Moving couches

I have arrived!!

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts for my travel. It was a very crazy day/days of traveling but the father was faithful and I made all of my connecting flights and even had an empty seat next to me on my international flight!! I am in the process of settling in to my apartment, getting all registered with the police and getting my student visa Friday. Orientation starts on next Monday and then classes on the 1st. I still dont have internet in my apartment yet but am at a little coffee shop with wireless down the street. I'll write more about my apartment and Changchun (my new city) soon. I thought today I would give a little overview of my first full (very full) day in China! Enjoy and thanks again for thoughts and continued thoughts as I adjust to China time and get over jet lag!


Sunday, August 17
12.30 AM-wake up wide awake thinking its time to leave and realize that no, it isnt time to get up yet. I then went back to sleep but was on and off awake until about 3.30 when I just laid in bed til about 4 AM when I then decided it was late enough to get out of bed! I got up and went to take a shower. Killed a roach on the way in the kitchen. Took a shower then unpacked some, ate a luna bar and some warm orange juice (couldn't figure out how to turn my fridge on the night before so yeah). Around 5.15 I left the house for the train station. I took the 6 AM to go up to Harbin (my old city) to get my things from last year. I had a sleeper train so I slept almost all of the 3 and a half hours to Harbin which was great. I was awakened by the train guy getting my ticket and got out of the train to the familiar Harbin.

I took a taxi over to my old school, stopped at the supermarket to put some money on my phone and headed up to my apartment. One of my good friends met me at my apartment as we waited for the movers. They were supposed to come around 10.30-11 but we kept calling and they kept not showing up. Finally around 1 they showed up and were surprised to find out I had other things besides the couch (we had told the company but I guess there was a little miscommunication-or a lot). There was a lot of looking around, sighing, calling the company, sighing, telling me it was going to be very expensive to package everything again, sighing, and after about 20 minutes later they started moving things out. The couch was quite the event moving it out of the apartment. Finally we got everything moved out around 2 (I had a 3.30 train back so we are feeling a little rushed) and headed off for the moving company.

When we get to the moving company (after a random stop to get large boxes from some friend of the movers) they start taking things out of the truck to move to the bigger boxes. As I watch them throwing my boxes of glasses and things clearly marked as breakable I am cringing thinking about how I am going to have to buy all new dishes! I am telling them "please be careful" and they are like "oh, huh..." They are still telling me how it is going to be expensive to use the company to package everything again in bigger boxes. They tell me they (the guys moving the stuff) can do it that night for "cheaper." I am thinking their price is not cheaper but they also say they will be very careful with everything. They even offer me a ride in their truck, which I decline (4-5 hours in a hot truck on Chinese highways with 2 random Chinese men as opposed to my fast train (1.5 hour airconditioned) ticket this afternoon-no thank you). Anyways, it starts just getting tiring with all the talking and I finally get the men's ID information (for safety of my stuff) and decide to go with them instead of using the company-at least I know who will be throwing my stuff around! I pay them the initial deposit and head to the train station. Once to the train station I go and sit in the waiting room, enjoy a little "Scarborough Fair" for listening enjoyment (in the train station, not my ipod!) and get on my train.

On the train after about 15 minutes we slow to a stop. Confused I ask the next to me if this was a scheduled stop and she informs me that the air conditioning in the back of the train is broken. I then also see this as shirtless men are walking to the front cars through ours to go bring back bottles of water to cool themselves off. After not too long we get going again (I guess they fixed it). I arrive back in Changchun after about 2 hours and head back to my apartment, climb the 7 flights of stairs (that's right-7th floor no elevator). I drop my stuff off and go out and get some Subway (yea Subway in Changchun) and head back to my apartment and start making room for all my stuff and couch. The rest of the night I watched some Olympics, cleaned up some, killed a roach, took another shower, ran from a bigger roach, and took about an hour nap. Around 12AM I called the movers to check up when they were going to make it. They didnt know how to get to my apartment. About 12.30 I go outside and find some punk kids hanging out and got them to give the movers directions to my apartment. Finally the movers arrive and complain a big about how they can't park closer to my apartment door and say how the couch won't fit through the doors. We climb the stairs and they look around my apartment for a bit. They then start carting stuff up the stairs (using my headlamp because the lights in the stairwell are broken except on 2 floors). They take some rests and we watch Olympics as they cool off and wipe the sweat off. Finally its down to the couch around 3AM. I go down to help. They say the cant bring up the couch. I ask what are we going to do. They pick up the couch and the one part (its two parts) makes it up the stairs no problem (well, at least without too much trouble-its never easy carrying a couch up 7 flights). The second part required us to take off one of the legs but we made it all. I pay the man the rest of his money. And I take another shower and go to bed. One day down in China!

Megan has arrived!

Megan has arrived safely to Changchun. She has been to Harbin and back and all her stuff was delivered (very early in the morning).

(Side note from the blog poster: I am not sure if I should write as if I am Megan or write about Megan. So if I change back and forth between the two, don't get confused!)

Heading out...

Just a real quick note with my schedule for the next few days! I will write more soon on here hopefully so keep checking back. I would really appreciate all of your thoughts the next few days. All of my layovers are really short so it will be close with all of my flights making them as well as my bags making all the different planes! Thanks and it was great seeing all of you this summer!
Megan

PS-if you want to receive my email/paper newsletters, leave a comment or email me your email and address!! Also if you have moved recently please also send me updates!

Friday 7.15 AM-Fly out of Little Rock
11.00 AM Arrive in Newark
12.05 PM-Fly out of Newark
Saturday 1.35 PM (China time) Arrive in Beijing
3.55 PM Fly out of Beijing
5.30 PM Arrive in Changchun
Sunday 6.00 AM Take a train to Harbin
9.00 AM Arrive in Harbin and meet with shipping company to ship all of my things to Changchun
3.45 PM Take train back to Changchun
5.30 PM Arrive in Changchun
Monday Medical Exams and Orientation for Language School begins!!!

Happy Birthday Calvin and Millie

So yesterday was Calvin, a kid on another team here in Harbin's birthday. After fellowship we had a birthday party for him (he turned 8). It was fairy tale themed so we all "dressed up" as fairy tale characters, ate Chinese food and played games including fairy tale charades and telling fairy tales from memory with a flannel board. Pretty interesting to hear people's renditions of the old stories we have all forgotten.

That night we celebrated my teammate, Millie's birthday by going to this Middle Eastern restaurant near our school. It is a little pricy but so good. We had all kinds of great food and enjoyed the great atmosphere of the restaurant.

This week is going to be an interesting one. Thursday is May holiday and so we have no class on Thursday or Friday, which is nice. I thought about taking a trip but decided to save money and work. So, tomorrow and wednesday I'll be giving midterms and then the last part of the week I am really going to try to get all my grading done and the tests for my thesis picked out to give in China and the US. I am studying the potential connection between creativity and computational math performance in the US and China so I'll be giving a creativity and math test in both China and the US so I have to get the tests picked out soon, translated and given.

Not much else exciting going on. 60 days until I fly back to America for the summer. That is pretty exciting. I'll be back on June 27, in grad classes in TN June 29, graduating from grad school on July 26, and then flying back to China again on August 15 so it will be a short trip but I am definitely looking forward to seeing many friends but also wanting to enjoy the rest of my time here this semester!

Pictures

Eating at Han's BBQ with some former students

About to go to KTV Karaoke















Singing at KTV!















Trying to stay warm!














Catherine and I staying warm!






So flickr is currently down in China so here are some pictures I have been talking about the last two posts! Check flickr in the next day or two though and hopefully it will be back!

Note-pictures are now up on flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan)

50 degree temperature drop? No big deal

So last Sunday it was around 85+ degrees here. Beautiful weather-it was wonderful; all the flowers were blooming. Fast forward to Wednesday 35 degrees with huge snowflakes for 5 or so hours. I was so sad to bring back my wool coat and put the chaco sandals back in the closet. I am so ready for it to be warm and spring but I still have to wait. I guess we do need to keep those long underwear out.

I got interviewed for the Heilongjiang Daily (newspaper of Heilongjiang (my) province) on Thursday. Pretty exciting. They asked us about the changes we have seen taking place over the last 30 years. Since I have only lived in China for a year and a half, it was pretty difficult to articulate. So we just kind of talked about what foreigners know and think about China and why we came and all that. It was fun at least to hear my Chinese colleague, Leslie, do translation (they really only spoke Chinese and my Chinese is not that good). It is so helpful to hear something in both languages-really gives me a better understanding of grammar.

So you know that peg game they always have at like Cracker Barrel and places like that where you jump pegs until you only have one? Well I got sent an Easter one of those and got it out tonight while hanging out with my Chinese friends. I was always pretty bad at the game and never had patience to figure it out. The next thing I knew, 3 different people had mastered how to play it in just a few minutes. I tell you, these HIT students are smart! We had a fun time just hanging out tonight-they were all tired so we just relaxed. We cuddled under blankets (since our heat went off a few weeks ago and it's cold again our apts are pretty chilly), talked a lot, listened to Norah Jones, made chocolate chip cookies, watched a little "House" and even did a little yoga.

Last week I gave the written part of the midterm for Oral English Sophomores. This week I will be continuing their midterm with the oral part and giving my juniors the writing midterm. It is a fun filled week. They will also turn in their research paper. So, I have 40 oral midterms, 40 writing midterms, and 40 research papers to grade-fun! I always thought writing a bibliography was hard to learn growing up. I've decided it's also quite difficult to teach-so many rules and so picky! Hopefully they looked at their notes carefully when working otherwise I am going to be using a lot of red pens!

Our email is down right now-well, kind of. We can get emails but we can't send emails unless we go through webmail so if I am slow in responding to any of your emails, that is why! Also why I am writing on here. Hope you are all having a great week! Check out my flickr for pictures to come soon I hope!

Back again

So we now have access again here in China so we'll see how long it lasts again! Here is from my latest email and I'll try to update hopefully a few times a week here so check back. Make sure to check out my flickr site of pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan

So Friday night I met up with some of my students from last semester. They met me at my dorm around 5 pm and headed to the "famous" Han's BBQ in Harbin. Students really seem to love this place. We got our own special little room and first went through the buffet line. In the buffet you get cold dishes such as fresh vegetables and fruit, some fruit salads and Chinese cold dishes. Among these included a dish made from "fish skin" and another with cow stomach (at least that is what I am pretty sure it was. At least someone's stomach-when I got it my students said they thought it was tofu; it was not). I did not get the strange looking dish that was "fish skin," however my student did and then asked me to try it. It wasn't skin like you peel off when skinning a fish, but more like white gelatin like material with some grey. The texture was indescribable.

Then later the waiters bring around various meets off of skewers and put it on your plate. Some were quite tasty, others were quite interesting. These included various animals' legs, chicken hearts, squid (very tough), a lot of fat, and many other parts of meet that my students did not know how to translate, which was OK with me. I don't eat a ton of meat really and so this kind of restaurant is somewhat challenging for me. I just cover it in this barbecue/ketchup sauce and put it in without thinking about it-mostly tasted pretty good!! The restaurant is sort of Russian themed and so we used forks and knives, which was fun to use with Chinese students-we talked about the "proper" way of using them (mom-you should be so proud). My favorite was one student, who always kept both in his hands and while chewing put the ends to the table like a child; so funny.

We had some great conversations and afterwards went to KTV, the Chinese oh-so-popular karaoke. We got our room and had some great times signing, using the tambourine and laughing together (I even sang Thriller for them and did the dance-it was great!). Around 10.30 I went ahead home because I was tired from classes all morning. It was a great evening.