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It snowed today! I guess it’s not a common occurance in Shanghai!

The cold today made me realize my coat is really inadequate — unfortunately, after I forced myself not to look at coats when I went shopping this weekend. It seems like everything was on sale before, and now it’s expensive. I went out shopping today, and I might have found one that I want. I had to come back to campus, though, because I was invited to a New Year’s party by one of my students. I ended up waiting about 30 minutes for a cab, getting caught in a traffic jam, and then worrying that I’d misread the invitation, and that I was an hour and a half late. To my relief, though, the invitation really WAS for 6:15, and I was only fifteen minutes late. Also, it turned out I was invited to some sort of pageant rather than a formal party. A lot of students and professors from the school of international/area studies performed. Someone had decided that the professors should sing “Oh Susanna” in Chinese (?!?), so I got roped into doing it too. It was pretty fun, overall.

Then I came back home and discovered that the cleaning lady must REALLY hate me, because she’d turned the gas on for some reason. I also noticed that the weird noise from my computer isn’t JUST coming from the fan now. Hopefully it won’t blow up when I’m around.

Do I have anything else to say? Hmmm …

Everyone was telling me the awful noises coming from my computer meant my hard drive was ruined, but when I opened it up today, I found out all the noise was coming from the FAN!

It started making these horrible grindy sounds when I turned it on. Tomorrow afternoon, after I’m done with class, I’ll open it up and take a look inside.

Here’s something interesting — I’ve found the location of what seems to be an upscale sex toy shop! I may check it out when I go to get my massage next week, because it’s nearby.

I had a pretty good day today. I got up and went to the Propaganda Poster Art Center. I kept hearing things about how it’s often closed during its supposed business hours, so I called ahead, found out someone was there, and that it closes an hour and a half later than my guidebook had said. My cab driver was friendly, some friendly guards helped me find the poster art center. A hyper little guy ushered me in, then asked me, “Are you Chinese?” When I said no, he explained the posters to me in a weird mix of Chinese and English. Luckily I could understand him. The posters were really cool, and I would buy a bunch of them if I had the money. They were expensive, though — 800 to 1800 RMB each. I think they could make a fortune if they made reproductions and sold them. Postcards would be a good idea too. After that, I tried to go to the indigo printed cloth museum, but couldn’t find it. It turns out the map in my Lonely Planet is screwed up. On the way there, though, I stopped at a drug store and picked up some stuff I needed. Later I went home, where I opened my presents. I found out I got ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO, the children’s folklore book (which is REALLY interesting), GODZILLA ON MY MIND, a Les Negresses Verts CD, a Marta Sebestyan CD, Pepto Bismol and Gobstoppers. This may sound like a weird assortment, but it’s all stuff I had on my list. I went out for dinner, bought some DVDs, bought some toilet paper, and VIOLA! (as I once wrote in an article for the IDS) that was my day.

I started my period today, and miraculously, I felt better! I also was given a surprise party today by my 8:00 class! I was so surprised I didn’t know how to react! They sprayed silly string on me!

I’m continuing to feel dismal. I’m just lonely, resentful that I don’t have more friends, scared of making friends with people, etc. I’m all achy, and yesterday the masseuse could tell I was unhappy. It is nice that I’ve found a good masseuse, though. That’ll let me avoid migraines and practice my Chinese.

I’m having more mysterious, scary health problems. Something’s wrong with one of my breasts. I’ll go to the doctor Monday to have it checked out. All these problems — it’s unbelievable!

On the up side, I’ve found a funny web site: www.hanzismatter.com

I keep thinking that I’ve been happy in China, but from time to time I wonder if I’m fooling myself. Lately I’ve been bored and lonely, and I know I felt that way in Shenzhen sometimes too. Of course, I often felt like that in the US … I don’t know … when I was thinking about this, I felt a lot more articulate than I do now. Maybe I can elaborate on this later.

You know how the rage zombies in 28 DAYS LATER suddenly go mad and attack people? I think I perceive people as being like that — I never know when they will snap, but if I wait long enough it’ll happen. That’ll always make me keep a distance from people. That’s something I should go into therapy about! But, it has seemed to happen in real life, so it’s not a completely unfounded fear. But what do you do about a fear that is somewhat rational, but hampers you in some ways too?

Another interesting thing there’s one exception: I don’t perceive Asians that way. I guess I’ve had good experiences with Asian people since I was a kid. This may be another one of the reasons I feel like I’ve been happy in China. I don’t feel threatened here, like I did sometimes in Indiana.

I got invited to go with my students to this water village, Tongli, tomorrow, but I had to turn them down. I just think it’ll be too hard for me to get around with my bad foot. It’s still hurting — actually, a little more than before. I have to be more serious about exercising it. I’ve slacked off on that lately. I think I would get tired really quickly, walk really slowly, be prone to accidents and stuff. I know the students would try to take care of me, but they deserve time to goof off, and I don’t want to spoil their fun. I’m afraid it would be selfish of me to go. Still, I wish I were going. I might get really sad about it tomorrow.

That’s the newest thing in my life lately. The cause is, of course, milk. I got some Ovaltine, for the calcium, and that did it. A couple days ago I had a chocolate milkshake and then some chocolate ice cream, and then it was practically unstoppable! Then yesterday I had some chocolate mousse, forgetting it had milk in it. These weird eating habits I have lately, and my mopiness, are caused by my approaching period, I think.

Now THAT sounds like an interesting movie! Of course, it’s supposed to be Clans of Intrigue, but whoever bootlegged the DVD made a mistake. I had to buy it for the cover alone!

I got really hungry, lonely and dispirited tonight. I think a lot of it is my period. It’s probably coming in two or three days, judging by how I feel.

Well, The Beast did end up sucking after all! Trust Borowczyk to leave a bad taste in your mouth. There were a lot of plot holes — why did Marthurin die, why did the beast die, where was all the blood after the old man’s throat was slashed, and why did the aunt realize Marthurin’s deformity? There actually seemed to be two beast costumes — one that looked more like a weasel, and the other than looked more like a bear. They could have inluded fewer “money-shots” too. I think everybody would have appreciated that. The whole sudden appearance of the Cardinal (who was supposedly in Africa) and his dumb speech about beastiality were silly too. The movie should have ended when the two women ran out of the house, and the Cardinal and his aide went in. What I saw was the director’s cut, so Borowczyk can’t blame anybody but himself for its crappiness.

And remember, kids … don’t have sex with animals!

I saw Feng Xiaogang’s new movie, A World without Thieves, last night. It was really enjoyable, and I’d recommend it to everybody. Its depiction of China is a lot more realistic that something you’d see in a movie by Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou. Plus, it has China’s coolest actor, Ge You, in it.

I also started watching a DVD of Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast. I was offended and disgused by his Immoral Tales, but the plot of this one sounded really appealing to me. I bet he screws it up and makes it seem disgusting, though. For a guy who made erotic movies, he seems pretty sex-negative.

I went to a party this weekend at my student XG’s house. I met a lot of people — Lily, a woman from Greece, who sounded like Isabella Rossellini; Paul, a nice American guy who works at the US consulate in Public Diplomacy (which was the track I tried to get into when I took the State Department test); Maria, a very reserved Danish girl, and XG’s husband. I’m usually scared about going out and meeting people, but I’m happy after I do it. Also, at this party, I ate pig intestines for the first time since I was a kid. I didn’t like them as much as I used to. I guess I keep remembering that bit in God of Cookery about finding poop in them.

Boy, do I miss the wackiness of Shenzhen. Here’s a headline from today’s South China Morning Post:

Shenzhen crime spree escalates
The opening of a Shenzhen subway station has been delayed after an armed gang raided the construction site and stole the escalator.

Nothing like that ever happens in Shanghai!

I’m excited about it, but I really don’t know why it’s happening. My neighbor Sumiko was saying that when she doesn’t get enough sleep, she can’t lose weight no matter what she does, and then yesterday I saw this report in a magazine that scientists have found if you increase your sleep time from seven to eight hours a night, you can become up to five pounds lighter. It all has to do with hormones — while you sleep, your body makes some that facilitate metabolizing food, or weight loss or something. That could be the key. At SZU, I had a bad habit of not sleeping enough at night, and here I’m really trying to change my ways. I’ve also started running my air conditioner at night so that the noises of my rude upstairs neighbor don’t bother me as much. I’m assuming he has a prostate problem that makes him get up in the night, but he could certainly be polite and make less noise, or go back to bed, after he’s finished peeing.

Oh yeah — I forgot to mention that the Philadelphia Independent published something I sent them about voting from China. It was in their special election edition. They rewrote it extensively. I’m used to rewriting, but this shocked me. Originally, the article was about 340 words long, and included a list, but in the newspaper it was pared down to about 100, or 150, tops.

Frankincense is another ingredient in the weird medicine I’m taking!

I went back to the hospital today and took home my X-ray and report. The original doctor, who got all confused because he heard me speak Mandarin, thought I was Chinese, then wasn’t sure anymore when he looked at me, wasn’t there today. He had called me “gu niang,” which is a pretty old fashioned, formal term for a young lady. I guess it’s nice that I’m almost 35 and someone called me that.

I went to the hospital today and had my foot checked out. Apparently, my foot is healing really well (I couldn’t see any crack at all on the X-ray). The doctor gave me a bunch of Chinese medicine to take (the ingredients of which include starfish and birds’ bones), and gave me this weird poultice to strap onto my foot. They’re supposed to make it get better faster.

Today my Japanese neighbor showed me some movies she’d gotten that I might like. I thought she wanted to come over and lend them to me later tonight, but it turned out she wanted us to watch them together! That’s why she was so surprised when I came to the door already in my Hello Kitty pajamas!