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like....
THIS!!
why - you ask, is a prep school girl posing like she thinks she is a thug? actually, i'm trying to show off my newest accessory, that AWESOME beanie. that multi-dimensional, stylistically superb, complex dual-stitch beanie. it is seriously the coolest beanie in the world, nevermind that it's so tight it grips my head like a vise and basically stops all blood flow to my brain.
duh, i made it.
armed with nothing
but...
THIS!!
okay, enough craziness.
i'm gonna....you know....finish my application.
she likes the roasted sweet potatoes fresh off the carts, fat coals of warmth with heat trapped deep inside their mellow flesh. she likes eating them while standing on the sidewalk, scooping up soft mouthfuls of sweetness bite after greedy bite, while the rest of the root sits hot on her palms, tingling sensations percolating through the wool of her mittens. this is winter; deep, cold, with wind that cuts through any layers of clothing, sometimes bringing rain and snow.
but in the streets, haven can be purchased for three kuai.
listening to interpol makes my heart ache.
it's been getting very very chilly here in shanghai, which makes it harder to get out of bed in the mornings.
who am i kidding? i don't get of bed until i want to, ha ha ha ha ha ha!
anyway, yesterday jane and i spent a very strange yet hilarious day walking across half of shanghai. along the way we saw the suzhou river...
old, abandoned buildings...
and this little guy right here:
we saw these things because the day's excursion was meant to take place at moganshan road. it's basically shanghai's art district, a street and plaza-like space filled with galleries, that are in turn, filled with spectacularly disappointing shit. you would think that shanghai's "art street" would be a contender for trendier and more tasteful works, but most of the stuff was crap. the stuff we saw along the way was much cooler, like the graffiti:
and this old house,
which turned out to be a digital arts company that made a cool version of "pong"
-
in other news, i had a little taste of fudan student life the other night. watched a student singing competition. wow, folks here sing with no inhibitions. how shall i describe the experience?
hilarious. -ly awkward. painfully endearing? it was like a rock concert, complete with screaming fan sections, friends armed with glowsticks and posterboards. amay-sing!
there was a period of time when i wanted to fly back to taipei for my birthday because i was convinced shanghai would be the dumps. however, thanks to circumstance, i found myself miserably awaiting the arrival of my inescapable mortality in shanghai.
i had no idea what to expect.
i invited basically every i knew in shanghai, expecting a low turnout because a) i dont know that many people and b) it was a monday night. the location was at a restaurant chain called the blue frog. i reserved for 20 ppl with the restaurant folk being assholes about it. well, 30 ppl ended up coming, virtually overflowing the restaurant, and they had no choice but to give us the third floor. ALL of the third floor. so we basically got an entire floor of the restaurant for no additional cost. and rest of the night went as follows....
cassius, who has been sleeping on my floor like any good friend would, and her friend eric, who is now also my friend, except for when he remembers that i have OH.
amy, my first friend at fudan/gary, my first male friend at fudan/serenity, my first non-Asian friend at fudan.
man-love, from wenzhou.
albert the ozzie, gary the confused one, qiongsi the norwegian, and monison (monica+jason) the new yawkers
monica, myself, my korean sister soo, and anna, my bodyguard
ruyi, braydee, lori and jane, my fellow fulbrights (sans lori, she works for EF). look at jane's face. she's about to faint from exhaustion. man that fulbright program really works you to the bone.
fudan crew
aileen, my party planner and the mama of the group
i got to be an honorary wenzhou-er for a night
andi, tina belgium and harvard tina. they raised the average IQ of our party a couple points
the third floor came complete with a deejay booth, and we used this opportunity to mix it up. because it was my birthday i got to be DJ DLin. mwahahahaha
one of my two cakes (cassie's chocolate on chocolate was devoured before i even got a chance to take a pictures). this cake - bought by the wenzhou brothers - was so ridiculous we werent sure at first if it was edible, or just a sculpture.
then the gift-giving began
i think the expression on my face says it all.
we followed dinner with a big KTV romp, but my camera ran out of batts....wait till i hunt down whoever has the other pictures. still...good memories - fergalicious, commentaries and dennis throwing up in the bathroom, on the couches, in his own hair, and having to be carried out by jack and gary. and it wasn't even his birthday....
soo will have her first kiss soon. very soon.
the wenzhou kids
poor cass does not look happy to be in the proximity of so much man-love
wen bie. the ultimate chinese song by none other than the legendary jacky cheung.
i want to give a good description of this picture, but all i see is gary trying to eat his mic
wayyyyy too much going on in this picture.
a little better. poor amy.
5 am in my room, just me n cass. finally.
it's been a long night, as can be told by the smears of makeup around my eyes...
but nothing can diminish the joy of getting ALL THESE PRESENTS!!!!
MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!!!!!!!!
and then i got this the next day...
//video unavailable//
everyone is so freaking adorable! chris's elbow-ass (not the oral herpes joke? i'm surprised, hahaha), helen warning me not to be buttfucked, karina reminiscing, marco giving me the heads up abt diarrhea (no problems there, must have been all the nightmarket food in taibei that i grew up on hahahha), jae & stebboz blazed off their asses, anne all the way from maryland, krystal, doug, hannli, yulree, and cathy all giggley. and of course my boyfriend, the only one who knew just how happy this would make me, esp with the my sassy girl song =D
along with pages of facebook well-wishes, emails, and texts....
if there's one thing i've learned during this time away from home and all that is good and familiar, it's that enough love can get you through anything.
thank you all.
♥
so today i discovered that i have absolutely no talent for the game we call bowling. i probably set the bowling place's record for most gutterballs. while everyone was hitting strikes, and cassie's bowling ball was mysteriously splitting in two and knocking over pins on either side of the lanes, mine were flying from my hand directly into the gutter. apparently six years and thousands of dollars in tennis lessons had no bearing on my hand-eye coordination. wut the eff!!!
on the other hand, a combination of egomania and necessity forced my hand into creating some business cards for myself. it's exciting! for the first time in my life i have a little white card that elucidates all at once, who i am, what i do, and who is providing funds for my scholarly lifestyle.
and because i am a smartass, i made one set in traditional chinese and one in simplified chinese. so after i give my spiel of
"i'mstudyingtheeffectsofchina'stransitionfromtraditionalchinesetosimplifiedchineseinchinesespeakingcommunitiesinacommunicativeandculturalcontext",
i can ask the regretful interrogator if they would prefer my contact information in simplified orthography, or traditional characters. but to simplify things, both formats have everything in english on one side.
holler back youngun!
i held a baby today! honest to God i held a real, live baby!
leanna karis chapelle, born to charity and tony chapelle (no relation to dave), was born in sunny shanghai on november 22, 2008. a true thanksgiving baby!! that's why i will love her, because i am a thanksgiving baby too.
no, that and because she slept soundly in my arms, that adorable little pup! she had no idea the danger she was in. but the fact is, i held a baby in my arms with any cannibalistic tendencies taking over!
are we allowed our moments of weakness?
it's late
it's cold as fuck.
-
went to a market in jing an area today. mennnng shanghai markets can kiss my ass. i'd take shilin over this crapshoot any day. find me a place here that dont smell like pee. sunday night, but i find myself crammed sardine-style into a tube car. where do all these people come from and where do they go?
fridge is scrubbed clean, and the peel of pomelo is chillin inside, sucking up the last of the bad smells. i will have a fragrant functioning fridge by tomorrow!
-
i miss...
sharice//
galleries//
clubs//
music//
ghetto-fabulousness//
crack-fiends//
asian americans//
movie theaters//
bev center//
greasy burgers//
boys n girls//
i'd trade my firstborn for an el-fucking-taurino burrito right now.
my return to shanghai was heralded by a spectacular series of mishaps, diana-style. and by diana-style i mean shit that could seriously only happen to me.
case #1:
cat masuda generously opens her apartment to me for my first night back. her pretty little apartment is nestled in a neat little street in jing an district, surrounded by little stores and restaurants. i arrive after sitting through an hour traffic.
7:30 pm - me, cat and her five cats watch a good two hrs of america's got talent. my throat begins to itch. i know i am allergic to cats, but i figure after living with mesh for a summer, i'd outgrown it.
9:00 pm - we go out for a massage and watch good luck chuck. i forget about my itchy throat.
11:00 pm - we return to cat's place. i shower and get ready to sleep. it's been a long day and i didnt get much sleep the night before. the itch in my throat returns.
12:00 am - while talking to tim on the phone, my throat begins to swell alarmingly. i begin to cough.
12:30 am - am having trouble breathing. stick my head out window for fresh air, but the five cats continue following me around the house, rubbing against my legs and watching me from various roosts.
1:00 am - am coughing so bad i think i might throw up or go into anaphylactic shock. death by the collective pollen of five cats crosses my mind. i give up on sleeping in bed and chase the cats out of the computer room, open both windows (the wind is freezing) and aim a fan out the window to suck out the dust and cat pollen. my throat is hurting so badly i boil water to inhale the steam.
1:30 am - curled up on tiny leather couch trying to sleep, but must continually go to kitchen to get more hot water. coughing subsides somewhat. the cats stare at me accusingly each time i leave the computer room.
5:00 am - in a state of sleepless misery.
case #2:
the next morning i attempt to go to church. i get there eventually after getting lost for 20 minutes on the way to the metro.
in the afternoon i get back to the dorm, and upon walking in, see some mysterious puddles of black surrouding my minifridge. it looks like tar and does not smell. i am confused. i open said minifridge. the smell of one thousand landfills attacks me. i shut the door immediately. i tell my friends of the ecosystem that has sprung up in my minifridge and they become very excited. a date is made for the cleaning of the fridge.
the next day is when the cleaning commences. friends gather in my room which i put on rubber gloves and a carbon-filter surgical mask. i open the fridge door to the screams of my friends. apparently the ecosystem is complete with winged creatures (small flies) and biomorphic organisms (fly larva). cleaning commences for about two hrs. the two most disgusting hours that have ever transcended my existence.
what of the minifridge now? it is sitting on my balcony in the cold, airing out its stinking insides.
welcome back.
