mf.rox

I’m really tired today. It was my first full day in East Lansing (I think — I’m too tired to remember), and I’m happy to say I found a place to live. It was a little tough because so much is gone already. I went to one place I’d thought had a good location and that I’d seen had good reviews, and although I really liked, I found they did not take animals. They referred me to another place, not too far away, on the bus line, and quiet. They had one bedroom apartments, and I took one. It was a little more expensive than I had hoped, but I don’t think there is anything to be done about that.

This was taken on my last night of karaoke in Shanghai. Singing with me are J and Niko.

My mom and I drove to East Lansing today, and after loafing at our hotel for like 25 minutes, decided to walk across to the nearby Applebee’s to have some dinner. Who did we run into but Teya! She had just arrived in the US. Of course her mom, Hudson, and Meng’s sister were there too. It was astonishing just to happen to run into her like that!

As of about 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, I’m back in the United States.

The moving process, especially the last few days, was nervewracking and exhausting.  Leaving was pretty traumatic, and I did cry a lot on the plane.

Luckily, Kitty Mao Mao got through everything okay.  I found sort of a guardian angel in one of the stewardesses on my plane, who helped me figure out how to get the cat.  She actually accompanied me through the whole process, retrieving him, going through the CDC procedures, putting him on the connecting flight and everything.  She actually told the airline people I was her sister so I could go through the crew security checkpoint rather than stand in line with everybody else, then gave me her phone number and told me that if my flight was cancelled, I could call her and go stay at her house for the night!

I was supposed to go to brunch with a lot of people today, to 1221, with is a reknowned restaurant in Shanghai, because I’ll be leaving in a couple days.  The problem was, I have not been sleeping lately, and could not fall asleep until nine a.m.  When my alarm went off at 11:00 a.m., I felt horrible.  Another problem was that I was having my period and all my sanitary napkins were missing — I think they were appropriated by a guest who was having her period too.  I ended up “turning my face to the wall,” as P.G. Wodehouse would have said, turning off my cell phone, and sleeping until three.  I think I would have fainted from exhaustion or something if I hadn’t.  I do regret not going now, though.  I will try to get there sometime Monday or Tuesday.

there is a little black and white kitten living in my stairwell/outside the gate to my apartment building.  If anyone would like to adopt him, he is available.

Birth control pills = abortion?

Dog Man’s sister came over to help clean today (it was her idea), and she expressed doubts I’ll get everything done in time.  I’m not really that doubtful, but maybe I am just in a fool’s paradise.  Also, I’ve been so busy worrying about my stuff that I haven’t really processed the fact that I’m leaving.  I think this may make me more likely to freak out later on.

I was shocked to come across an article about someone I know on Shanghaiist.  It turns out Paulo M. created a Web site that hooks up strangers who like getting and receiving postcards.  You sign up, get a random person’s address, and send them a postcard.  Meanwhile, other people are getting your address, and sending you something.  This sounds like something a lot of my friends, including Editor B. and the former Jenny B. (now Jenny R.) would really like.

Interview with Paolo
Postcrossing site

Alice had six puppies: two black, one brown, and three white.

Please pass this along to anyone who is trying to get in touch with me about my party!

Fellowship

Whenever I see something saying a brand is French, or 100 years old, or whatever here, I just assume it’s a lie. I got my current glasses at a store called Moscot, which according to a paper I got with my glasses, has been a venerable New York City brand for 90 years. Fake, I assumed, thinking that the company was probably founded someplace like Dongguan five years ago. But I guess it’s real! They even have a Web site!

http://www.moscot.com/

Just to update the heart monitor story, they did not find any big problem, just that my heart beat “early” occasionally, with the largest number of times being seven in one hour. The doctor proscribed me Concor, and told me I did not have to take it if I didn’t feel like it. I decided to buy some just in case my heart started acting up again, and because it would proabably be more expensive to get it in the US. Sure enough, several days later the “weird thing” started happening again, so I’ve been taking a half a tablet in the morning. I’ve been noticing that it mostly happens at night, when I’m laying on my back. Also, according to the readout, my slowest heart rate was only 44 beats per minute. Isn’t that REALLY slow?

Because I am soon to leave Shanghai, I was hoping to have a fun couple weeks before I go. Therefore, this weekend was pretty disappointing to me. I didn’t do anything yesterday, and today I called maybe seven people with invitations to go out to eat, but only two answered me. I felt disappointed, and even pretty embarrassed, like if I am sitting home by myself right before I am going to leave the country, what am I to everybody?

Of course, people’s lives don’t revolve around me, but still. I felt really unhappy.

For me, it’s often also a bummer when my friends get into relationships. Suddenly they want to do stuff with the other person rather than me, so I get left high and dry sometimes. It’s a problem, sometimes, that I’m no one’s favorite person.

I don’t mean to sound self-pitying or anything, I just feel … well, like I said, disappointed. (I think I’m losing my synonyms.)

For some reason, all of a sudden I can’t post from my Flickr account to this blog, so this has been pretty photoless lately.

Here are some links to pictures that relate to things I’ve been talking about:

Majestic tulou

Tulous

Kid taking a crap

Blogging about my heart monitor

4 July 2008 10:35 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing  |

Less than two weeks after New York-based Kino International had announced that it had completed a frame-by-frame restoration of Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis and would release it in 2009, a long-lost and badly scratched original cut of the movie has turned up in Argentina, where it was shown to reporters for the first time on Thursday. Paula Felix-Didier, director of the Museo de Cine in Buenos Aires, told the reporters that the three-and-a-half-hour print is the only known copy of Lang’s complete film. The film that has been shown in theaters since that time and which in recent years has become available on home video is roughly half that length. Kino said Thursday that it may include the newly discovered footage in its 2009 release.

(From http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0256190/)

is (386+1) 585-1800.
Just in case you ever happen to need it.

(I got this today in a useless e-mail reply to a question I sent in about using Neutrogena’s Fine Fairness products.)

Girl: Do you know what a pearl necklace is?
Woman: I didn’t learn about any of that shit until I worked on the Senate floor.

(From Overheardeverywhere.com)

Missionaries Phil and Alma Goodwyn of Abilene, Texas decided they finally had enough after joining a university English Corner yesterday. The couple visited East China Teachers’ College as part of their underground missionary activity, to attempt to slip references to Jesus and the Bible into anything they said to the undergraduate students late Tuesday afternoon.

Everything went as normal until the Americans’ attempt to answer a sophomore’s question about Formula One racing with references to Jesus’s resurrection. According to accounts, students began pressing the couple on details of the event, and one student, a junior in population studies, asked them, “If Jesus came back from the dead, does that make him a zombie?”

ECTC student Lincoln Feng gave details of the incident that followed: “My classmate Shao Ming just kept asking them them about it. He said we always saw on Western movies that when people come back from the dead, they’re called zombies, so why wasn’t Jesus a zombie? The foreign man got a little angry, and said Jesus was the son of God. Shao Ming asked why someone couldn’t be a zombie and the son of God at the same time. Somebody also asked if it was because zombies eat people’s brains, but Jesus never ate anybody’s brain. Then the foreigner threw his book on the floor and started yelling, ‘You Chinese can go to hell!’”

According to sources, the couple bought return tickets to Abilene directly upon returning to their apartment.

Friends of the couple said they had been on edge ever since an ill-fated trip to a primary school this March, when they told the children they should worship Jesus so that the Easter bunny would give them candy every year. Students had asked why they couldn’t just worship the Easter bunny instead.

Asked for a comment as he boarded his flight back home, Mr. Goodwyn just glared and said, “Damned Chinese!”

(This is a fake news story I wrote for Matt’s website Shangzilla. He never put it up so I thought I’d post it here. By the way, this is based on a true story, although the missionary just got really mad, she didn’t leave China — immediately, anyway.)