老师

Shao Laoshi (邵老师) is a petite young woman with long black hair that reaches the small of her back. She wears contacts to lighten her eye color but one can only tell when sitting close to her and the ends of her hair are permed to be wavy. She dresses in the typical Chinese fashion, very cute with interesting combinations. Normally she wears a short skirt with tights and a nice blouse with heels. Her voice isn't overly soft but it isn't very commanding or loud either. She takes the lessons seriously but laughs when Theo lists off his sentences to practice the grammar that all are about how hot he is (excuse me, "aesthetic"). She is absolutely adorable and she is my Chinese teacher.
Lately I've missed a lot of classes due to illness and so Marketus and those in D.C. suggested I make up class time with Shao Laoshi. So now I meet her twice a week for an hour and I just had my first session with her yesterday. When I arrived I saw she was writing the new vocabulary on sheets of paper for today. We discussed my exam and what I got wrong and why. Afterward I found out she needed to soon go to Tsinghua where she teaches as well. Actually, the times we meet are the only times she has available. Today in class she admitted she had a sore throat. Afterward, she admitted to me she hadn't gone to bed until five am.
You remember when you were a kid how you felt the teacher's life was at school? Wondered if maybe they lived at the school and were shocked when you saw them outside? I feel like Shao Laoshi is pretty close. It really seems like, besides her weekends, her life revolves around teaching and she's not a special case. Some teachers actually live in special dorms on campus that are specifically for professors. From what I've seen, there's no way you would ever find a teacher who didn't feel passionately about teaching in China like you sometimes find in the U.S.
Maybe it's just Shao. Either way, I have a totally awesome teacher who deserves to feel better soon.

Buying Clothes in China

So last night I went to the Chinese Wal-mart to buy some pants. I only have one pair that doesn't have a hole in them and since it isn't getting any warmer I thought it necessary. So I went in and found some jeans but they were mom jeans... meaning that the pants came up to my belly button instead of staying on my hips like most pants in the United States. That, or they weren't real jeans; they had like a stretch band which kind of reminded me of maternity wear.
Anyway, I ended up not finding any pants. The reason I went to Wal-mart to find clothes was because most places don't have fitting rooms except expensive places in malls and foreign stores like Wal-mart. A classmate of mine actually bought pants at a market without trying them on but they were American Eagle and she knew her size already.
This seriously makes me wonder- do Chinese always know their size for pants?? Because from what I've been hearing most buy in the markets or online- both ways you can't try the clothes on before purchasing. However, they can't possibly know their size for every store because when I started my search for pants in Shanghai I tried on pants in, like, six different stores and each fit me differently! And the markets don't have return policies I don't think. I mean, I don't get a receipt. So what do they do when something doesn't fit? Just give it to a friend? I mean seriously, I see many different body shapes here so how can you buy pants without trying them on? I should ask Xiao Hang, Marketus's assistant, what she does because she told me she buys almost all of her clothes online. Perhaps you can return things bought online?
I don't know, all I know is I need pants, and fast.

Doctor Visit

I think I found something about China that I really like much better than America.
When I went to the doctor's office last week it was the second time in less than a week and I was running late. I wasn't sure what to expect- maybe they would send me away? Maybe I would be there for an hour just waiting to see a doctor!
I arrived at 11:15 am, 15 minutes late for my appointment. I sat down and waited for a bit until the doctor came. When in the room, I told him the whole story, even the really stupid part about how I'd actually suffered for a week before going to the doctor because I didn't want to leave Shanghai early. He wanted to take blood to make sure whatever infection had been in me was gone as well as an x-ray to see my stomach. He filled out some paper work and then called over a nurse. He spoke to her in Chinese so I didn't understand what he said. I just followed her down the hall. It turned out to be the x-ray. It all went really quickly- the only weird thing was because it was my stomach and abdomen, I had to lower my pants. I didn't realize until after I thought about it for a bit that whenever I've had an x-ray I've never been in my normal clothes- always a patient dress. Luckily I was wearing my really long sweater so nothing was ever visible but it was kind of weird.
After the x-rays were finished and printed the nurse returned and took me to another room to have blood collected.
I thought she was just going to prick my finger but instead she collected a vial full of blood. After about five to ten minutes the doctor called me back after receiving the results and looked over my x-ray. He gave me some medicine and then I was off.
I looked at my phone. It was 12:15.
All of that done in just an hour.
First of all, I'm fairly certain that I've had to make another appointment to get x-rays done and usually somewhere else. Then they would send the x-rays to my doctor, the doctor would call me and I'd have to go back in and talk about them. And I've had to get blood drawn recently. I have to go to a completely different place and then about a week later my doctor will have the results. If I had been in America the same treatment would have taken a week at least (probably longer) while here it took an hour (and I was even late for my appointment!)
I know China can seem backward in a lot of ways but we really need to emulate them in the speed of their treatment and diagnosis!

Days Missed

So I got called into the office today to talk about how many classes I've missed. I've been physically sick a lot but most of those are excused- it's really the ones that are depression/anxiety related.
I'm writing this because I don't know what the Alliance is going to do with this blog once I'm done or if they're already directing students to our blogs but if they are I don't want anyone to think you can't go abroad if you have issues. I'm on medication for it but it wasn't working very well before I left and we had run out of time to explore more options. That being said, for being away from my friends, my family, my therapist, my entire support system really, I haven't done too bad. I'm not failing any of my classes. I'm just... having a hard time meeting them face-to-face.
At any rate, the semester is half over so I've already survived halfway. I can survive the rest if I use the coping skills I've learned over the years to help me.
What I'm saying is, don't let anything stop you from an opportunity to see another way of living. You never know, you might find things that will be more comfortable for you, that you can bring home with you. The worst thing that can happen is that you fail. I have an intense fear of failure but I know I would be far less likely to live with myself if I had never tried at all than tried and didn't make it all the way.
I've been told my blog posts have been mostly negative and I'm sorry about that because it's not all bad. I won't go home and think this was awful and I wish I'd never done it.
So if you're thinking about doing this, going on an adventure and seeing a different way of life and learning a different way, you should do it. You can't know what's going to happen but I can promise you if you don't you'll miss it. Even though you have no idea what you're missing- you'll still miss it.

Not a Happy Camper

So here's where I am right now. I'm stuck eating noodles with very little flavor (as part of my very bland diet the doctor has put me on), I'm taking 10 pills a day, not including the powder I need to mix with hot water and take three times a day as well. I'm tired all the time, I'm behind in class and my homework, partly because I keep sleeping through my alarm, and I have a twenty page paper due this weekend that I haven't started writing.
I. Am. Not. Happy.

Medicine

So I'm having stomach issues and went to the doctor last night to pick up some medication. I noticed they take a large amount of drugs for a very short amount of time. For instance, I received one drug that I take two tablets of, after meals, three times a day. I also have a drug I'm supposed to take one tablet of, but not at the same time as the first tablet because the first would kill it. I then dissolve a powder in water and drink that three times a day. You would honestly believe I was close to dying if I received that much medication in the United States. And this isn't a special occasion, I received four drugs when I went in with a cold asking for allergy medicine.
Although he gave me so much, I only have enough for three days. That's also similar to when the last doctor only gave me ten days worth of allergy medicine that in the United States I take almost daily year-round. In the United States I would have been given one drug to take for ten days with a warning to eat "bland foods" and drink lots of water (which is what this doctor also instructed).
Just a little observation I made while having my life momentarily revolve around which medicine I'm supposed to take next, and with what.