me out there, really.

I love New Year's Day and New Year's resolutions. As usual, I have a slew of goals and projects for 2015 and I enjoy taking advantage of the new calendar numbers to schedule these things and plot them out. Also as usual, I don't necessarily talk about my resolutions. I guess that may seem strange to some people who hate New Year's resolutions, or maybe even to people who like them, too; they wonder if I'm so fond of the whole thing why I don't want to declare them. It's funny: for as unabashed as I am in putting my analysis of the world and life opinions out there, I'm actually more of  private person than people realize about my personal life and self. I do not need everyone to know my innermost thoughts, goings-on, goals, progress reports, etc. Because I'm so willing to talk about so many things, lots of people think they know me, but then those people are sometimes very wrong in the conclusions they draw about me based on the not-personal stuff I've said that they assumed explains everything about me.

Some people, however, are not like me and they DO like to talk all about their personal stuff and other people's personal stuff and about their New Year's resolutions and goals, and if you're one of those people I by all means encourage you to share. It is indeed fun to, for example, have a project and then blog about it month by month as you work your way through. I may or may not do some blogging about my various 2015 endeavors as I get into them.

But I think that's part of the key, too: getting into them. There is one school of thought that says when you have a goal, be it weight loss or quitting smoking or writing your novel or whatever new ambition you're undertaking, you should declare it so that friends and family can "hold you accountable" and support you. The thinking is that putting it out there -- out loud -- means you can't back away from it because now you've said you're going to do it, so you have to do it, unlike if you just said it to yourself.

Me? No. That's not my school of thought. For one thing, why is making a promise to yourself any less important than making the commitment in front of other people? It's like, have some self-respect, am I right? I care more about my integrity than about what others think of me. I am the person who didn't tell a damn soul I was quitting smoking until I was weeks into the quit. and no way did I say that I had quit until months had gone by. I am the complete and total opposite of declare-so-others-can-check-up-on-you. Hell, no. Mind your own business! Now, eleven years later, I tell anyone who will listen (and a few people who won't) all about my quit smoking process, which by the way I think is genius. But then? It was like a two-year process, and it was not something I had any interest in discussing until a long time had gone by and I was sure it had worked. I am very much about doing my thing and I do not need other people involved in my thing. I have so many projects -- I'm like a duck floating on the water, and my projects are the feet flapping underneath that keep me moving through life that everyone on the surface might not ever see or know about. I have personal goal projects going all the time. And with every New Year's Day, I like to add a few more. And then maybe next year I'll tell you about them.

Feel free to share your resolutions here -- if you're one of the sharers, that is!

Happy New Year to all.

Right many a nipperkin! Or, how quaint and curious war is...

Another Memorial Day has come and gone, and as usual I was saddened by the outpouring of gratitude for those who have "served our country" in the armed forces when the expressions of gratitude accepted war as a matter of course, as something that will never change.

Obviously, a species (humanity) that enjoys warfare so much won't ever change without beginning by thinking about how to change. Rarely do people think about how war can be eradicated; instead, they tend to start with the premise that war is inevitable and then go from there into how they think we "should" conduct ourselves in this state of inevitability.

I can certainly understand the sentiments and pragmatism that lead someone to want to be prepared for things. But I find it troubling when the larger idea is meant only with this insistence on pragmatism that refuses to reject the violence or call a spade a spade.

No one wants to be kidnapped. As a child, I learned about "stranger danger," I was taught not to accept a ride from someone I didn't know, I was taught about safety, my mom knew which friends I was playing with, I had to be home by a certain time,  I knew that I should scream or fight or run or put my bicycle between me and the attacker...all sorts of scenarios were met in my 8- or 9-year-old head with a plan as to what I should do if I met with this imagined potential kidnapper.

No one would have ever been so absurd as to suggest that kidnapping was not completely and totally evil, wrong, immoral, sinful, depraved, wicked, whatever word you want to use. Kidnapping = bad. Kidnapping should not exist.

I don't understand why when I mention that war is evil and should not exist, I am forever met with the argument that war is inevitable, so we should thank the soldiers who fight. It completely fails to address the philosophical issue at hand. Unlike kidnapping, apparently not everyone has yet decided that war is evil, and that is what I'm talking about when I say war is evil.

This happened, as usual, on Memorial Day. From what I can tell, it's nationalism that provokes it, and this may be the largest part of the disconnect. For example, when I post on Facebook about how absurd it is to ask some young man or woman to be slaughtered in order to make rich and powerful business leaders and politicians (especially arms manufacturers, let alone oil magnates) richer and more powerful, even the most "anti-war" touchy feely hippies among my Fb "friends" chime in with arguments about how "our" freedom hasn't been threatened in our lifetimes, that "we" have been the aggressors ever since WWII, etc.  All this does is fixate on the lines in the sand that make up our nation states. (As if only nation states ever engage in warfare.)

When I cite Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est," it's meant to remind you that it is a vicious lie to tell someone they should be honored to die for their country. It's a crock of shit to tell someone that being torn apart by bullets or having your life forever scarred by the trauma of battle is glorious because it was for [insert country name here]. When so-called anti-war folk in the U.S. chorus their "agreement" with the idea that "Yeah, no one's really dying for their country! They're dying for oil! We're being the aggressors! They're attacking! Our politics are wrong!" and so forth, there's an implication that it would be OK if we were really sending 18-year-olds to die for their country. Some have even come out and said that: WWII was "necessary," they say, to defend our nation, so in that case our boys were really dying for our freedom! etc.

What this really means is you have zero other ideas for solving problems--and fail to recognize that WWII didn't come out of nowhere. International politics don't happen in a vacuum. Years and years of choices led to WWII, just as with any other war.  And I respectfully disagree that asking anyone to die "for" their country is any better than asking them to die "for" their country's economy, rampaging electric grid, or politicians.

...If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
      -- Wilfred Owen

Is it because people are so easily deceived that those from another nation are so different that they could really be "enemies" by virtue of their passports? There is no nation on Earth that is my "enemy." This has already been covered in poetry, too: if the German and English soldiers met up in a bar, they'd joke and drink and swap stories, but on the battlefield they're expected to shoot each other to death. It's absurd. Why can't everyone see that it's absurd?

In some way, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld trifecta of supreme evil may have at least got this part right; rather than trying the traditional nonsense that this or that nation was the U.S.'s "enemy" they just declared a war on "terror," because they perhaps knew that people in the global economy internet age are, we can only hope, getting to know more and more people from and getting more and more economically involved with other nations, which could lead to them being resistant to suddenly having to shoot and bomb those people to keep Boeing or the Saudi royal family in business. We cannot reach the day soon enough when every nation looks on every other nation with the kind of ironic friendship the U.S. and Canada share; a war between the U.S. and Canada has no place outside of a Saturday Night Live sketch.

The other large part of the disconnect seems to be in my questioning of the way we are constantly asked to revere the so-called "heroes" and the veterans who have served in armed conflict (and/or cruised through a war-zone free stint in the armed forces before going on to have their college/health care/retirement at age 40 paid for).  I can't for the life of me fathom how clapping for them in the airport or offering them a discount on their baseball game tickets or appetizers at some family restaurant is supposed to make up for the evils to which their own government has subjected them. But I can fathom exactly how this "hero" worship leads directly to more and more war. It creates an endless sanctification of the military, endowing returning vets and fighters in battle with a spiritual greatness (rather than acknowledging the real life desperation and adrenaline and fear and courage and physical effort and pain felt in those moments); it creates a culture of way-more-than-pragmatic acceptance of the concept of war; it blesses anyone who decides to join up to "defend freedom" when that is not even remotely what they will be doing; it pressures susceptible minds, minds that refuse to think critically, and even reasonable minds that simply want to do what is right into thinking that if they don't support soldiers, and they don't laud their acts out there (acts that involve war, aggressive military, atomic bombs, drones, the whole kit n' caboodle, if you will), then they the citizens are somehow at fault for daring to say "Hey, veteran -- no f------ way should you have been sent to war!"

Some people like to separate this in their minds. "I don't support the war, but I support the troops," they say, and then they have to fall all over themselves showing their "support" at parades or ball games or wherever.  I'd rather see you support the truth: that "supporting" the troops as people would mean calling off this nonsense immediately, and that supporting the seriously flawed military institutions of superpowers and empires (over the last many thousand years) just leads to more troops and superpowers and empires -- and death. As for war itself, this "ingenious" way humans have come up with of "solving" their problems? Of course that shouldn't be supported. It should be challenged at every turn.

One of the hardest (for me) misinterpretations of my thoughts this year came when someone suggested that I was failing to thank public servants who put their lives on the line because I was missing the reality that lives will be put on the line every day by police, firefighters, and many other professions, in addition to the military.

I would hasten to add: coal miners.

I am grateful every day for police officers and firefighters and other emergency responders. Not one of us who has ever flipped a light switch is grateful enough for coal miners. There is a difference between risking your life in the line of duty and having your life put on the line for you in this ridiculous "game" called war, where no lives are put on any line until the parties join together to enact their pathetic bloodbath. Why can't the world leaders (pretend) just go in a room with the board game Risk and play with green and plastic soldiers instead of wreaking real havoc all over the world with real people, real families, real lives, real torn flesh and real spurting blood?

This isn't about the U.S. military (although I'd love to see such a powerful country set a good example by putting its many resources, financial and human and university-endowed and so on, to good use finding other ways to solve problems on a global scale), nor is it about the skill and achievement of an organized military operation or the ways members of the armed forces can step in when disaster strikes with aid, engineering, transportation, and other help as needed. By all means, let's have a force ready to serve in times of emergency around the world. Let's have people trained to react, strategize, and defend against attack (like a kung fu fighter would also be able to do). Let's deploy ditch-diggers, nurses, teachers, builders, and other workers all over the planet. Let's march boldly toward every child dying of hunger or suffering from abuse and violence (including in our own towns where we live) and try to create solutions to those problems. If the U.S. or any other nation or empire wants to organize its young and able as well as a few old and curmudgeonly (I believe they're called "generals") in squadrons to rescue and create and serve, go for it.

But for god's sake, let's stop with this ridiculous notion that war is ever "okay."

Giddy-up! A big fat welcome to 2014 and the year of the horse

Let's have a recap of 2013, shall we?

I'm aware that 2013 could rightfully be summed up as "the year my blog withered and nearly died, or maybe kind of actually did die, but with potential of being resurrected" but that's not very specific, now is it?? Also, this is sort of a combination recap of the past calendar year (2013), the past year of the snake (which lasts another week yet before turning into the year of the horse), and the past year of working as a foreign trainer at Wall Street English in Guangzhou (Jan 14, 2013 - Jan 13, 2014).

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?Besides "live in China," which is so obvious? I actually learned to speak a teeny, tiny bit of (Mandarin) Chinese, which was both terribly exciting, as it is something I have sworn for 30 years I was going to do, and terribly disappointing, in that I really can still not make it through a conversation beyond, say, "Me want beer. Give one. Thank you. Turn right."

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?Hmmm, what did I resolve for 2013? If I resolved to blog regularly, I certainly failed miserably at that. Of course, pre-VPN that wasn't entirely my fault, but who are we kidding: I failed. But I can't remember what else I resolved. To learn Chinese? (see #1) Am I going to make more resolutions? Is the Pope a (surprisingly fun and socially just) Catholic? I've already made them. And I totally wrote them down this time. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?My sister! I now have a fifth nephiece. I totally and irrevocably have a free pass on the provide-me-a-grandchild front. We are good to go in that department. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Brian's grandfather and my sister's mother-in-law passed away, so I was really close to people who had people close to them die. And this is the second time someone close to Brian has died while we were living in Asia, which is kind of strange. 

5. Did you visit anywhere exciting?
We added five countries to our tally: the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. I was pretty delighted about traveling to Hanoi and Bali, among other places. And within China, we had Hong Kong and Macau right down the street railroad, so we went to each place multiple times. Plus, we squeezed in trips to Guilin-Yangshuo and Shanghai. So, yes to this one.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?As ever, and as the beloved Ms. Woolf put it, "a room of one's own." 

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Probably January 8, the day we left the U.S. to move to China for the year. It was a great Manhattan Beach happy hour layover farewell.  

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Huh. I'm really not sure. I'll go with working for a magazine as an assistant editor and writer. I'm all kinds of excited that I've been able to do that. 

9. What was your biggest mistake?
I think not switching from the Wednesday to the Tuesday Chinese class sooner--it's just a schedule thing, but I would have checked off a lot more of my Guangzhou list if I had done that, plus I would have had more happiness and sanity. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

A little virus here and there. Managed to avoid the H7N9 and whatever other global pandemic is originating in China next...knock on wood.  

11. What was the best thing you bought?
New-to-me used laptop! Because I really needed one, you see. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?Quincy, our beloved adopted kitten, who is so charming and was such a good-hearted kitten that we were devastated to have to send him to live in Foshan with our friends, we but did that so he could live with a feline friend, and we think he appreciates it. And we are still involved in Quincy's life. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
A few co-workers, specifically the ones who have lied to the company and/or looked the other way about bogus credentials, timekeeping/punching in and out, or calling in "sick"/hungover, and the two (TWO!) managers of mine who got fired for cooking the books and fudging numbers and cheating on targets instead of doing everything right. Please, people: behave in the workplace. Be adults. It's not that hard.

14. Where did most of your money go in 2013?
This is so easily plane tickets. To, from, and within China and SE Asia.  

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?Plane tickets, to, from, and within China and SE Asia. 

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
I suppose the Mileys: "We Can't Stop" and "Wrecking Ball."  Because Miley.
Um, God, hellllllooooooo!

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
Fatter. I lost weight in Mexico and gained weight in China. Take that, all you foolish bean-and-cheese-and-tortilla-hatin' folk. Mexican food is delicious and fresh and perfect. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?Drinking.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
In Macau! So fabulous. We loved Macau from the first minute we visited in early April, and knew we'd go back. And it was the perfect place to have a Christmas holiday; we splurged (as a Christmas present to ourselves) on a nice hotel and enjoyed a Christmas dinner feast, ice skating at the Venetian casino, wintry decorations, and so forth. 

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?

With Quincy!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Although this was the year that Brian and I  hopped aboard the Game of Thrones bandwagon and I finally plunged into The Wire, the winner is, as it has been for the past five years, Breaking Bad. 

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hmmm...hate being such a strong word...but I certainly hate the actions of several people that I didn't know about at this time last year. 

24. What was the best book you read?
The Grapes of Wrath

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Caitlin Rose (thanks, Ann!)
Plus, I actually listened to the lyrics of "Ho Hey"--he's singing about the Chinatown bus!! I never realized!

26. What did you want and get?
Trips to the Philippines and Vietnam. 

27. What did you want and not get?
To pay off one of my credit cards. I sort of had a plan for that, but then I failed. 

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Oh my, this birthday is best forgotten, truly. I was going without beer during the month of May, which meant that at the work-sponsored karaoke night on May 12 (the night before my day), I drank wine instead. One should not drink wine during an event of such unabashed drunken revelry, when one's glass is constantly refilled. One could kill oneself, or at least eat away the inside of one's esophagus, methinks. One should never have such copious amounts of wine. One wonders how Plato, Dionysus, et.al. did it? Needless to say, I was hungover (gross) on my birthday, and spent much of it lying on the floor of our apartment. Brian, who was suffering an unrelated ailment, went out to get me crackers after I pleaded with him to do so.  (Such a kind boyfriend. Happy birthday, eh?) I had to go to work to teach three classes from 6:00-9:30 p.m.  I made it, after a hangover meal at KFC. Argh. They had a nice cake for me at work, though!

29. What’s one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
In a schadenfreude way, I suppose that Peter, a manager who got fired for doing things we all knew he  wasn't supposed to do, some of which I refused to do, could have been fired in front of me instead of just being disappeared, and perhaps forced to retract his negative assessment of me as a non-team player who is "below average" on willingness to take on extra work, like the extra things he wasn't supposed to be pressuring us to do. 

Or, being able to take Quincy home to the U.S. 

Or, finishing more  books. Like, I really meant to also read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and The Water Margin while living in China, not just A Dream of Red Mansions/Chamber, which p.s. took me for freaking ever. 

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
I wore skirts, button-down shirts, dresses, blouses, and sweaters to work. I wore the same three or four shirts and jeans on my days off. That's about it. 

31. What kept you sane?
Contenders: Goodreads. The DVD man on the corner. The VPN. Trivia night at the Tavern.
Maybe nothing, actually. 

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Um - no-one?  But I did get a not-so-little thrill every time Frank played a Jon Stewart clip from The Daily Show at trivia night, rather than the "funny" laugh-at-people-falling-flailing-failing /animal antics/weird signs/dirty innuendo videos.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Atrocious treatment of animals, to wit: cages (including in pet shops---tiny cages for cats -- no no no), the cat-and-dog-meat industries in China, with all their shady-side-of-the-law torture, underfeeding, inhumane treatment, housing, and transport, let alone slaughter, etc. 

34. Who do you miss the most?

??
I'm not sure that I really miss people, just in general. Is that bad? I definitely can't single one out.   

35. Who was the best new person you met?

Also ??  I mean, I don't have, like, a ranked order or something. 

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013?

English is a skill for my students, and I am their trainer, facilitating their practice of that skill, just as a coach would help student to do a back handspring or hit down-and-away pitches. It's very helpful to conceive of language classes that way instead of as a "teacher" of information. 

37. What are your new year's resolutions for 2014?

Some of them are secret, but one of them is to work on having better posture. That one I can share.
Also, this lapsed vegetarian is gradually rediscovering her faith. 

Oh, hello there...

It's almost as if China heard me, like the country was monitoring my blog or something... after I raged against the winter-in-Guangzhou machine yesterday, because of my personal annoyance at building block after block of apartments that have stupid wall-mounted air conditioners for all but no heat sources, and my extreme annoyance at having to live in one of said apartments now that it has turned cold, and having to do so for four more weeks -- well, less than that, really! woo-hoo! -- and after that led me to further rage about the many ill-treated and restrained animals, including 'pets,' here in Guangdong, not the least of which are the cats and dogs caged and starved and maltreated and then slaughtered for the just-this-side-of-forbidden cat-and-dog-meat industry that operates in shady fashion with illegal transport and stolen domestic animals, and the connection between this cold winter and the total assholes around Guangdong who proudly 'eat anything that moves' and think winter is a good time to eat cat meat to stay warm (what the holy actual bleeding fuck, you monsters!) ... well, after all that blog rage, the very next day on my walk from workplace #1 to workplace #2, I was treated to the delightful sight of two - count 'em two! - cats who were not scraggly, not tied on a leash or god-!@%&*ng-forbid in a cage, and who were hanging out with their humans in their respective storefront. One man beckoned me over when he saw me looking at his big furry black and white cat, so we could scratch the kitty's head together, language barriers aside. The next cat, a few doors down, was enjoying a snack. I was so happy to see two cats who could just be normal, and have  'masters' who obviously actually like them. It was like a little reward from the universe.

I still want to point out that we need to save all the animals in the world that are currently locked up, and worse. Because, really, we need to not be assholes. Is that so much to ask of humans, that they not be assholes?

But maybe this was my Christmas present from China...?

Can we please not make any more veterans?

It has been decreed that 11/11 is the time to honor the sacrifices of people who are sent away from their homes and families in order to make rich and powerful people more rich and powerful. Because this horrible way of treating one another is usually downplayed as "conflict" (instead of large scale violent death), promoted as problem solving, or characterized as defending freedom in order to manipulate people into thinking it is the right/honorable/just/necessary thing to do, one is considered a horrible person if one points out that the holiday's outpouring of rhetoric keeps everyone's blinders on and arguably does a greater disservice to veterans than anything else (by perpetuating the brutal paradigm and creating more and more wars and casualties and veterans and broken families and crippling injuries and traumatized lives).

TO THE VETERANS: I am sorry for your suffering. I wish fervently for your healing. I hope you can go forward in peace.

TO THE MILITARY FAMILIES: I am sorry you had to spend so many days worrying and waiting, and my sympathy goes out to those who received the worst news ever. I wish your government leaders had the courage to admit how bloody unnecessary it was to sacrifice those lives.

TO ALL OF THE ABOVE: I wish they hadn't been able to convince you that dulce et decorum est...

TO THE CIVILIAN VICTIMS OF WAR: What the hell can any of us say?

TO EVERYONE:  You should watch this.  At least click that link and go watch the trailer. Go.

Independent Nations

Well, another 4th of July has come and gone. I have now spent the U.S.A. Independence Day in five different countries, and it's always fun to gather with a few "fellow Americans" when in some far-flung spot on the globe and rustle up some patriotic feelings, or at least some hot dogs and beer. Actually, we rustled up fajitas for dinner last night, at one of Guangzhou's Irish pubs, in a gathering of folks that included nationals of the U.S.A., Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, and China. I suppose that in itself is very "American dreamy" in some viewpoint or other. I might add that I drank Dos Equis. Hey, I don't always celebrate the 4th in the land formerly known as Canton, but when I do...they are sometimes out of the Pure Blonde Ale that was actually my first choice order.

 

Earlier in the evening I had a small cup of Budweiser during our beer toast (!) to the U.S. at work, as I taught a little "4th of July hour" for the students. We had a bit of history (why 1776? why split off from England -- what's wrong with them?  why are there 50 stars and 13 stripes? etc.), a little bit of vocabulary (eagle, Statue of Liberty, White House, basically a collage of U.S.A.-like images), a bit of totally differing perspectives (they don't think of Guam as anywhere near China and in fact said "But it's much closer to Japan than here" whereas I think of Guam as "about the same distance" from Hong Kong/Japan -- and I'm living closer to Guam now than I ever have before), and a little bit of arguing when I busted out the Budweiser. "That's not an American beer!" they protested. I mean, first of all, oh-so-appreciative students, you're welcome. Right?!  Secondly, my boss just offered to get something simple for the 4th of July and I said, hey, why not Budweiser? But, see, they actually bottle some Budweiser right here in China. (Hence it being easily available without having to seek out a specialty store with a vast imported beer selection.) So my students were completely prepared to sit there and talk about how it's not an American beer. But, I mean, it is. Coca-Cola bottles stuff all over the world (they were among the first to "think globally, act locally")  but it's still an "American product," no? Or McDonald's and KFC -- also everywhere, here. It was so weird. It's freaking Budweiser. I'm sure many people have accused Budweiser of many things, but I never thought anyone would ever accuse it of being Chinese.

 

It all makes you think, doesn't it, in this globally connected economy and internet of ours? What does it mean to be anything? I hate the co-opting of "American," which actually refers to two entire continents, so I phrase my question thus: "What does it mean to be United Statesian?"

 

 

 

 

And so this is 1/3 of the year,and what have I done?

Blog! Blog o' mine! Here I am. I am so sorry, little bloglet, to have neglected you so, but I was stuck behind this big ol' wall* and I've only just found my way out and back to you, oh dear little blog. And readers. Readers! There you are, reading the blog, because I have come back, and it is nice to be with you again. What, the readers must be breathlessly asking themselves, has life on the other side of the wall been like? This is indeed a question to be answered. But where to begin?
*(a wall of fuego, as they say) 

Today it has been four months since Brian and I boarded the plane that would take us across the Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong, from where we would hie ourselves up the road a piece to our new home for another year of teachin'-in-Asia. As I mentioned in my last post before disappearing, we accepted a job in Guangzhou, also formerly known as Canton by ye olde foreign westerners, and so it has come to pass that we are now living in the Pearl River Delta and learning the ins and outs of life in this big, crowded, brightly lit, restaurant- and skyscraper-filled metropolis. It has also come to pass that we have learned very few of the linguistic ins and outs ... but more on that in a later post devoted to language troubles.

In fact, our first four months of living in China have been an insane whirlwind of taking forever to get settled and kind of being forced to travel all the time, thus dragging out even more the time it takes to get settled. I know, poor us, right? Oh, we've just been forced to take these international vacations, boo-hoo... but seriously, I would not plan it this way if I had my scheduling druthers. First and foremost, this is because I am a complete and total save-the-best-for-last kind of gal, and I would much much much much much rather start out my year contract in Asia by diving into weeks of work work work and then, a few months in, start having holidays, and I would take my annual leave vacation and my long holidays as late in the year as possible, whereas we of course had quite the opposite by arriving in January because that meant Spring Festival was right around the corner.

• February / Spring Festival / Lunar New Year / The Philippines

Therefore, we had to start planning a vacation before we even had internet in our apartment and practically before we even had an apartment and definitely before we had received our first paycheck. This is not as easy as it looks, my friends! But the alternative would be to sit at home for our 9 days off in a row (shudder to think!) and furthermore to squander the biggest holiday of the year. It would be like moving to the U.S. on December 5th and not figuring out what to do with yourself for Christmas break. Unheard of! But because of the aforementioned lack of even one paycheck, we had to plot this carefully, and that's where Expedia saved us by popping up in my inbox with a last-minute deal from Hong Kong to Manila, and so we were off to the Philippines for the Lunar New Year holiday, and we rang in the Year of the Snake on the beach at Boracay, followed up by a few days of strolling around Manila. And we planned the whole thing using Starbucks' wi-fi. (This concludes your corporate shout-outs paragraph.)

• March / Hong Kong 

Of course, this meant we had now passed through Hong Kong multiple times without ever being able to really stop and smell the Hong Kong roses; we just kept arriving and departing at the airport and the Guangzhou-Kowloon train station and even riding the subway and having lunch at an Indian restaurant or grabbing a coffee but not getting to explore the city. The city a mere couple of hours down the road from us, this fabulously exciting, beloved-by-every-traveler, one-of-the-greatest-cities-on-Earth city. And so it was time for a proper trip, a "weekend" in Hong Kong (our weekend actually being on Wednesday and Thursday, due to our work schedule - but also we don't work until 6 p.m. on Fridays, which is awesome). So we got back on the train and spent a couple of days checking out all the glories of Victoria Peak and Victoria Harbour, Tsim Sha Tsui and Admiralty, happy hour in Causeway Bay, the steep and winding streets, the dim sum, the laser light show, the art museum, the tailors who whip up a custom-fit suit in 24 hours or less, and not least of all the markets and shops and street of kitchen supplies where Brian had his sights set on wok shopping. In fact, Brian had basically been talking about buying a wok since the day we had our first job interview for this China gig back in Mexico in September, and he had determined that a particular street in Hong Kong would be the best place to procure a wok, and so procure it he did, along with some other wok-cooking utensil essentials including a knife that had to be checked as luggage on the train back to Mainland China. Since we had traveled with only our backpacks, the authorities took the big ol' chopping knife -- one of those rectangular deals that you might have seen being whipped around on a "But wait there's more!" infomercial in years gone by -- and wrapped it in newspaper and put a little tag around it and off it went down the luggage conveyor belt, to be retrieved by us back in Guangzhou.

• April / Macau

And back in Guangzhou, we had another holiday on the way. I really wanted to catch my breath, get into a routine, attend my Wednesday ("Saturday") morning Chinese class more regularly, and start saving up some freakin' money, but instead we had to decide what to do for Tomb-Sweeping Day on April 3rd, which gave us a three-day "weekend" April 2-3-4. The obvious answer, of course, was to head to the other kinda-sorta-China-but-you-cross-a-border-to-get-there Special Administrative Region hereabouts, that being Macau. And I am here to tell you that Macau. Is. Awesome!  So much awesome is the Macau! It was Portugese, you know, or perhaps you don't, seeing as Macau kind of flies under the radar in terms of Places the World Often Jabbers About, but like Hong Kong, it, too, has reverted to being part of China. Sort of. This is actually an ongoing debate, as to whether it counts as going to another country when we go through immigration to Hong Kong and Macau. All I know is that Macau now offers the following: cobblestone streets, Portugese egg tarts and other ridiculously delicious cheap food, and gambling galore! "The Vegas of the East," they say. (They who? I don't know.) Massive big name casinos -- Wynn, Venetian, MGM Grand, you name it, and I have rarely enjoyed wandering around any city for two days quite as much as I enjoyed wandering around Macau. Oh, yes, I will be back there.

• April Redux / Vietnam 

But no rest for the weary!! Because now our company was suggesting - strongly suggesting - that if anyone would please like to take a couple of days of unpaid leave during the month of April then we should definitely take them. Please do so. Please. And maybe some teachers might be forced to reduce hours if we didn't get enough volunteers, please, and thanks. What's an English-teaching couple to do, but realize that May 1st is going to be YET ANOTHER holiday (Labor Day/International Workers' Day -- you can thank Grover Cleveland for it not being celebrated on that day in the U.S.) and therefore if one were to take a mere three days of unpaid leave (highly appreciated by one's regional director!) and switch one's days off in the previous week, one would find oneself with eight consecutive days off that are clearly meant for one to travel to Vietnam...? And so, there we were again, eking out a budget for tickets, hotel, visa, etc. in order to not lose this time-off opportunity (I know, I know, such problems...but SERIOUSLY why did this all have to be in our first three and a half months?)  and then we were off to Hanoi! By the way, if you have yet to look at a map, Guangzhou is very close to Vietnam -- closer to Hanoi than to either Shanghai or Beijing, for example. Anyway, Vietnam just may have been the most revelatory trip yet, largely because of Sapa. Holy cripes! This mountain destination is ten kinds of amazing, and I can't believe that before whipping out Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring I had never even heard of it. All I know is that a wise man would do a lot less dropping of bombs on northern Vietnam, and a lot more sitting in a hotel on the Sapa hillside sipping his beverage of choice and staring at the stunning view.

Which brings us to mid-May. Which means it's our birthday month! Which means that Brian and I totally have to spend another weekend in Hong Kong, right? (Right?!) I mean, what else would one do for one's birthday when one lives a mere two-hour, $24-ish dollar train ride from the H-K? So that's where we'll be. Next week. And then I am going to just absolutely sit still for a minute and ... plan my celebration of the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival.

Meanwhile, you want to know what it could possibly be like to live in China. Isn't it an interesting question? Sure it is. However, I'm so close to the situation that I'm having a hard time at the moment figuring out what to talk about. But now that I'm back on the blog (praise be!) I will happily answer all your questions. So what are they? I would love to know what you want to know about life in Guangzhou. Ask and ye shall receive -- especially if you ask in the form of a comment here -- because the blog is back! Check in every Monday and Thursday for all the latest and greatest Linda Without Borders happenings. Although lately it feels like a more appropriate name might be Linda With Lots and Lots of Borders to Cross...

Mi día de acción de gracias

Allow me to set the scene: in the home stretch of my stint in Querétaro , I have been afflicted with a severe case of senioritis. I have low motivation to do anything, whether work or social or shopping or whatever, and the dumb little things are bugging me, like my local Oxxo on the corner being completely out of coffee at 7:30 this morning (what?!)  Let alone the more annoying stuff, like buses not stopping to pick up passengers at the bus stop, which is just a thing they (fail to) do sometimes, or even the bus stopping at the bus stop because it is at a red light, but still refusing to open the door for passengers, as happened today. Because that, my friends, is the horrible logic of the Querétaro city bus system sometimes. Add to this my so-close-I-can-taste-it flight, and I am just a recipe for grumpiness and "get-me-the-heck-out-of-here!" MAJOR senioritis.

Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S.A., but here in Mexico it was another Thursday and I headed off to my morning ritual. In the late morning, I had a conversation with a lovely friend in which we both lamented a few frustrations and I mentioned that in my senioritis/low motivation/high irritation state of mind it is probably better if I just don't say anything at all, as Thumper's mother would advise. From there, I headed to the bus stop, with Songs--->Play All on my MP3 player, listening to whatever was next in alphabetical order. I was in the Ds. As I approached the bus stop on the sunny sidewalk, I listened to Indigo Girls' "Deconstruction." Although the song reflects on a relationship, it has some nicely constructed lyrics that make a person think about ALL the things that make up her life, lyrics such as:
As we sat stuck, I could hear the trash truck
Making its way through the neighborhood,
Picking up the thrown out, different from house to house -- 
We get to decide what we think is no good.
We're sculpted from youth; the chipping away makes me weary
And as for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory
And it's the one that justifies our daily lives...
                 --lyrics by the one and only Emily Saliers

So, that was the slightly self-indulgent, highly contemplative mood I was in when the bus came. I relaxed to the next song, letting the music of Enya's "Deora Ar Mo Chroi" wash over me (not really knowing what her lyrics were saying because it's one of her Irish language songs), and so the wistful mental stage was set for Concrete Blonde's cover of Woody Guthrie's protest song "Deportee." 

Written by Guthrie, popularized by Pete Seeger, and covered by many, "Deportee" talks about a small plane crash in 1948 in Los Gatos canyon, near Fresno, in which 28 migrant workers who were being flown to Mexico died. The news reports apparently named the U.S. flight crew but did not mention the workers' names, dismissively noting that those passengers were just deportees. (Read more here if you like Wikipedia.)

I rode the bus down Constituyentes, thinking about being in Mexico, and thinking about how all of my peeps back in the U.S. of A. were already gathering with family and friends, munching on appetizers, preparing turkey and potatoes and vegetables, a bountiful spread, a cornucopia. Everyone would be ready to eat the plentiful harvest, food likely gathered from the earth by the hands of migrant workers who probably won't be thanked on this Thanksgiving day. Concrete Blonde sang Guthrie's words:


Well, some are illegal and some are not wanted
Our contract is out and we've got to move on
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves
Adios a mi Juan, adios Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
And all they will call you will be deportees...


I knew that when I got back to my apartment I would log on to Facebook and see thankful status updates, and pictures of beautifully set tables, and the occasional plea to not spoil this day by shopping or, as we call it now, "door-busting." I would think about everyone enjoying a day of warmth and tradition and gratitude. I would grapple with thoughts about the celebration of an idea -- a mythical but inspiring feast, a feast of sharing, a feast in which the immigrants were welcomed and helped to survive in their new land.

I felt small. I felt alone. I also felt suddenly grateful in yet another new way to be able to look around and see and know Mexico -- even when I'm sick of being here and the bus driver infuriates me and the Oxxo runs out of coffee (seriously). I offered my thanks to the universe that I could know that Mexico is history and mountains, highways and industrial parks, museums and cathedrals, poetry and folklore, Nezahualcóyotl and Fuentes and Kahlo, fashion and magazines and film, guitar strumming at parties, jukeboxes, comida corrida, the weird bird that squawks outside my apartment window, and so much more. Even at the end of senior year, one still has lessons to learn and things to think about, but the more important question is how to share one's knowledge with the big, wide world.

Normally, my Guthrie Thanksgiving song is Arlo's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," but this year, I'm all about his father's song instead. I don't have a video of that Concrete Blonde version to share, but here are the Highwaymen:

When in the course of Queretaro events...

As my mom reminded me today, the old joke goes: "Do they have a 4th of July in [Mexico]?"  Ha, ha. If you don't know the answer, um...I can't really help you. But seriously, today was actually a good day, the lack of fireworks notwithstanding. Irony alert: after years of holidays in Arizona and California on which many illegal fireworks were heard to be launched in random city neighborhoods, including the occasional Mexican holiday and thus, presumably, the occasional launching of fireworks by Mexicans/Mexican-UnitedStatesians/people celebrating Mexican something or other, I find myself IN Mexico on my homeland's holiday without a firework to be found.

A fellow United Statesian teacher here in Queretaro hosted a lovely afternoon barbecue to celebrate the ol' U.S.A. independence. The majority of the guests were teachers of business English, and our schedule is basically this: teach corporate classes in the morning (beginning of their workday) and then have a long break and then teach corporate classes in the evening (end of their workday). That long break in the middle? Is long enough for a 4th of July barbecue! Said barbecue included four of us red-white-and-blue-lovin' peeps, a few Mexican friends, our friend from Argentina, and even an Englishman for good measure.

We had hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, Coca-Cola and Coors Light in the fridge (plus some Mexican beer if you didn't want to stoop to Coors Light, you commie swine), and baseball games on the computer, including the Nationals and the Phillies, such appropriate Independence Day cities. A good time was had, even if I had to leave and go do English teacher things, although I must add that my students and I had a great discussion about the 4th of July, holidays, Mexican Independence Day in September, and perhaps most importantly the vast amount of food and tequila to be consumed on that upcoming day.

In a further tribute to the greatness of 'MURRica (ahem), I would like to report the following exchange from my morning beginning-ish level corporate English class on the topic of Difficult Colleagues:

Me: (having discussed various "difficult" characteristics and listed them on the board) Do you know anyone like that, who blames others for their problems?
Students: No, not here. At my other company, yes! Not here.
Me: (starting to fish for "politicians") Well, what about in the outside world? Can you think of a famous type of person who often blames others for their problems...?
Student: Britney Spears!
Me: Well, yes. I see what you mean. A celebrity might blame others for her problems. Can we think of another...?
Student: Lindsay Lohan!

I mean, you really have to hand it to them. They got the concept and ran with it.

All righty then, I'm off to pursue some happiness.

In which I interview myself about 2011

Time for a 2011 recap as we head into 2012!  What do you mean, January 31st doesn't still count as "heading into 2012"? Whatever. It's still January, that's all I have to say. Oooh, not true! I also have to say, in my defense, that I have for the last three weeks been hanging out in places decidedly more concerned with the Chinese New Year than the January 1st new year. So I am entitled to only get around to doing this questionnaire, which I got from multiple bloggers, now. All right, let's look back:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
A whole lot! I visited new places and flew around the world with Brian - I'd been alone on most of my previous long-haul flights in life (symbolism intended in that statement). Also, I finally won NaNoWriMo.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for 2011 were to acquire the Southern belle ability to speak my mind or tell people off without "being angry," and to read more books and travel to more countries than I did in 2011. Well. I did in fact make my Goodreads goal of reading 44 books in 2011, check! I traveled to the same number of countries in 2011 as 2010 - four, but one of those I moved to (Korea), and I took two trips to another (Japan), so on the whole I think we can say I traveled more, since two of the 2010s (England and Ireland) were just stopovers anyway. (My other two 2011 countries were China and at the end there Cambodia.) As for the Southern belle ability, I still covet it, but there were multiple times -multiple!- in 2011 that I successfully bit my tongue when listening to someone and responded diplomatically instead of arguing. It's a start. 

Duh, of course I will make resolutions for 2012! Writing and exercising more, as usual. Four books per month.  Visit four more countries. And one more that I'm forgetting now. I'll think of it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


My sister welcomed #4, Kristen, so of course that is the closest. Some friends gave birth, too! It was a good year for babies.  (I suppose that's what happens when the previous four years have all been spent attending multiple weddings…)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
In 2011, no, although my family and I were still reeling in some ways from Grandpa’s late 2010 death.  Aaron, a good friend of Brian’s from Michigan, whom I got to know a little bit through Brian and his crew during the last couple years, also passed away.

5. What countries did you visit?
Well, Korea again, as we moved there on Jan 1, 2011. Japan (twice), China, and Cambodia.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Willpower, the ability to set boundaries and convey my sense of urgency without starting quarrels, and a way for full-time freelancers and independent contractors and unmarried people (i.e., me and thousands like me) to have health insurance that the rest of the U.S. has through their employers or spouses’ employers.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1 because Brian and I moved to Korea together. My birthday because it was a Friday the 13^th, and those are my favorites! June 27^th because my aforementioned niece was born on my friend Mo’s birthday. August 18th because we climbed Mt. Fuji. Actually, to be honest, that is more etched in my head as the Thursday of our week in Japan and I had to double check the date.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Mt. Fuji? Completing my teaching contract? Making myself act in a play again? Learning some Korean? Creating a book swap for Andong? I guess just coming back to live in Korea and having it work out really well. 

9. What was your biggest failure?
Demand Studios. I don’t want to talk about it.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was barely ever sick at all - one or two colds. Nothing at all like the first time I was in Korea! A few little minor injuries that would make me skip working out for a couple days.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Nike indoor exercise shoes for kickboxing class. I adore them with all of my being.

12. Where did most of your money go?
China. But not the way people in the U.S. funnel it to China, through WalMart. I mean directly on site! Well, and all the plane tickets I bought to various Chinese cities. 

13. What did you get really excited about?

China. And Japan. And galmegi.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
"Like a G6," "Please Be My Baby" (Britney), Rihanna's stupid sex in the air song, and anything else that played over and over and over at kickboxing. And I.U.!

 

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder?  I think about the same. Thinner or fatter?  Unfortunately, about the same. I lost weight when we got to Korea, then gained it back. Brian cooks too much, too well. :)
Richer or poorer?
Just the eensiest bit richer. Only because I went from freelancing to having the teaching job, but really, just the teeniest little bit so don't get too excited, folks. (That means you, income-based student loan repayment.)

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?


Write.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Drink. 


18. How did you spend Christmas?
On a plane. Seoul - Hong Kong - Bangkok - Phnom Penh, ending with a delightful Merry Christmas nightcap in a riverfront bar.  I love Phnom Penh, and I love Cambodia.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Cuh-rim-i-nal Ma-eend-dz. That's how it's announced on Korean SkyHD TV, where Brian and I discovered it, learned to love it, and began craving it during 2011. We are so excited that there are still many more episodes for us to see!

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Reasonable Creatures by Katha Pollitt. Everyone should read this book. Everyone. Yes, you too. If you are reading my blog, you should read that book. Your friends who aren't reading my blog should read it as well, so buy an extra copy for one of them. Also, I loved Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down, W. Somerset Maugham's The Summing Up and Jose Saramago's Blindness. Do I need to note that none of these came out in 2011? 
.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?


Anything and everything, as long as we were singing it in the no-rae-bang!

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

If these count because I saw them in 2011: True Grit, Eat Pray Love, and The Green Zone.  Out of movies that came out in 2011, it would have to be Moneyball, because I don't think it's Super 8. I definitely didn't see enough movies this year.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

It was a Friday the 13th, that's all that matters!  And I had a one-track mind: noraebang. 

 

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

More noraebang, Less of the b.s. noraebang resistance among the expat English teachers. It really bugs me when they do that. 

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

 Outsourced! I finally accomplished my lifelong dream of getting a personal shopper to go buy clothes for me. Actually, it was just once, but Jody and Brian totally went around Seoul and scored me some shirts, dresses, skirts, etc. and all I had to do was pay them. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this all the time. I definitely want to repeat this in 2012. I am interested in having more/different/cuter clothes, but I am not interested in making the effort to pick them out. If I ever move to within striking distance of your city, do let me know if you are interested in my personal shopper position.

26. What kept you sane?

N/A

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.


We need to bring back protective tariffs in place of income taxes, and stop this love affair with free trade. I have learned an incredible lot about this from reading my prez bios (I'm now on #18, Grant.)  I wish Michael Moore, the #Occupy peeps, and other people who care about the disaster that is the U.S. would listen to my reason and start promoting this idea far and wide. National boundaries as jingoistic lines in the sand are stupid, but as a place to collect tariffs they are genius, because economically-tax wise we are all divided up by country, for convenience. If we have tariffs, then we can stop blabbering about tax cuts and increases all the time (freeing our government to actually get some work done), and greedy corporations can stop f***ing everyone up by taking all their jobs out of the country, because it would no longer be cheaper for the companies to do that, because they would have to actually fairly pay to bring all the stuff in. NO MORE FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS! I watched with interest as some in Korea tried to stop the Korea-U.S. FTA. Sigh. 

All righty then, so that's 2011. On to 2012! Or, you know. The rest of it. How was January for you? I missed a bunch of it on this blog because I was in China. 

Off the beaten China path? Day 30 of our southeast Asia odyssey

It's funny, because it's all relative. I mean, anyone who has traveled extensively in China would laugh at the idea that Brian and I got off the beaten path there on our recent travels. But compared to, quite frankly, the vast majority of people we know, we have now seen more of China than they have seen or might ever see. Weird to think about that.

Anyway, January 23rd was our last full day in Guangzhou, bringing our central-south China whirlwind to an end. Some of my overall impressions of our two January weeks in China:

*What the hell did I just eat?


*Despite all the naysayers and the lack of train ticket availability, we were quite happy to have been there for part of the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival, particularly the happy frenzies of blocked-off-to-cars street parties and lots of dragons everywhere.

*I'm really, really, really sick of being cold, in that miserably gray cool-but-not-freezing way, with no central heat anywhere.

*Woo-hoo to Wuhan! (Perhaps not coincidentally, the one place we slept in a warm hotel room.)

*There's nothing like reading a book about the Yangtze River while in a boat cruising down the Yangtze River.

*I am determined to learn and conquer this language. Maybe more than one of them, as I was kind of diggint the Cantonese more than the Mandarin at the end  of our trip. One of the main reasons I consider taking an English teaching job in China is so I can have a go at really learning to speak some sort of Chinese language.