Vacation Vexations

For the past few days, I have been away on a vacation within my vacation, sightseeing in parts of Taiwan that I haven't been before and some I have many moons ago.  It has also been a vacation, I suppose from my sanity, as I somehow got talked into waking up early to go hiking at 5 am yesterday.  I don't exercise regularly, let alone climb things with summits.  Summits and I don't get see eye to eye.  Perhaps because they're so high up.  And yet, yesterday, I was there hiking away for a good 4 hours.  That's one sixth of my day I could have spent not moving.  And making cracks about the Bible. 

 

Brother:  4 am?  That's before either Jesus or the sun gets up.

 

Mother:  Before Jesus gets up?  "Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep."*

 

Brother:  Pretty sure that's talking about his dad and not Jesus.

 

(earlier, trying to convince our family friend to skip her Bible study the next morning to hang out with us- we have lots of friends who are pastors that need to be convinced away from sermon prep and fasting to hang out with the family)

 

Brother:  What's there to study?  Everything in the Bible is truth, that's all they need to know.

 

Moi: Yeah, if they haven't figured out the Bible at this point, there's probably no saving them.

 

 

 

 

*The quote, my heathen friend(s?), is from Psalm 121, one that should be easily recognizable to my Judeo-Christian friends.  Unless they're bad Judeo-Christians.   

Tell Me Where in the World Is...

I swear, if one more person asks me how I'm doing in China...

Reason #21 Why I Love Chinar

(slash why I felt oppressed by its faceless bureaucracy my entire time there)

 

For the easily confused, let me explain that I am not in Chinar right now.  I'm in Taiwan.  Yet this story is about Chinar, not Taiwan.  You got that?  I heard this from one of our greatest family friends.  She was on a ten-hour bus ride to Beijing, and about eight hours into the ride, traffic halted.  For a very long time.  So much so that passengers and drivers alike got out of their vehicles to relieve themselves and chat.  And cuss.  For a very long time.  Our friend said that they had tried to hold the flow in in the hopes of not having to use any public restrooms between lunch and Beijing, but as the afternoon wore on, they started feeling miserable and traffic still wasn't moving.  Her and her friend were teh only two people who didn't get off the bus to pee on teh side of the road so finally, the bus driver turned to her and asked, "Miss, how badly do you have to go?"  And let her use the lavatory in the back of the bus.  Which was apparently locked the entire ride.  All the other passengers had to just find a spot along the highway, our friend inspired special pity.  Soon after, the sun settled down and the toll workers packed up and went home.  That's right.  Buses, cars, and people were all still jammed along the road, but the highway workers, assuming that their work was done (if no one moves, what's there to collect?), left for the night.  Around dinner time, our friend noticed that people all around her were digging into bowls of instant noodles.  "Strange!  How did they all come prepared?" she wondered, "what are the chances that everyone packed noodles?"  She soon found the answer when she heard the call of noodle vendors walking along the highway.  The traffic problem is apparently so regular and prevalent outside of Beijing that there are regular food vendors that walk along the highways, selling nourishment to weary travellers.  These people's livelihood depend on traffic to be so backed up that people literally stand still for hours.  At one point late in the night, amidst much ruckus and complaining and patronizing between passengers, it was announced that everyone should go to sleep because they weren't going anywhere.  And so people got back into their cars and buses and tried to sleep.  Around 1am, traffic started moving inch by inch, and around 4am, which was about 12 hours later than expected, our friend finally arrived in Beijing. Stories like that make me grateful that my ridiculous commute is 'only' an hour and a half long.  And that the very, very worst traffic only adds forty-five minutes to any drive instead of twelve God-forsake and bathroom-less hours.

 

Conversation highlights along the way:

 

Friend: So what happens, say, if a person has a heart attack in this traffic?

Local 1: Sucks to be that person.

 

 

Local 2: Socialist state, my foot!  Look at this mess.  These people ought to be lined up and shot.

I See Starving People

At the age of near-ninety, my grandfather is almost blind and has a poor sense of taste, but he apparently has a fourth sense about body fat.  When I went to say hi to him this morning, he commented that I had lost weight.  Everyone else around told him that that was not true.  To which he replied that it was probably because he hadn't seen me in about ten years.  Then everyone pointed out it was actually one, as I was just here last summer.  He also said that I should not diet.  When people repeatedly tried to tell him that I had not lost weight (and some commented that I had actually gained a few pounds), he very diplomatically said that I was the ideal weight.  Maybe he divined all this from our handshake.  I don't know, but I'm a believer in grandpa.  I'm also inclined to believe my grandmother's nursing aide, who said that I had not only lost weight but have also grown taller.  Since last summer.  There are some lies that are just so outrageous that they have to be true.

Dispatch from the Motherland

I have decided that I must bring my camera with me everywhere.  Forgot to do that this morning and now I have one less day of memories on record.  Staying in with the relatives is actually a very boring affair here.  Cable has been down for days because of a typhoon that passed a few days ago.  Can't even watch the Liberation Day fireworks on TV.  But outside- outside lies a world of excellent street eats for cheap and stores just brimming with cute stationary and bags, all paid for by the parents (decision not to change money into local currency is oen of wisest decision made in months). 

Things I Am Allergic To

(Hello, I'm in Taiwan)

 

Dust

 

Llama wool

 

Ginkgo biloba (not really, but how cool would that be?)

 

Unknown additive in cheap Chinese seafood products (for a brief period in 8th grade, still don't know what it is or what was up)

 

Physics

 

and now newly acquired:  Every single room in my grandfather's house.  And, as Jesus says, "There are many rooms in my grandfather's house."

Goodbye for Now

I am sitting next to two fools in the local library who are having trouble finding four sources for a paper on Lincoln.  It makes me sad knowing that they go to one of the better high schools in the state.  And that judging by appearances, they're probably two of the better students at school (they look very B+).  They've tracked down one book, but can't figure out where exactly it is.  The fools are stuck on "how they (the library) organize this (books)."

 

My internet is down.  Again.  This makes life very inconvenient.  Especially when I need to read emails in Chinese.  But that's OK, because I'm going off to Taiwan on Columbus day.  So I probably won't blog for awhile.  Did I forget to tell you ahead of time?  Apparently, I've been forgetting to tell a lot of people.  Last weekend at the Bo', full of eating out and not moving much at all earned me about three pounds of flesh.  I wonder what two weeks of excess will do and I can't wait to find out.

Healthy Hydrogens

Strange things are happening in the city and they keep interfering with my commute.  On Wednesday, two blocks were closed to traffic, fire engines were posted everywhere, helicopters hovered over buildings, and the T stopped because of a mysterious gas leak by the Longwood/Harvard School of Public Health area that turned out to be a non-issue.  A non-issue but a huge traffic nightmare.  Then this morning, I arrived at North Station to find the biggest crowd I had ever seen there, but of course, nobody knew why.  But the kicker was what happened after I got off of the subway to walk into work.  Traffic that had been going on smoothly was suddenly halted as two cops on motorbikes with full sirens sped to the middle of the busy intersection, stopped, and started directing traffic by hand.  Then left after five minutes.  Sometimes, I think traffic is a bit like God.  Mysterious, odd-number of letters, and affects my life in profound ways I never expect.

Moi: ... they said it's a hydrogen leak.  But hydrogen isn't that harmful right?

Lenny: Well...

(I think about what I said for a second)

Moi: Oh, except when they make bombs.  Right.  But what I don't understand is, why do they have hydrogen at the school of public health? 

Lenny: To make bombs.

Moi: At the school of public health?

Lenny: They never said public health was only about positive impact.  It's just studying impact.  A bomb would have a negative impact on the public, and they'll study why.

Really can't wait until Lenny's MPH program starts next year.

The Man, The Legend, The Firefighter

Regis has the same birthday as me.  But that's pretty much where the similarities end.  He's an eagle scout, biologist, and soccer player.  Fighter of fires, destroyer of darkness, and a beacon of truth.  He's spending his year after graduation in Africa right now, saving children from AIDS through soccer and goodness.  His absence has left a hole in many hearts.  And whenever I'm around his friends, they can't stop talking about him.

Moi: I missed the train by six minutes!  Now I have to wait another hour.  So mad.

Mac: You should've ran.

Moi: I did!  But there's no way I can make up six minutes' time by running.  The train was already gone by the time the subway pulled in.

Mac: Regis would have run.  He would've caught it. 

Moi: It was six minutes!  He would've had to run so fast that the earth spun backwards on its axis and turned back time to catch it.

Mac: Haven't you met Regis?  Regis could've done it.

Gawky Pocky

Co-worker Jen, one of my favorite people in the office and a fellow suburban Massachusetts Taiwanese-American (though my first-generation-ness makes me far more fobby than she is), just turned down my offer of a Pocky stick.  A Men's Pocky stick at that.  (For the unawares, Men's Pocky is covered in dark chocolate instead of the regular milk and far superior to original Pocky, just as Men are far more superior than the rest of the world.) 

"I don't know why," she said, "but a chocolate covered pretzel stick just doesn't appeal to me. 

"But it's on a stick!"

"Tell you the truth, I actually prefer the American chocolate-covered pretzels."

"Because it's so salty?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Pocky is not an inferior pretzel.  Pocky is fine.  It is slender.  It is Asian childhood, well-known secret, and homesickness relieved.  This rejection ranks up there with other food-related tragedies such as the Vegetarian Revelation of the Band Man: Not as devastating as the Vegetarian Revelation of Ira Glass (second only in conversion heart breaks to Lenny), but certainly far worse than Day Thorne Serves Raspberry Pancakes instead of the Banana Chocolate Advertised, an event which caused me to be despondent all morning, comforted only by those fluffy, freshly made raspberry chocolate chip pancakes from Thorne.  God, I miss a good Thorne breakfast.

President of One

Never a huge B Mills fan in my four years at the Bo', I was thrilled to hear this story over the weekend...

There's some year-long fine arts series going on at the Bo' meant to coincide with the re-opening of our art museum, and as part of that series, many hotshot artsy speakers are invited onto campus.  Last week was the opening of the series and after the talk, B Mills, like the great socializing and fundraising president that he is, went up to the esteemed speaker to introduce himself.

B Mills: Hello, I'm president Barry Mills, I just wanted to thank you for coming, I really enjoyed your talk.

Speaker: President of what?

(Awkward pause)

B Mills: ... of the college.

Speaker: Oh.

(Longer awkward pause)

Nosiness of Strangers

I saw a lot of strangers today. And though I didn't need their help, many of them tried to help me. Lenny said it has something to do with my perma-confused face. She has a perma-nervous face. It's the eyebrows we were born with, people! What're we supposed to do about it?

Earlier this evening, four fighter jets opening the division series fly over head and rudely disrupted my conversation with Lenny, so I said stupidly, "Well, that was loud. I hope the folks at Fenway are OK." The comment somehow led a passerby to decide that a. it was OK to stop and talk to us and that b. I was confused/made anxious by the sight of fighter jets. "Those planes are just for the Sox game tonight," he explained uselessly. Thank you, kind sir, is that why they're at Fenway?

Then in the MFA, a guard stopped me to give me directions to the coat check as I was walking toward it to check my bags, prompting Lenny to remark, "you're just full of awkward encounters today, aren't you?" But the day's business wasn't over yet. Standing harmless in the middle of a gallery, talking amongst ourselves and discussing what it would've been like had we met at the Winslow exhibit we saw many years ago, Lenny and I were approached by an old lady. She asked if we were looking for the drawing class. No, woman, we're admiring the paintings. And that's why we're standing in front of them. And pointing.

Is northern iciness dead? Am I wearing a sign that says "come white saviors, I'm helpless"? Why can't people leave me alone?

In a slightly opposite vein, caught a later train to usual tonight (with a brief detour at Mac's) and happened to sit next to a man I had nicknamed "black man with yellow duffel from the 7:16 train"- one of many people I recognize from my daily commute. Tonight, we nodded in recognition of each other, said hi, and left each other alone for most of the ride. Then, as the train was finally pulling close to the stop, we made small talk about long days and where we worked and where we lived. No unsolicited offers to help, no uninvited thoughts on the weather-we stuck very close to mutual ground, and that is how you talk to strangers, people.

Arrgh You Just Happy to See Me?

There's a new post hidden under the Monday one. Blogger is weird like that.

Favorite lines from the weekend...

Moi: You know what's the opposite of a cougar? A pirate.

Rachel: I don't hate pirates! I just hate people who talk like them.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
(on why impossible crushes won't work)

Sesame: ...so he's not the commitment type?

Moi: Well, he's the type that's committed to his wife and child. And people he's actually in a relationship with.

Moody Monday

Stats on my battle against this Monday morning thus far.

Monday	Moi
Woke up 30 minutes late	Managed to be on time for work
Skipped breakfast
Bumped into another car in parking lot	Jury is still out on damages, but doesn't look like I scratched anything.
Score: 3	Score: 1

From the Day We Arrive on the Planet

After four years on campus and four months away, my return last Friday was hazy, tiring, and exhilarating. Then on Saturday morning, everything seemed to come full circle.

The day started off in this room. And quickly moved onto a shower. In a freshman dorm. With shower shoes and a shampoo caddy and everything. Just like four years ago, it was a humbling and pomegranate-y experience. (And no, I'm not shady. I just stayed with the wondrous Megan, interior decorator extraordinaire and head proctor over some very trusting first years.) Since my key no longer worked on campus, I relied on the good graces of freshmen to let me into the building. All weekend long, they opened the doors for me without asking who I was. So long as I knocked on the door, no matter the hour, they were willing to let a complete stranger in. This just days after the head of security gave them all a talk on not opening the door to strangers. You know, I don't think they're a very bright group.

Later in the morning, after a much-needed visit to Grand City (don't know why, but I can't find a place near home that'd serve corned beef hash, fried eggs, and English muffins with a side of old-people-watching for less than five dollars. Starbucks doesn't have any of those things), I met up with Professor BSketch. She probably shouldn't be called BSketch anymore because she's not sketch. Anyway, in a great reversal of student-teacher roles, she brought me an apple. A wonderfully fresh, crisp, and tart apple. I love the taste of societally ascribed roles crumbling away.

Then there was the hug, which actually took place on Friday. Many moons ago, when our upper-level soc seminar ended, the Band Man invited our class over for holiday cookies and guacamole (and I totally wowed everyone with my potato pancakes). We all lingered much longer than anticipated that afternoon, partly because it was bittersweet for one of everyone's favorite class to be ending, but mostly because it was reading period and no one wanted to read. When it was finally time to go, Band Woman mentioned that Band Man was "a hugger"- a comment that none of us knew what to do with. Chris may have hugged him in response. The rest of us just milled around mumbling our goodbyes. Until Diem, who was dropped often and hard as a child, shouted "Group hug!"

At first, I tried to laugh it off. But a couple of people actually started linking arms. And soon the rest of us couldn't back off. It all happened so fast. Suddenly, the ten or so of us found ourselves huddled together. We shared a group hug. Followed quickly by an awkward pause. Until we promised never to speak of the moment to anyone. I mean, I'm nerdy as hell, but even I understood how wrong it was for us to group hug. Except I just broke the promise. And will probably get leprosy now.

Anyway, to bring this all back full circle, as I made my Riley House rounds on Friday, I hugged a couple of professors in the process. Band Man included. And as we all know is stated in the Handbook of Hugs, each new hug erases the awkwardness of all previous hugs, so all is wiped clean and smooth.

Gordy: I bet you're still shaking from the experience. I know I would be.

Diem: No! You know no one's allowed to hug him unless it's in a group.

Upward Bound

Went back to the Bo' this weekend and had a most excellent time. Stopping by Riley House, helping out with Common Good Day, breakfasts at Grand City, giving people directions, post-General Hospital Taco Bell run, meeting people at parties, sacreligious Sunday brunch, chatting with Mac and BSketch, mildly drinking with Gak... it all felt as if I never left. In a very good way.

 

One new experience this weekend, however, was the awesome feeling of being the oldest person at a party by only a year. Had I been amongst kids older than I am, I would have enjoyed many jokes at my expense as I tried to act cool, had it been a party of true friends and peers, we would have had a great time enjoying each other's presence, and had I been with people much younger, I would not have enjoyed myself at all. But being at a party with kids all a year younger than I am, everyone enjoyed my presence. They looked excited to see me. Impressed by the fact that I've graduated and found a job. And very eager to hear my grown-up wisdom. There were no belittling comments about being back too soon or being a nerd for the Common Good, just admiration for being ever so slightly older than my now senior friends. So people look for booze to make their parties memorable, I look for misguided respect.

Jam on the Highway

Dear World:
  So much to tell you about my action packed life, but my internet is down.  How is this post possible if my internet is down?  Do not question my ways, world, I am powerful and mysterious.

Super Suave

Following a Bo' reunion of great proportions, I crashed at Mac and TimmyCake's place last night.  Thus when I started my day this morning, I started at their place.  Where I discovered a testosterone packed bathroom (with the cutest sink ever- it's in the corner and tiny and you have to lean over the toilet to get there).  They had no hair dryers.  But instead, there were Suave Shampoo and Conditioner FOR MEN (their emphasis, not mine).  Suave body wash FOR MEN.  Razors for MEN.  and surprisingly, Denture Cleaners FOR MEN.  I didn't need the last two, but with no fragrant flowery shampoos of my own on hand, had to help myself to some shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.  And now I smell both Suave and manly.  But what else is new?

So Suave am I, in fact, that I made a memorable impression at an important meeting today with faculty from our division and outside vendors.  And really, God planned the whole thing pretty perfectly so that my pen, which I often spin, spun out- and though I normally catch my pens, this one slipped away and dropped- and by some great feats of physics it dropped onto my cup below- a ceramic cup I never bring into the conference room and had actually just moments before switched in place of a paper cup.  And not only did the pen drop onto the cup but it landed in such a way as to create a crisp and loud PING right as our division chief was delivering his summary remarks, causing all to pause and stare at me as I tried to act as I smell.  What were the odds, Lord Jesus!?

This End Up

There was one point in our ASB DC trip in March when we all rode down the escalator at the Metro.  Then standing there waiting, Gak pointed out that the escalator we were standing by was going up.  Even though we had just come down on the escalator.  Weird.  No one could quite wrap their mind around it.  Gak came up with an elaborate explanation in which the escalators were somehow smart enough to switch directions every few minutes, depending on foot traffic.  Then someone discovered that there were two escalators.  And pointed out that we had come down a different one.  We all felt very foolish.  But that didn't dampen our spirits because we were also feeling very good about ourselves.  We were ending hunger and homelessness.

The escalators at North Station are side by side, so you can clearly see which one is going up and which one is going down.  This morning, however, they were switched.  The one that usually went upward was going down and vice versa.  I have no idea why the directions reversed, but it sure was fun watching people try to go down the wrong escalator.  It's funny when people are dumber than I am.  It makes me feel good about myself, almost as good as when I end hunger and homelessness.

Freeze Frame

At Trader Joe's the other day, I was standing at the check out counter while the man behind me judged all that I had chosen to buy (it's ok, I was mighty fine with my simple selection: TJ's spinach tomato sauce and frozen latkes). "Are those any good?" He asked, pointing to the latkes. "Yeah, I like them." After a pause I added nonchalantly, "I mean, they're frozen, but they're pretty good." The cashier nodded. He liked them, too. Then Man and Cashier Man started chatting while I remained silent. It was all I could do to act cool and keep myself from telling both of them that the latkes actually make me shed silent tears of longing for the eastern European grandmother I never had each time I eat them.