It's 3 AM...again...

I woke up almost an hour ago because I dreamed that I was being given something that wasn't mine. I tried to take it and give it back, but then it stuck to me and started burning. I woke up trying to peel it off my chest and put it on the floor next to me. Somewhere in my dream battle I turned on the lamp by my bed and blinded myself by looking directly at it. After an hour of tossing and turning finally my husband said "please stop moving around, please stop moving around, please stop moving around." Being the astute women that I am, and recognizing that if someone starts to speak in threes they must really mean it, I took the hint and got up to make a cup of tea.

Why can't I sleep well? It could be a number of things. Anxiety. Questions in my mind not answered. Lack of resolution that seems to drag on for months. Exhaustion. Too much language crammed in my brain. Shouldn't these things help you to sleep well?

In honor of my last 3 am visit to my blog here is a list of things I am thinking about:

1) My friend TW has been blogging her grateful list based on a challenge from this blog. It's pretty convicting and challenging to choose to list 1,000 ways you are grateful for the life you have been given. I really appreciate TW's vulnerability in doing so. I feel more grateful for my life each time I read her list. Not because her life is so horrible and it makes mine look great in comparison or anything like, things are going pretty well for both of us, but just because it reminds me to be grateful.

2) I kind of wish I had brought a copy of It's a Wonderful Life to watch this Christmas. Or maybe Elf. I love Christmas movies.

3) I have a teacher named M laoshi. No matter what she is doing she approaches it with the utmost urgency. If you ever saw her take attendance you would know what I mean. I'm not sure if this is her personality or because of her role at the school. She has the task of monitoring all the liuxuesheng's which has to be difficult since the Korean students recently broke a window at a local restaurant and ended up at the police station, the Pakistani students never come to class on time, h1N1 has not bypassed the foreign students building and this American student is a little teed off about the suggestion of class on Christmas day.

4) I love M laoshi. She recently asked me to be interviewed on TV in 普通话 about American holidays. Before I knew it I said yes. Partially because I love her, partially because she asked in 普通话 and I am not sure if I really understood what I was getting into. This was a really miserable experience. (Oops, so much for gratitude). I now have one standard answer for all requests involving recording equipment that is not my own...NO. This will also make my husband happy since he receives the brunt of my stress.

5) M laoshi is someone I am grateful for. M laoshi is someone who I hope knows Him one day because she can see the difference in her students who know Him too. I hope I am one of those students.

6) I don't like to step on anyone's toes who might feel different then I do, but since I feel strongly about this I will just go ahead and say it. I equate Sarah Palin with fingernails on a blackboard. And I am completely put off by Amazon listing her book at the top of the Kindle page. How am I suppose to browse the bookstore in peace if I have to see her book listed? I suppose that Barnes and Noble would do the same and I should overlook this slight. But since B&N offers delicious beverages at outrageous costs it helps me move on to bigger and better book browsing more quickly. I'm sure Amazon would also extend this hospitality to their customers, but since they are an online company it does make it tricky to offer anything hot.

8) It's easy to forgive Amazon very quickly...they give away a lot of free Kindle books. And for that I am especially grateful! I heart you Amazon, your Kindle and your free Kindle books. Please keep asking publishers to give away free books...the reading public needs them!

9) I love my husband. I know I sometimes pick on him in my blog, keep him awake at night, and complain to him too often. But don't judge my actions, judge my heart!! And it is full of love.

It is now 4 am and after an hour of blogging, chatting and browsing I am a little sleepy. I hope this is the last of my 3 am blogging. These posts come out a little to raw for my taste. I promise to move on to blogging about happier things, like something funny that happened at the market or something interesting I read lately. Or maybe I'll just continue to make lists.

It's 3 AM...

Last night I dreamed about a bee that was trying to sting me. I killed it my quickly by smashing it between my head and shoulder. It was an awkward bee killing position and I woke up....screaming. Tonight I dreamed about a cockroach. But I won't go into detail because stories about cockroaches should be banned from blogs everywhere. Except for the story about PK, formerly PP who married well when it comes to stepping up the initial ladder if you ask me, and the cockroach that played hide and seek one night in our apartment. Hilarious. But that's another story...

The problem is now I can't sleep because my head is swimming with thoughts. In an effort to go back to sleep here are those thoughts, in no particular order:

1) I owe LM 7 kuai for Ma La Tong two weeks ago. Embarrassing, I don't know her that well and already I'm forgetting to pay her back.

2) Ma La Tong is delicious. I am so excited that I'm finally getting my "sea legs" when it comes to eating spicy food around this town. I hope CL will want to try some when she gets here.

3) I wonder if the wikianswers page that states "Dreams about bugs symbolize small parts of daily life that are bothersome and nagging..." might actually be correct.

4) I wonder if I cut up too much bread for the stuffing I was going to make when I woke up at a reasonable time later today.

5) Today I saw approximately 14 sheep butchered, skinned and de-gutted in the courtyard of our apartment complex. Is this part of the small part of daily life that is bothersome and nagging?

6) I've heard it said that people in this country don't like to talk about the weather, that it's just an American thing. But I don't think it's true. Every time I practice my weather vocabulary everyone seems to like talking about the weather. Taxi drivers, ladies selling house supplies at the small shops, neighbors passing by, my tutor. The only person who doesn't seem that excited to talk about it would be M Laoshi. But I think that might have more to do with my placing objects before verbs in my sentence structures. Dangit...I hate grammar.

7) I would like to take back my former tirade on the bags of milk and their disgusting aftertaste. Recently I have begun to consume milk bags in various forms: with granola, heated in the middle of the night to warm my stomach and help me fall back asleep, in mashed potatoes. Really, they aren't so bad.

8) Recently I started missing Real Simple magazine. That's when I discovered that you could get all kinds of daily or weekly emails from Real Simple sent to your inbox. Jackpot! I've subscribed to daily thoughts and holiday cookie recipes. I love the daily thoughts! I love the cookie pictures! The Captain might like it if I would actually make the cookies. I just like to sit around looking at the pictures. I feel Christmasy inside.

9) I wonder if I should be worried that I've adjusted to the milk bag aftertaste or if I should just go and heat another bag....

10) Tomorrow, or today depending on what time you are awake in the middle of the night, is the first day of Advent. Last year was the first year I've been part of a fellowship that did not build up to Christmas by celebrating Advent with the lighting of the candles. I was really sad. I didn't like it. The Captain said we should just make it a family tradition if it was that important to me. So we are. I bought a Kindle brochure on Advent and tomorrow/today we are lighting our first candle. I'm excited!

You drive a tough bargain laowai...

So one part of living here that I have yet to master, and possibly may never, is the fine art of bargaining.  Perhaps I'm lazy.  Perhaps I feel like 50 cents US is a really good price for four potatoes and a yellow onion and I'm more then willing to part with it for a delicious dinner. Who knows.  Whatever it is I really do not like bargaining.  When the items are a little larger then vegetables I'm a little more likely to give it a shot, but even when I try my bargaining techniques are not that well developed.  Usually it looks something like this:

shou huo yuan: 28 kuai.

wo: 25 kuai, hao bu hao?

shou huo yuan: hao da.

You can see I'm not getting that great of a bargain.  Although in that example I just gave I did walk away with a free bag of q-tips which I have previously purchased for 1 kuai.  Haha...so really I saved 4 kuai.  

Recently my bargaining skills plunged to an all time low when I made this mistake:

wo: Na ge dongxi dou shao qian.

shou huo yuan: Da ge 16 kuai, zhong ge 12 kuai.

wo: Hao da, wo yao san ge. (1 big plastic container, 2 medium plastic containers)  30 kuai, hao bu hao?

shou huo yuan: sanshisi kuai.

wo: sanshiwu

shou huo yuan: A...Wo shuo sanshisi, ni shuo sanshiwu.  Laughs hysterically.

To recap, I wanted to buy three plastic containers for leftovers so we could quit using up the plastic wrap and save the earth.  In all they should have cost 40 kuai, I tried to ask for 30 kuai.  The shopkeeper blocked my price and asked for 34 kuai.  I drove a hard bargain and said, "No way, I'm paying 35 kuai and not a penny less."  Or something like that.  

If you know of any good bargaining tips let me know...I need help out here!  If you also know how to make your husband quit listening to Cher that information might also come in handy.  For a friend of course, not for me.  

I promise that is what I heard...

Today we were standing in line at the local chaoshi/grocery store next to a large display of Nescafe when I realized that music was coming from the display.  English music.  English music with lyrics that went a little something like this...

Open up your mind and you can be anything you want to be.

If you're a man, you can even be a mother.

The Captain doesn't believe me, but I promise that is what I heard...

In other news if you have ever slumber partied with me, which should only be the female readers of this blog, then you might know that I am an avid sleep talker.  Yes, it's a nice hobby.  Well this morning I received a nice surprise from the Captain when he told me that last night I was sleep talking...in 普通话！ I was shocked and elated!  Maybe all this studying is starting to take root.  My first response, "We're my tones correct?"  He told me he didn't know, he was sleeping...

By the way to anyone who reads this is it more annoying when I try to write what I want to say in hanzi  like this 我想买一个东西。Or in pinyin like this Wo xiang mai yi ge dongxi. 

Did you know...

That a potato ricer makes really good salsa...

That the word zhou can either mean juk/rice porridge or week...but you really need to be able to read characters to know which one is which...

That when you disappoint your spouse it is sometimes hurts you so much that it can be physically painful...like when you don't take their work email out of the auto-fill cache in your mail box...

That imitation crab sticks cost about 25 cents for 10 around these parts...I'm not sure I really want to know why...

That our city recently got cream cheese and that I most certainly ordered two boxes which I look forward to consuming in many different delightful ways...

That I miss friends and family in the states and would love to see my little sister's new hair cut in person...

That I also am really bummed that I am going to miss this...and that if I was still in Dallas I would have my calendar marked and already be planning on what Seattle's Best drink I would be ordering while standing in line to wait for my cookbook to be signed...

That I am now craving a Cherry Amaretto latte...doesn't that sound delicious...

That tonight I am going to a Yoga class taught in 普通话 and that sometimes when I go to Yoga here it involves ropes...

That lately when I've been craving a nice, slow stroll through a bookstore I just go to this website...and that it usually does the trick...maybe if I just make a Nescafe coffee pack I'll have that just stepped away from the Barista feeling...

42 apples...and counting

Today in class my teacher asked: "Ni xiang chi le dou shao pinguo?"  Or something like that...I have a hard time recalling correct word order and sentence structure.  But what I don't have a hard time with is opening my mouth and saying the first thing that comes to mind.  Three seconds later when I realized that no one else in my class planned to answer I opened my mouth and let the first number that came to mind pop out.  Do you know what I said?

Si shi er pinguo

If you read this and know the proper sentence structure for asking how many apples you would like to eat, please reply promptly.  If you read this and actually thought that eating 42 apples was a good idea please reconsider.  If you read this and could relate because you also get random Chinese numbers or phrases trapped in your mind then don't worry, you are not alone.  

Non-Verbal Communication...

There is a little boy who lives in our stairwell who I adore.  He was one of the first kids in our apartment complex to try out his English with me. "Helloer" he says.  He also lets me try out my language with him.  "Ni Hao" I say.  

One time I came home in the rain and bumped into him in the door way.  It actually startled me a bit and so I said, very badly, "Wo bu zher dao ni zai zher."  (I'm not sure that's the correct grammatical structure.)  He just smiled, I think he was scared of me.

Today I saw this little boy and he said "Helloer."  I said, "Hello, how are you?"  I watched him take a deep breath and say "Hello, how are you."  I said, very badly, "Ni shuo YingYu, hen hao." Maybe he understood my sentence, even though I sure it was badly pronounced.  Or maybe my willingness to speak his language brought another phrase to mind because then  he said. "Helloer, I am fine t(S)ank you," and proceeded to bow very deeply.  

You want to know something?  This little boy and I are on the exact same page when it comes to language.  We both want to speak it, but don't always do the best job.  And we both use awkward body language to try and convey meaning when perhaps we should just stand still.  Of course his body language may have been a little more appropriate then mine.  My current body language involves bobbing my head as I try to remember which word to pronounce with which tone.  I look a little weird.  If we lived in India though this probably wouldn't be such a problem.  

My little friend gives me hope though.  And he also reminds me that language is about the ability to communicate.  And the ability to communicate provides the ability to have relationships.  And relationships are why we are here...