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| howdy all,
so i'm in DC. yup. hard to believe, eh? they pay me and everything! :) :) :)
i've started at the new american dream. i love the people and my job is pretty interesting.... well, it's getting a lot better as of a couple days ago. somewhat of a slow start, but i'll be doing a few different things: 1) leading a group of volunteers in developing a buying wisely guide to living in three DC neighborhoods. we've created some surveys for volunteers to bring to local businesses to find out how green/local/thrifty they are...the results will be used to give a rating to businesses in those neighborhoods and then providing follow up support in helping the businesses improve. 2) working on the junk mail campaign to help people get off junk mail lists and hopefully pass some legislation on the issue.... 3) developing the online community and writing for the website...and lots of online research.
i've moved into my house. it's pretty sweet .:) i like my roommates, they'll be a lot of fun. i've been getting settled in and it's nice to put all my things in order. i've started making some friends, too...some really great people out here, but i miss my old friends in ia. : (
drew is coming back to the u.s. soon. :) it'll be nice to be on the same continent again... i'm going back to ia city over labor day weekend, so if you're going to be in town send me a note and maybe we can have a little shindig so i can see everyone--especially the kids i didn't get to see when i was back a few weeks ago. :)
so that's my life in a nutshell. miss you all. hope all is well. take care,
~me. | | |
| Hello all!
First things first: I got the job at the New American Dream!! www.newdream.org It's the outreach fellowship position- you can read about it on the site. Basically I'll be working on developing their online organizing set up, speaking to the public at different local events around DC, helping with several campaigns, and creating a Buying Wisely Guide for the Washington DC area. It's a one year position that pays 1250/month...which isn't much, but it's more than most fellowships pay for these kinds of organizations. But I'll only work 4 days/week-32 hours...and it has decent benefits and they reimburse for using public transportation. So that's good. :) I'm really excited about living just outside DC...it's in Takoma Park, MD, but they have offices in DC as well-so I'll be in both. I'm thinking about getting a part time waitressing job or something to help pay the bills, but I'm also going to be studying for the GREs and maybe the LSATs so I'm not sure... :/ we'll have to see how it goes. I'm really excited, but also really nervous, and taking this job will mean a lot of changes...
Since our trip in May we've stayed around Beijing pretty much- eating good food, wandering around some parks, watching lots of movies, and being good student/teacher etc. But this past weekend we did manage to get away to Nanjing- the city where drew studied last semester. Unfortunately we didn't do much site-seeing, but we got to spend a lot of time with his friends from last semester which was really really great. I also got to eat a lot of really good chocolate chip cookies, macaroons, and blueberry cheesecake. OH so delicious. :) :) :)
I'm feeling really overwhelmed with this new job and leaving China and leaving the few people I've met here...It seems it's a bit too early, even tho a couple of weeks ago I had a bag packed ready to head home out of frustration... Being in Nanjing with Drew's friends made me think about how different this experience would have been had I come and found a group of foreigners...or just any group to bond with...Before this trip I had no idea how important having a community of people was to my health and sanity...But I won't make that mistake again. :P
Let's see...that's about it. Oh, I think I broke my big toe this weekend somehow.. I woke up Sunday morning and it was super swollen and looks exactly how my other toe looked when I broke it-hurts about as much too. :/ Ick.
Love to you all. Hope you're all well. Keep the updates coming. ;)
~jules. | | |
| So we’re finally back from our long journey South. We left Friday morning on a 7 am flight to Chengdu. From the airport we went to our hostel which was an old printing building. They tore the whole thing down and then rebuilt it with all the old materials. Pretty cool. J That afternoon we saw a big Mao statue, went to People’s Park, and went to a really great art and antique market. At People’s Park Drew and I rented a rowboat and had a bit of an adventure going down some narrow canals and under some really low bridges (the pics are up now). Later on we met up with his friends from last semester in Nanjing. I was so glad to finally meet them. We all ate dinner together at Grandma’s restaurant.
Saturday morning Drew and I went to see the pandas at the panda breeding research center outside Chengdu. We wandered off from the group and saw the red pandas **definitely much cooler than the pandas, tho the pandas are pretty cool**. For lunch we had hot pot with his friends and then wandered around trying to find a Mao propaganda shop (unsuccessfully). For dinner we went to Pizza Hut…pretty good—tho not the same as home. That night Drew and his friend Chris got a Tibetan fire massage (those pics are up too).
Sunday morning we went to Emei Shan city to leave our stuff at a hostel. From there we went to Le Shan where we saw the largest seated Buddha in the world. His big toe was just a little shorter than me, I think. It was pretty incredible, even tho several people had previously mentioned to me that it wasn’t all that spectacular. I was very impressed… On our way down from the temples at the top we met a young man who invited us to have dinner with him. We went to a restaurant and Drew and he talked in Chinese for a while. We got a taxi back to Emei Shan city and went on a walk to find some yan rou tuanr (goat meat on a stick—pretty tasty). By the time we got back to the hostel I was pretty much passed out.
Monday we went to Emei Shan—the mountain. We saw monkeys, waterfalls, gorges, temples, and tons of sweaty Chinese tourists…We literally climbed up and down a mountain in one huge line…But we got to stop and put our feet in the cold water by the waterfalls. It was very refreshing… The monkeys were absolutely ridiculous…They would run up to people and grab food, bottles, and anything else from the tourists’ hands, tear it from its packaging and then throw the wrappers into the stream below—quite the little thieves—and litterbugs. :/ That night we returned to Chengdu.
Tuesday we went to the cottage of the famous poet DuFu and back to the art/antique market. I bought way too much stuff. We saw Drew’s brother’s old university where he taught English for a while and then went shopping in a couple Tibetan stores around there. I bought way too much again. :P That night we took a 4 ½ hour bus ride to ChongQing—one of the three furnaces of China and one of the most polluted cities in China/the world. We got in late and I wasn’t feeling good, but spent about an hour figuring things out in our travel agent’s office. They finally found us a hotel—everything in the whole city was pretty much booked…and they took us there. We were scheduled to leave on a bus the next morning at 6am, but at about 2:30 I woke up vomiting…and then again at 3:30 and again at 4:30…So Drew called and cancelled the trip. Our travel agent guy was really concerned and wanted to come take me to the hospital, but Drew assured him it was just food poisoning or something. He showed up later that morning with a bag of fruit for me. We got some of our money back, but not all of it. We were really disappointed that we couldn’t go…
The plan was to take a bus to WanXian, a speed boat to Wushan on the Yangzi River, a small boat to the three gorges and back to Wushan, a speed boat to Yichang, a bus to Wuhan, and then a train back to Beijing. It would’ve been amazing—the gorges are scheduled to be destroyed by a huge dam they’re building on the Yangzi…which is really sad because they are just absolutely gorgeous, I hear. But we still have until 2007/9 to see it… So maybe I’ll have another opportunity later on. Ah well.
Instead, I stayed in bed all day, wandered around ChongQing that night, wandered a bit the next morning and then took a train back to Beijing. The whole train trip was about… 25 hours. We got a hard sleeper which means a little compartment with 2 bunks three beds high. It wasn’t too bad—a lot better than the plane ride from the U.S. to China….soooo much more comfortable. Some day they’ll have sleeper planes. I’d be a fan of that. :P Anywho.
Drew and I pretty much bummed around the rest of the weekend in Beijing and prepped for classes this week. Now I’m back teaching and, honestly, I’m not too happy about that. L However, I will be having an interview this week with the New American Dream organization. I applied for a fellowship position which would start this June, which means if I get the position I’ll be home pretty soon. Of course, I’d have to leave again right away as the fellowship is in Maryland. We’ll see. J J I think I actually have a chance on this one! J
So that’s the most updated-update for now. The pictures from the trip are up…no subtitles yet. I’ll try to get around to that soon. Love and miss you all.
~me again. | | |
| Hello hello!
Not too much is going on at the moment. I've had a good couple of weeks. The Friday after I got back from Japan, Drew and I went to the Summer Palace for the afternoon. It was absolutely gorgeous...lots of willow trees, Chinese-style gazebos, blooming plum trees and high bridges. Amazing that such a beatiful place could be in the middle of a city like Beijing... I'm discovering more and more parks as I page my way through the guide book... I think many Friday afternoons will be quickly booked with touring all of them. :)
Earlier that week I had met a couple of girls on the subway. I met one of them for dinner...She was really really nice. Her name is SunSi. Her last best friend was a girl from Italy. Her English is much better than my Chinese, but our conversation topics have been quite limited. I'm hoping we can help each other out. :P
This past weekend I needed some adventures on my own, and really wanted to see more of Beijing, so Friday I took the subway to the Bell and Drum Towers. Pretty cool...you can check out the pictures on the community webshots page. :) After that I walked south past JiangShan park and the Forbidden City to Tiananmen Square where I met up with Drew and his brother. The three of us stopped for some food and then went on to the National Art Museum. It was a nice size. We saw everything within about an hour. After wards we wandered over to WangFuJing and saw the food stands (I'd never seen skinned sheep testicles on a stick before...yum? :/ ). We had some Samuel Adams (SaMu) at the Crowne Plaza (a really expensive hotel that I will never ever ever be able to stay the night in...without selling a kidney)...and then took a cab out to this Jazz restaurant called the Big Easy.
Saturday morning I was still craving some time on my own, so I wandered over to the Confucian Temple in the northeastern part of Beijing. I explored the area, went shopping along the way, and discovered that public restrooms are pretty easily accessible in most parts of Beijing...and every one I've been in has been pretty superior to the gas station restrooms I've been in in the U.S--tho you do need to remember your toilet paper. Always a plus. After I went to the temple I just wandered around, got lunch, and stopped in a couple pet shops to pet kittens. :) awe. Then I spent a couple hours at the JiangShan Park. This park was made into a hill using the soil dug to make the moat around the Forbidden City. There are some really nice views from the top of the hill, and so many beautiful flowers and bonsai trees and lilac bushes. so nice. :) Later I met Drew at Tiananmen Square where we blew some bubbles and took some pictures with random Chinese people wanting a photo with a foreigner, and then headed back home. That night I went to hang out with my new friend Sunsi, mentioned earlier...We wandered around WuDaoKou and got some cotton candy, stuffed animals and some coffee. It was really nice. Her mom had sent some jiaozi along for me...I thought that was really sweet. :) I told her I'd like to learn how to do some cooking, and she said her mom would love to teach me. :) Sounds like fun to me. ;)
Sunday morning was Easter, so Drew, his brother Brandon, and I all went to a mass in the furthest corner of Beijing from us :P It was interesting. Given the special circumstances of Christian-non-Catholics being unable to attend other services where they could receive communion, they allowed other Christians to have communion as well. I thought that was pretty sweet of them...even though it seems weird that I shouldn't be able to anyways. But whatever. Whatever floats their boat. After the service we got some coffee and went to Grandma's Kitchen for some good home-style food. I got pancakes, scrambled eggs, and *gasp* bacon . good. :)
I've started eating meat again...and enjoying it...which is both kind of sad AND a great relief...meat is pretty hard to avoid here. :/ I recently discovered what I thought was goat meet is actually lamb...I'm going to cut that habit out...I just can't deal with eating a little lamb. That's like eating babies. Just can't do it...no matter how soft and tasty the meat is. ; )
I've been working on being more positive recently...and I think I'm improving...my depression is pretty much gone, tho little things spark it again without two seconds' notice. I thought I'd share with you all my top ... 20 list of things i love about China so far.
1) Street Meat
2) Pineapple on lots of the corners
3) Street breakfast foods
4) Ruo Baozi. yum.
5) This egg and tomato dish that is good everywhere at any time
6) willow trees
7) blooming plum trees
8) lilac bushes
9) parks, canals, and gazebos
10) candied strawberries and kiwis and pineapple on a stick
11) squat toilets. i totally prefer them now. they make so much more sense.
12) little kittens for sale for less than 5 bucks (tho it's sad at the same time)
13) how people laugh when they miss the bus, don't get mad when they're shoved onto or off of buses, and don't seem to be at all annoyed or exasperated by squeezing 200 people on a bus meant for 60 people.
14) rice with every meal...and tea, too.
15) the magical forcefield around all cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians on the streets of beijing which allows them to come dangerously close without actually colliding...i have only seen 2 accidents, but witness daily at least 30 SHOULD-Be accidents. i think it's something in the tea...
16) the roofs.
17) random people say hello all the time... mostly because i'm a foreigner...but it's still kind of nice sometimes.
18) how you can get food any time of the day or night.
19) butt butt pants. definitely.
20) chinese rap... because it's just cute.
ummmmmmm...yeah. that's about all my thoughts this evening. i'm going to watch a movie and go to bed early. hope you are all well and had a good Easter (if you celebrate it). check out my new photos.
love you to all.
me. | | |
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