| Oh, and for the record |
[Mar. 3rd, 2010|09:40 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  mischievous | ] |
Note: If you're ever trying to defend any of China's questionable or inhumane policies, saying "I have friends who are party members," doesn't actually help, but, rather, detracts from your argument.
I thought that was a given, but... |
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| Oh yeah, Livejournal. |
[Mar. 3rd, 2010|09:35 pm] |
I'm back from China.
And I totally still have a livejournal.
So, dear friends, Kamilla's recent life includes:
-a new cat (named Ziggy Starcat)
-the Chinese death-cough
-daily Skypes to my adorable Chinese peasant boyfriend. (His name's Dawu, and he doesn't speak English)
-very,very serious work on my thesis
-dumpling withdrawal
-getting rid of years of junk (possible yard sale later this Spring)
-trying to re-connect with non-Chinese friends
-the realization I am WAY out of "The Loop" (China'll do that to a girl)
-trepidation--I sure hope it's not as hard as all that to get a decent job in D.C. with a masters degree and Japanese/Chinese language skills. T_T (And an adorable Chinese boyfriend)
Oh, and for those of you who didn't get it on facebook, my new blackberry number is 571-263-5781
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| Whoa, China |
[Aug. 4th, 2009|05:20 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Anlelin (home) | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Something by Ayumi Hamasaki. I couldn't tell you what. | ] |
Yeah. I updated. We should have a parade. And by we, I mean China.
For those of you who didn't know, I can't get on facebook anymore, because China hates me there is controversy and protests and such... So clearly youtube, facebook, and the cakewrecks blog must be blocked, just in case they might try to change my warm, fuzzy feelings for the CCP into militant criticism. Ah well, guess they thwarted my evil plans.
At least Youku (Chinese youtube which says F-you to licenses) has a lot of American television up, so I've been watching tons of shows in my free time.
Oh, this is also mostly to let you all know 2 things:
I'm coming back to the States at the end of January.
My 24th birthday is this Thursday.
But also:
I'm not working in my kindergarten anymore. I changed work locations, and hopefully I'll be online more and be able to update things more often. When I was still at the kindergarten, sans facebook, I really couldn't do much. My off-days are now Mondays and Tuesdays.
And:
Did you know a lot of Chinese people can't swim? Going to the Tuanjiehu public pool is sooooo amusing.
Back to cleaning my nasty, bug-infested apartment. (It's actually quite nice. I should post pictures when it's all clean.)
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| Monkeys in China |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|08:40 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Back in Beijing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Thumbs up | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Various | ] |
I like that I can justify a title like that. It's not me just trying to be random.
So I spent my October holiday in Guiyang, which is pretty much this city in a poor, land-locked province in southern china with lots of really cool ethnic minorities and poisonous snakes. And monkeys.
I will have a really cool story about it on my blog soon, but thought I'd go through the arduous process of dropping a line here on LJ (it's a chore in China).
Oh! If you don't want to read about it, just look at the cool pictures
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb266/Kamizilla/36%20-Guiyang/
The monkeys are in the Qian Ling Yuan folder.
Oh, yeah, but *do* read my blog.
http://beijingkamilla.expat-blog.net/
In Guiyang, everything is Wu Kuai. |
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| A new arrival |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|03:01 pm] |
Okay, since LJ is going to be a pain to work with while I'm in China and using the notes app here like a journal is annoying to me, I created a beautiful baby blog just for China.
http://beijingkamilla.expat-blog.net/
Updated more often than my LJ already...
Read and be amused! |
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| So that people know I'm alive... |
[Aug. 15th, 2008|08:58 pm] |
China!
The trip started out alright, but it progressively sucked. The good thing was I had no trouble making any of my connections. In fact, on the flight from Detroit to Narita I was fortunate enough to have 3 seats to myself (even though the plane was actually pretty full), and I got some sleep. At Narita, I had a little over 2 hours to play around with, and I more or less walked the length of the airport and soaked in Japan. I got a Japanese dinner, too. Oh, that was good.
However.
The three hour flight to Shanghai became a 7 hour flight. We flew all the way to Shanghai and we were in out final descent when we started hitting some nasty turbulence. There was a huge storm - lighting all around the plane. The plane was shaking pretty violently, and after a minute or so, the captain made the decision to head back. We flew back 50 minuted to an island off of Korea (my first time in Korea!) and landed. Because the airport wasn't ready for us, we had to stay on the plane. Luckily, everyone was pretty calm, and the stewardesses allowed me to lie flat in my back in the back of the plane in their kitchen area (where I got a little more sleep). I was trying not to worry too much, but I didn't know when we'd leave, or if we'd even leave that night. Luckily, about 2 hours of waiting and we took off again, made another 50 minute flight to Shanghai, and got the heck off the plane. Even though it was all due to weather, we all got 25$ vouchers from Northwest. It took another good 40 minutes or so to get through immigration and customs. Then I waited maybe 10-15 minutes for luggage. I wasn't even sure if anyone was waiting for me anymore! I didn't have a cell phone or any numbers to call, so I was just a little freaked out, but knew that things would work out okay somehow. (There wasn't use worrying too much... I was too tired to worry anyways.) Sure enough, I got my luggage and pushed my little cart out of the international arrivals area, and sure enough, poor poor Andy Hu from Scholastic was waiting there for me with a sign. It took a good 10 minutes to get a cab, and then the cab ride was something like another hour and 20 minutes or so. Got to the hotel, had to show them my passport and get processed, finally got to my room, and although I was dead tired I took a shower and did a little unpacking and reading, and THEN went to bed. It may have been 4 AM.
Then, for some reason, I woke up at 8am on the dot. I got up, got dressed, and went to a Lawson's convenience store and got some milk and some kind of bread for breakfast for around 7 yuan.
I'm a little slow, but actually quite awake. Pretty soon I'll head over to the Scholastic offices down the street.
It's interesting, because while in many respects, Shanghai looks like any other city, there are some definite Chinese elements that make it decidedly not Western. It's different from Japan, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I guess it most reminds me of Bangkok. It's not really dirty, but it's not that clean either. In that respect it reminds me very much of Bangkok. It's not "eww, this is gross" dirty, but just little things here and there that don't really bother me anyway - some things look a little older and worn. That's all.
So far, the Chinese people in my hotel have been very nice and very helpful. My key card didn't work, so they fixed it all up, and on my mini-venture out for breakfast, people would pause to say ni hao to me.
Actually, I'm in the Scholastic office right now. I signed my contract, looked over some other paper work, and everyone's really nice. Apparently I'm on my own for the next few days, except that I might be coming in tomorrow to observe some classes.I'm supposed to be going to Beijing on Tuesday after my required health exam. I'm not sure how this is going to all work, but it's out of my hands, anyways, and I know someone is taking care of it. |
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| Shanghaied |
[Aug. 12th, 2008|11:45 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home, for now | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sweaty | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Cardigans - Iron Man | ] |
This time tomorrow, I will be on the plane to Shanghai.
Commencing freak-out.
Thanks you so much, everyone who came to see me off, and a little extra thanks for going away presents. I know others couldn't make it and wanted to. Never be afraid to shoot an e-mail to my newly created e-mail addy - BeijingKamilla@gmail.com. All e-mails will be greatly appreciated/ will be taken as signs that you all have hope that I will not catch horrible diseases and die in China.
Of course, be mindful of what you say in those e-mails... about the Chinese government and other issues in China.
Additionally, my SKYPE name is Kamizilla, and I hope I get the chance to talk to you guys every now and then.
When I get to China, I will be pretty busy with training and paperwork, but mostly, in the words of the author of the book I'm reading (Ernie Talda's "How to live and do business in China") I'll be working on aligning my stomach lining with the local Communist Chinese bacteria and other assorted creatures.
I'll try to keep my journal updated in between bathroom visits. |
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| I need to update this thing more often... |
[Aug. 6th, 2008|01:01 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleep-posting | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | None - it's 1 am | ] |
Well, if you all didn't know or hadn't guessed, I'm back in VA for all of a week before I fly out to Shanghai, where I will be staying for a few weeks until I go to Beijing.
I finished my Summer masters courses last Friday and think I did pretty darn good in all of them (grades forth-coming.)
Today's my 23rd birthday.
Takahiro is coming to visit on the 7th and 8th, and I'm really excited about that.
I have a LOT of stuff to get done and a LOT of people I want to contact before I go.
I really hope that, despite Otakon, people will make my going-away BBQ this Friday.
Failing that, I'm hoping people will join me for dinner out on Saturday night in Woodbridge.
I really need to get a head count for these things - only a handful of people have RSVP'd, and I'm starting to get the message- Otakon kinda trumps everything. (NOT bitter)
I have some really great stories from California, but I didn't really want to make this a long-winded post.
Okay, well, just one.
So the last two weeks at Concordia University in CA, I was taking a condensed business course. There was also a group of around 25-30 Japanese high schoolers living in the adjacent dorms for a two-week exchange program.
Oh glorious day! And how popular was I! (Older white chick that could speak Japanese and knew all about Japanese things...) Needless to say, I ended up spending a lot of time with the Japanese kids.
I went to this local amusement/arcade place (Boomers) with them one day, and while it was all great fun, perhaps the best thing ever was taking the really short adorable girl (Su-chan) on the go-karts. (She rode in my kart, since she was too short to reach the pedals.) Now, we were in the front car, so we were first out on the track. I know it was evil of me, but I went as fast and as hard as the kart would physically allow me. And Su-chan! She was just holding on for dear life going "KYA! Hayai! Waaaaaah! Kamira-san hayai!" pretty much the entire time. She was so cute. She said it was just like Initial D. (Though there was no drifting invloved, and unfortunately, when we started to lap people, they weren't good about letting faster drivers pass them, and would sooner just crash their karts into ours... and I didn't want Su-chan to have a heart attack.)
Good times.
It's also good to be home, though, and I wish I had more time here. |
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