invisible.

We speak of heartache...of pain...of hurt
But these words are prisoners between our lips
A life sentence we’ve given ourselves
A burden only for us to bear—no one else’s
Because letting you shed tears
Breaks my heart with each droplet
So I stand isolated at the edge of the world between what is known and what isn’t
If only I can feel your warmth in my heart
If only for a moment, only for a second I can believe and have faith in you again
That you won’t say I’ll always be there when I know you’ll vanish the moment I need you
That you think I’m special when I know you don’t mean it
Don’t make any promises you can’t keep
No heart is left even once it is broken.
My dearest love—I’m broken. I’m left invisible.

gah!

GAH! FINALS! GAHHHH!

光棍节快乐

光棍节快乐
11/11

limits

it is possible to just eat one meal a day and survive--only proves that i've lost my appetite for food and life.

past week

threw up now 3x
saw mr. bunny around mead and was about to catch it but it hopped away to a bush
hailed today for a good 3 mins
lost 5 lbs within two months unwillingly
lost appetite for food
don't eat every 2-4 hrs anymore

thoughts...

everything and everyone must come and go
as to abide to earthy rules
but the experiences one takes
shall forever haunt them
the good, bad or worse
the reality of it all is that everything is impermanent
emotions
material goods
relations
nothing is static
everything is flowing and moving on
with or without your consent

how fickle everything is ....

hanging on

After last night's phone conversation I feel less shattered, more put together since this whole thing started. I actually smiled and laugh though no one was able to see it, but I felt it. That melted away some of the hurt I've been feeling recently.

I'm not completely shattered.

9.26.10

twice in a year.
a person can only take so much pain.
always in my memory

heartbroken.

feelings...

Ever have the feeling of being alone even though you're surrounded by people--they all stare at you and keep talking, but your mind is not there--you're floating somewhere else. All you can do is nod and the eyes that stare at you--it can tell that you're empty, lost and can't make it back home.

ever feel so broken that you're beyond repair? even though you tried to super glue yourself back together, you still have cracks that lights shine through, feel the gaps of wind that breeze through--you are not whole anymore.

all the shattered pieces are what use to be you, but now it is a mere recollection of what you would be if you weren't broken.

Need to be away

Recently, I just dont feel like usual self. I've somehow lost myself during last semester and present day.

Love to just be away on a mountain and watch the sunsets/sunrise of days to come.

Monday Blues

Nothing like a Monday to put you off your mood for the new week.

2nd week of school

A lot has happened during the summer until now. I can say that lots has changed, and some things are still changing. I do not know what life may bring me but I do know I'll try to accept it even if it's not to my liking.

Emotional coasters are draining and recently I've been drained.

I know I should make the best of senior year, but it doesn't seem like what I imagined it would be.

to the unforeseeable future--

Scattered updates from the rest of the trip

9-11th
Class has been cancelled because of the dragon boat festival so I decided to travel. Since Hangzhou was close by I decided why not give it a chance. I actually didn’t know much about Hangzhou before I went. I only knew it was pretty and it had lots of green luscious forests. Since Wu Xuan was here, I knew I wouldn’t get lost or tricked because she knew Chinese.

We bought our bullet train ticket, stood on the long ass line and had to fight to get through the gate. Once we were through the gate, we had to find our train and car number. It only took about 2 hours to reach Hangzhou. We started in the afternoon and got there around 3pm. Once we got out of the train station, I suggested that we try to get our ticket back to Ningbo just in case it’s sold out by the time we wanted to leave. After waiting in line for 20mins, the ticket gate was closed and we were told to go to the other line to wait once again…This is the crappy part about China, some train stations have certain hours the person needs to sell tickets, once that gate closes you need to go to another gate. So even though you’ve been waiting on the line for 30mins, if it closes you still need to wait.
After we bought our ticket to go home, we hopped on a cab and went to our hostel. We called earlier to make reservations, but the people got it wrong. Eventually we got it all worked out and they even gave us a bigger room for no extra charge. This hostel was nice, but we found out later as we tried to take our showers, the shower nozzle was shit! Even though the shower was crap, we didn’t let it deter us from exploring around. Our hostel was in a good location, because it only took us 10-15 mins to get to West Lake. West Lake is the biggest lake in Hangzhou and it’s known for its scenery.
So we decided to walk around the lake before eating dinner. After a while, I was starving and so we went to a pretty big restaurant and got some of Hangzhou’s well-known dishes like dong po rou.

Hangzhou-->dong po pork, temples=Buddhist stone carvings, west lake,
Wu Zhen--? mobbed by cabi drivers, sketchy hostel, illiterate awesome mao ah yi, west gate scenery, white snake story, east gate craziness, acrobat, tourists, chrysthsemthem flower cakes
Back to Hangzhou--> taxi madness, Finding a BK

12th
Classes on Saturday/make up

14th
Saw a chinese movie with double seats

Beijing Week (6/21-29)
Beijing---15hrs on soft sleeper, all girls showers, hot dorm room, managing how to get to hohai from memory, eating Japanese/viet/Korean bbq/Chinese, going to beida, memories of Beijing from before=1 year ago, fat cats

Ningbo 6/30/10
--15hrs on soft seater, no sleep, got sniffles, talked to guy on train, came back and met with downpour of rain which was much needed, saw karate kid.

7/1
Moved into new apartment on 5th floor, found out there’s no internet, a/c

7/2
Meeting to get schedule—will be touring Ningbo with German/Korean kids learning Chinese, flooded kitchen when trying to do laundry.

7/3
Slept all day, bought dvds to watch, no internet! , ate at Steven’s house, parents offered me rice wine (had 4-5 cups) because parents kept pouring…

7/4
Ate a z rock café because it was fourth of july and they had discounts. Had their mushroom burger, it was a bit salty but do-able. Their fries were yummy. Had 2 beers—called it a night.

7/5
Woke up early to go to the countryside to pick some tomatoes and cook our own lunch. I managed the fire because people couldn’t stand the heat. I also cooked two dishes :D met up with the international kids (germany/korea) and had dinner with them after we got back from the country side.

7/6
Woke up early to go to Hangzhou again, walked all over for half the day but didn’t really stop to take in the attractions again. Came back then had dinner at fancy hotel with the other international students and some people performed. Nia went off to chill with them, I was tired so came back to write this journal entry, shower and do some laundry..wow, I’m such a loner…

7/7
Spent day at home

7/8
Expo

7/9
LWT+GERMANS

7/10
Old city and last day of festival, sang=mad

7/11
Ate dinner with Jale, had 58% bai jiu with the head of the department.

7/12
Taught English class about food, jale watched some part, ate lunch at fancy restaurant.

7/14
Taught English to little kids for several hours, they are sooo cute! They were from 1st to 4th grade then ate lunch at Tao laoshi’s house. Had some traditional Hubei food (fried sticky rice) and Ningbo dessert--wine dessert

7/15
Went to ci cheng again but this time with students…My wisdom tooth hurt like a mother!

7/22
Went to a water park in ning hai…it was basically a kiddie’s water park but still fun
7/23

Taught for the last time and ate a vegetarian meal for the first time
7/24

Had final dinner with head of foreign language department—thank god this time there wasn’t any 58% baijiu at the scene

7/30
Went to putuo mountain—it’s guan yin’s bday so mad people on the island. Saw heart stone, turtle stone, temples with beautiful decorations. spent night there, rode rv for first time one beach, climbed lots and lots of temple stairs!

7/31
Came back to Ningbo, hate rude people here especially when hailing taxi’s. think if they cut you they the shit and deserve the taxi—that shit is wrong!

8/2
Going to shanghai, couldn’t get a train ticket so big bused it to shanghai. So many people, taxi rate insane, traffic even more insane…

8/3
Went to xin tian di, chun huang miao, and the bund.

8/4
Stateside

7th of June

June 7^th:

We had our first class today. It was nerve wreaking. China’s school system is different than ours. We started teaching at 8am and then at 11:30am is lunch. For lunch we have until 1:30pm then we teach our last class until 3pm. In total we have 6 classes but really it is 3 long classes split up. It scared us the moment they said we had 6 classes! It was really tiring teaching those classes because we always repeated ourselves but we don’t really remembered what we said to each class hahaha. After a long day in school we came back home to shower, rest and change for the school performance of “I’m not Li Bai”. This performance was put on by a Beijing theater company and we got free tickets. It was a really good performance and I really liked the actors. They were really entertaining and acted really well, especially the guy who acted really gay! He pulled it off so well!

June 4th--June 6th

June 4^th:

TGIF! Today was a bit drizzly so wasn’t in the greatest of mood since we had to school. The worst thing was that the class we were supposed to attend didn’t even go to class. Nia and I were just sitting in class jamming out to BSB songs! Thank god someone called me and we had laptops to just watch random shows for a bit. I was taking the bus back to my apartment and of course the bus BREAKSDOWN---IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC! Just my luck, we had to wait in the sweaty heat for another bus that was stuck in traffic…China’s traffic is not to be messed with. Cars can create their own lanes if they feel like it so being a pedestrian is very dangerous here…. So much for jay walking…

June 5^th:

Since it’s the weekend, we decided to go bar hopping and clubbing since the weekend has been long awaited. We went to “lao wai tan” which translate to “foreigner’s island” . There are many restaurants catered to foreigner’s taste. We decided to eat steak at a place called “Bullfighter” and it was kind of early for lunch. We were the only ones in the place until we almost finished then people started to roll through.

As we observed the place, I realized it kinda looked like Brooklyn for a bit. The cobble stone road with bridges covering the area and a spot near the waterfront to sit and take in the view, it was really nice. As we were about to finish our lunch, some random dudes decide to ask us to take our pictures. It was really random but TIC (This is China) so why not. They followed us for a bit and we kinda got annoyed after a while so we were like ‘uh, we want to go to a bar to have drinks so ..yeah…’ After we got them to understand we gave them our emails in hope of receiving the pictures they took that day even though we knew the chances of actually getting them are SLIM, we decided to try it anyway…WE NEVER GOT THE PICURES! (It is july now!)

After we had drinks at Shamrock bar, we decided to go clubbing. The club we went to was supposed to be a good one, from the outside it looked okay. It was all fancy and what not. Since it was still early we decided to bar hop a bit more and went to Wonderland. We ordered some B-52 shots…(It comes with fire!) There was a special that day so we stayed for a bit then moved onto another bar until we could dance.

As we made out way to the club, the music was loud so we got our hopes up…Once inside, it was just old people! By old people I mean like some were middle-aged and others were beyond their 20s. We had on our ‘WTF’ face. When we were seated we asked where the dance floor was, and the guy said “you’re looking at it!” …In the midst of the loud music I was like “WHAT! You got to be kidding me! That 4x8 looking piece of wood is your dance floor!” Okay, it wasn’t 4x8 but it’s not that big. It’s about the size of an average dining table.

Since it was our first time clubbing here in Ningbo, we decided to give it a chance. Ordered some beer and tried to get a feel of the music and club. It was an epic fail! They had some live performances which were okay, but the dancing….OMG! It was basically worth to go laugh our butts off. Drunken old people dancing are hilarious! Some were doing ballet moves on that small platform while others looked like they were having seizures attacks. The first DJ wasn’t that good, but as the night went on, the next DJ was better. After 1am we decided we couldn’t take it anymore and called it a night.

June 6^th :

Wu Xuan came so when we woke up, we decided to use her Chinese skills to help us out and find us food! We were hungry so we decided to have some hot pot. It’s been a while since I had hot pot so I was excited. We asked around what was a good hot pot place and went there. It was near Tian Yi square so we were happy we got to walk around. When we went, we were the only ones eating but after a while people started to flow in.

After lunch we decided to hit up the bell tower market and just have a glance. We saw an arcade and decided to play a few rounds. We played bball, a water/beer pouring game, wack-a-penguin/artic animal, and even racing games. It was intense! After all that, we hit up a small dessert shop called ‘2 girls’ and ate some small desserts. The place was all graffiti-ed up and so we decided to contribute as well.

Since it was about dinner time after we ate dessert, we went to a sea food restaurant that looked okay. We ordered some random seafood and ate. There was a cute little girl there who danced for us and even showed Nia some moves. She was really cute. The owner met his wife on QQ an online chat place sort of like our MSN or ICQ. Then he decided to open the seafood shop with her and had their daughter. She was 6 ½ years old. Such a cutie.

No internet for 1 week=life rough & unhappy Sim

So I did not have internet for about 1 week and I was NOT HAPPY! I was actually very grumpy! You try not having internet on a weekend! It's not good!

Now I'm back to civilization again, I will update the blog on long awaited stories :)

The first few days

Sorry for being behind the blogs--been busy lately..Will get back on track in a week or two...I'll try to write every other night or so.

June 1st

Tuesday was children’s day… Yes, they do actually celebrate it here while we in the states have no clue. So apparently there’s a discount for people who are university students (score) so Nia and I hit up the Brazilian BBQ and got the student discount. After classes (boring because we were just observing) we went home, showered then hopped in a cab and arrived at the BBQ. Once there, a big party table was there but it was a nice place to eat.

I’ve only eaten at a Brazilian BBQ once before this time and it was in LA with Alex and her family. It was awesome! Unlimited salad bar and then all the meat you want---all so juicy and delicious! The food there was fresh and I had so much but it was so good! We also ordered some drinks to pass the time. There were children running around, but it was a good atmosphere.

After dinner we decided to walk off all the meat we’ve just consumed. We were close to Tian Yi Sq. (the main square in the city where all the name-brands are) and we decided to just walk around. It’s really pretty at night.

Coming back to the campus was interesting. We took a cab from Tian Yi and the driver was 2F2F(2 Fast 2 Furious) status. He was zooming left and right and I don’t even think he used the brake once unless it was for a traffic light (but it felt like we didn’t even stop for any lights! Traffic lights are truly a suggestion in China!) and then within about 10mins or less we’ve arrived at our school! Also during the ride he was like you girls scared? Don’t be, don’t worry you’re fine!

I think we’ve settled in okay but waiting for the actual time we get to teach. We’ve been approached by students asking many questions and many stares (but mostly for Nia…)

June 2nd:

Today we had to sit in our class that we’d be teaching and it was sooo BORING! The teacher was teaching US history from colonization to the Great Depression. We legit fell asleep in that class. So we decided to just come back to our apartment and slept until we had to go back to school that night.

At 6:30pm they had a concert celebrating May 4th and we were invited to attend. It was a great performance with dancing and singing and what-nots. It was a long day but at least we were well rested.

3 day in 1

Recap of Flight to Ningbo:

Arrived at JFK at 8am. Checked in and then went through security but was called aside because apparently a snow globe can not be carried on the plane. The snow globe was a gift for someone—and the guard told me I had two options—> throw it away or check in my carry on bag! So I had to sadly leave it back in NYC and find a way to ship it somehow when I get back.

Before getting on the plane I already puked because I was nervous and anxious—so I knew I wasn’t going to like the plane ride. The plane ride was about 15 hours so I basically didn’t sleep the whole way there and my left eye got irritated with me and decided to revolt and become bloodshot, while apparently my right eye didn’t get the memo and stayed normal.

I re-watched movies I’ve already seen just to pass the time. They had a good Korean Pop playlist so I was really happy about that. After we landed in HK, I had to run through the airport because our gate was at 503 while we landed in 33.We took a shuttle and ran to our gate which we made in time.

On the connecting flight from HK to Shanghai they had the option of western food or DIM SUM! I of course took the dim sum tray duhhh! Inside there was a zhong zi (sticky rice), jiaozi (dumpling), shui mai and xiao long bao! The zhong zi was really good. They even served ice cream—I got the cookie and cream flavor. For someone who gets plane sickness I was okay (thank god).

We landed around 6pm going through the security check. People from Ningbo University of Technology were there to greet us. We got our dinner at the airport then started on our journey to Ningbo. We got to Ningbo at around 10pm or so. We settled in our apartment and the first thing we did was get our internet worked out. We don’t have to pay for our internet so YAY! We just need to use the Ethernet cord which I’m down with.

May 30^th:

On Sunday I woke up early at around 7:30am so Nia and I decided to go shopping for some food to stock up our fridge. We had KFC for breakfast. Our apartment layout is pretty nice. We have our own bathroom, kitchen stocked with a fridge/microwave/stove and even a washer. Then the ‘living room’ was converted into Nia’s bedroom. Then I got the actual room. This apartment was meant for a single person but it’s not bad. We are in a good location because we are near food.

After shopping for food and have stocked our fridge with beer and water, we headed out to a village in Ningbo. This village has lots of farming area—apparently city people pay these farmers to grow crops for them. So we went with one of the teachers and her friend who had property there. The weather was gorgeous! It was sunny and breezy. We were surrounded by mountains and trees. Once we reached the property they started digging and they had crops like corn, potatoes, lettuce, cabbage and peppers. After they’ve collected their crops, we went to a restaurant in the village where they prepared the potato, cabbage and lettuce that were just dug up.

I was very full by the end of that lunch. We then toured a bit more by car going through the mountains. It was very scenic.

By the time we made it back to the dorm, I had to get my SIM card for my phone so I had a working phone in China. We then had Sichuan food for dinner. Thank god we ordered beer lol we had to go to bed early because the next day we had to wake up early (7am) to go to check out the school.

May 31^th

One of the teachers drove us to the new school which is about 15-20 mins away. Let me just say their campus is GINORMOUS! The teacher the campus was small in China standard. The campus is still being renovated with buildings being built left and right so it’s not completed yet. But with what they have now, it’s really huge already.

After we arrived we got to meet some of the other foreign teachers. One teacher is from Japan (Akira), Australia (Jeanette), Germany, and two from the States (Bruce and Daniel). Daniel was nice to take us out to get some breakfast on campus. There is this little alley way that has lots of different food and stalls so I bought some pork buns…I bought 3 pork buns and a soybean milk. I miss the pork buns in China, they are so juicy!

When we finished our breakfast we sat in on 3 Interpretation Classes. It was interesting that the classroom was set up like the UN. The tables, podium and then the booth in the back where translators usually sit—it was like mini UN. It was really cool. At first it was cool but then the classes got boring because the questions seem to be dragged out. I had to translate from English to Chinese 2 paragraphs… (I really don’t know enough Chinese to translate things about inner city illiteracy…or how to say federal tax forms…) But I gave it my best shot. Damn me for being able to speak somewhat decent Chinese.

After sitting on the classes, we toured the campus a bit. There are 4 bridges right now that connect the academic buildings to the dorms, but by the end of the construction there will be apparently 11-12 bridges in total! (Don’t know why they want that many bridges!)

T-17hours to Ningbo,China

My suitcase lays in the guestroom with clothing flying in every directions. Yes, basically it looks like a bomb went off in that room. I am packing my backpack to bring onto the plane.

I have to wake up early to be at the airport at 8am.

Flight leaves at 10:10am.

Gets into HK at 2:05pm on the 29th and then to Shanghai at 5:30pm.

Hope I don’t get sick like I do everytime I fly.

Sim out!

5 days until I leave for Ningbo.

There's 5 days left and I still haven't packed, done most of my lesson plans yet, and does not have one clue as to what I will be doing there even though I'm suppose to co-teach a survey course for 1.5 hours for a few months the first month and English classes the other.

I am so NOT prepared for this!

panicking sim

Ningbo Internship

I will return to China this summer (hopefully it gave up in trying to kill me...)
I will be in Ningbo, the southern part of China. It's about 2 hours or so away from Shanghai which I will hopefully travel to during one of the weekends to take a look at the World Expo! :)

I'm just getting ready now to head out.

I'll be flying out on May 28th from NYC and have a layover in HK then head to Shanghai where I will be picked up...

Back to MHC life now...

Sim out.