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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "William H Howard" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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04:16 pm
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So, Kapcon was awesome.
That feels like it should be the precursor to a post here.
Turns out, my phoen wasn't stolen, but while agitated I did manage to shatter a full bottle of Kahlua all through one of my bags, which was, y'know, quite suboptimal.
Presently looking at heading back to Kaikoura on Saturday, and getting a lift to Faire on Sunday.
Am feeling quite, I dunno, odd, on a bunch of fairly fundamental emotional levels. I'm not quite sure where I'm going to be in just over a month. There's a serious temptation to call off going back to China, it looks like the job I skipped the first job in favour of has decided on other players, and unless recruiters start getting back to me shortly, well, I'm not very keen on the idea of ending up in China, owing my dad a couple more grand than I already do, and not knowing what to do.
Which is all to say, I like it here, mostly. If I stay I think I'd still like to return to China someday and adventure, but I can adventure later, right? In the meantimeI could train ot become a teacher, get some teaching experience, and become a contributing member of society.
Which isn't as exciting as going to China, doing my best to get by despite being completely in over my head, and marvelling at the glorious culture. But does mean I get to be near my friends.
Kapcon really reinforced for me how much I like my greater peer group the vast bulk of the time. Y'know?
Still, I'm not firmly decided either way, if the job in Baoding starts talking to me again, I'd happilly go back, or if one of the various Shanghai jobs I contacted gets back to me, but somehow I don't think I should be holding my breath in those departments, and I need to decide soon if I want to attend Canterbury again. Y'know. general life decision malarky.
On the plus side, now that I'm old in the eyes of the government, student allowance!!
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01:35 am
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Movies I watched so you don't have to:
American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile
Movie comprised equal parts douche baggery and cheesecake.
Megadouche got ass raped by a girl because they didn't agree on a safe word.
Stifler learnt the value of true love and monogamy in the end.
Entertaining if your mind is completely off, which mine was.
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09:10 pm
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Argh.
So WINZ are frustrating. Not quite sure what I'm up to now. I've been showing people my travel photos. I'm such a stereotype.
Later ya'll.
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05:54 pm
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I just realised that I didn't post about this.
Despite all my agonizing, soul searching, talking to various and sundry people about it, and if I've seen you in person since about the 24th, having filled you in slightly.
There are people who I've for various and sundry overload reasons failed to keep adequately informed. I feel a bit shit for this really.
So, Status of Will update:
I decided not to go back to China on the 1st, so I'm not there. I'm _probably_ going back in March, but I feel less than awesome today, so it's not really the time to discuss the full ins and outs of it.
SO, why didn't I go back on the 1st?
The job was a bit of a lemon, which I would have put up with, if they'd arranged me the work visa in advance, rather than asking me to engage in the semi-common practice of crossing the border on a tourist visa and having them "sort it out".
See, I don't exceptionally like violating laws in authoritarian regiemes.
Anyway, as a consequence, I'm in NZ still. I'm currently up in Auckland, and I'm going to take the train down to Wellington on the 18th or so, which should be fun. I like trains. And I've never been on the Overlander before.
In more general terms, I'm struggling with my mood quite a bit, no doubt because my routine is upset, I'm living without my own private space for an extended time, and because I came off my meds over the course of the last month. Mostly because if I do go back to China (fairly likely) I'm not going to have time.
Oh yeah, and Telecom appears to have been losing some of my outgoing messages, which is bizarre.
I think that's all I can put here right now, my mood is at extreme low ebb, I kind of want to curl up somewhere and hide.
See lots of you at Kapcon or CF, yeah?
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11:04 am
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Daytrips.
SO: Does anyone in Chch feel like a day trip up to Kaikoura sometime around the 27th or 28th of January? This would be a couple of days before Faire.
I could probably kick back some cash for gas money.
All my garb and CF stuff is in storage at my parents, but I'm trying to figure out exactly how I should move about the country after Kapcon. Turns out a plane ticket to Chch is cheaper than getting the ferry across. BUT it does unfortunately leave me in the wrong place. Yeah?
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10:08 pm
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Oh yeah.
Just made a new XBox live profilefor a variety of reasons.
Confusionest
People shoudl feel free to add me. The house I'm crashing at has a copy of Halo 3 ODST, so I'm happy to join in online play with people at probably pretty much any hours in the next week, except Tuesday.
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10:45 am
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That was fun.
Christmas was OK, Big Gaming Week was fun, New Years Eve rocked.
Oh, and Mina's birthday party was fun too, I got to ride in a traaaaaaaaaaaaam.
Yeah, that's all for now, perhaps I'll do a proper indepth summation later, perhaps not. Currently couch surfing in Auckland.
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03:36 pm
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Meme time
Because y'know, doing pointless TELL US ABOUT YOUR LIFE memes seems appropriate right now.
Enjoying being in Chch, killing time, eating foods, BBQing. All sorts of taht kind of shite.
( Survey meme thing behind here, you know the drill )
I really did just do this to try and cut down on the boredeom.
Current Mood:  blank
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01:01 pm
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Anyone want to catch up in the next few days?
I'm staying at Chez Homer. Contact me to catch up.
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09:16 am
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People are weird.
Giantess porn! http://io9.com/5429939/the-larger+than+life-sex-lives-of-giant-women-[nsfw]
Not safe for work, I recommend family members avoid this link. I recommend friends go and laugh their heads off.
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11:50 pm
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Attention Artistic Friends: Favour?
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Chinese
Sourced from a stamp I found with google image search |
So I'm pretty sure I want a tattoo, and I know I know a lot of people a lot more artistically inclined than me, so I thought I'd ask generally.
Does anyone have any good ideas for getting a Chinese style Ox, such as the one above, into a Monochrome scheme that might turn up well for a shoulder piece?
And by ideas, I mean, you draw something I like, I get it emblazoned onto my shoulder for all time. Sound good?
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02:15 am
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In NZ.
Not quite sure what to do.
I'm mucking about in K-town at the moment. I thought I was only here for a couple of days, but it turns out I'll be here until Christmas Eve.
Which is ok, because it means I'm hanging with family, my little sister whose tastes in TV match those of my friends roughly. And who is as net obsessed as I am.
Oh and they're feeding me awesome nice food.
But yeah, urges returning is annoying as all hell.
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09:51 am
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plans in flux
Definitely going back to China, not quite sure on the day anymore. If this job who emailed me turns out to be interested, and less dodgy, I may well be going in March afterall.
With that in mind, I'm glad I didn't cancel my CF booking yet.
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08:05 am
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Flight Details
ARRIVAL: Auckland: 6:50AM, WEDNESDAY. Flight NZ88
ARRIVAL: Christchurch 10:20AM, WEDNESDAY. Flight NZ509
It'd be neat to see a few people at the airport?
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04:19 pm
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Ironically
It's in my final days in China that I finally lose my inate awareness of what time it is in New Zealand, and start to be surprised that everyone isn't online and talking at 4 in the afternoon (9pm in NZ)
Rugao is a giant warren of potholes, it feels like a more authentic China experience than Shanghai or Beijing. Well not more authentic. Less blunted? Less westernized? To say more authentic cheapens the actuality of Beijing and Shanghai.
They're both great. Beijing as a city of relics, of the place where Chinese cultural heritage is being clung to and preserved, even as the central apparatus of the Chinese government functions from within its gilded walls. It's a city where you pay for everything except the right to breathe.
Shanghai ont he other hand is China's fist rising gloriously towards the heavens. It is their stab at the new, the proud. It is GROWTH incarnate, and it is all the more metropolitan for it. Influences converge, Old Shanghai, Western Amorous Feelings, as the chinglish said. What does it mean?
I think it means, the city evokes them. It was MADE on them. The years of shame when Shanghai was under sectional control of foreign powers, and its quarters gained their unique heritage. The part where the French concession harbours so many relics of the bygone era. Where styles collide.
It's China striving to reach out, and the west striving to reach in. Meshing, melding, intermingling. Go to Shanghai, eat some of the best western food you'll ever eat, eat some of the most beautiful food the Orient can offer, at least that I've tasted so far.
Buy a shishkebab of meat from a Pakistani vendor who assumes you're American because of your skin colour, but doesn't particularly care where you're from, and who never tried to rip you off just for being white.
Buy books from a tout, whose little cart is pulled up on the side of the road between shops selling fruit, and bars catering to westerners and the upper rungs of the Chinese Middle Class.
Get paid a wage that would be obscenely low back home, is obscenely high locally, and you'll be almost embarassed to admit to your coworkers. Get laughed at by expats who feel like they've seen it all. Laugh at expats who've been in China for 7 years and speak less of the lingo than you do after 3 months. Wonder at the cultural imperialism that allows them to feel at home in a place where barely anyone understands them, where their grand contribution to the global community is learning enough Mandarin to get frustrated and yell, or haggle over food, or say that no, they don't want a prostitute.
Laugh at the language problems involved in a collision between someone who doesn't speak basic numbers, and the differing systems of counting. Get used to always paying for things after seeing the price of the goods displayed to you on a calculator. Write prices on your hand as a crude way to haggle when you realise you can't understand the other guys pronounciation of basic numbers.
Travel to a different city and discover that all of a sudden, no one can understand any of your idioms, or your pronounciation, because you were localized to the city you've been staying in. Learn a new localization, travel back to where you were, and laugh when people don't understand you anymore.
Marvel at the flawless nature of the streets, how clean they are, how everything is fixed the day you notice it's broken.
Watch as a new building goes up, in the time lapse of your morning trip to the metro. Be astounded by seeing actual visible progress.
Stand and watch a building site, see people without faceguards welding, people swinging around like monkeys, observe warning signs that warn things may fall without warning onto your head.
Realise that you are, in many ways, in the wild west, in a frontier age. Wealth is coming here, and many are benefiting, and some are left behind. Marvel at beggars who turn down some coins as too small ot be worth their time. Wonder about people who you always see begging outside the bar you frequent, at how much you can see them get in a given night. Wonder how well they live, off the proceeds.
Wonder at apartment buildings being torn down, wonder at the signs of habitation on half standing wrecks. Rooves caved in, walls missing, washing still hanging from sills.
Wonder at the apparent happiness of people in the street, at the societal ethics that must be present to allow people to be happy despite their obvious lack. Walk a block from a slum, into the richest shopping street you might ever see. Walk another block, and reach another slum, or stay in the precinct for an hour, wandering aimlessly.
Get stopped by guards, get let through by guards. Answer questions of curious guards with "Ting bu dong", "I hear but I don't understand.", and be let through because you are lao wai. Be told that in school they teach kids to be nice to foreigners, and wonder why your own country, whose very lifeblood is foreign money through export and tourism, doesn't have the same lessons inculcated into young minds.
Marvel at peoples stories of how they started with nothing, and how when they were 20 they earned a higher wage than their mother had at any point in their life. Marvel at the potential, the change, the glory of a thriving economy.
Wonder at the people who slip through cracks. Donate to beggars because you don't care about such small sums as will obviously feed them for a day or two. Make someones day. say hi to children, and have them burst out laughing. Have dinner with someone who has never spoken to a lao wai before, and refuses to speak English because they feel too shy. Watch as children hide behidn ther parents, not of people in general, but just from YOU, because you are SO different.
Current Mood:  fully rambolic
Tags: rambling
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11:10 am
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Woosh
So, Rugao time mark one is almost up. I'm sick, and relatively miserable.
But it's not Rugao's fault, its illnesses fault. I'm very aware of this.
So I'll come back, yeah. Now if I only remembered when exactly my tickets are. I know where they are, in my drawer in Shanghai, but I've got very little time before leaving now.
Oh, and minor fears that EET Pudong are going to be too disorganized to get me a work visa on time.
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09:35 am
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Sick.
As I'm sure plenty of you can attest to. Being sick in a foreign country is not a particularly pleasant experience.
Current Mood:  sick
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05:36 pm
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Mmm, meme, now with 90% less substance
If I came with a warning label, what would it say?
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03:59 pm
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Fruitless political activism
This pretty much establishes why I engage in it:
http://www.viruscomix.com/page474.html
Yeah.
Anyway, other than that, not much to report right now. Eying the world, staring at the cracks, wondering if I really do want to go walkabout after work tonight (I thinkt eh answer is yes, I'll pop a beer open and wander the streets with it in hand, I think, since it might ward off some of the creeping chill.
Tomorrow should be a no-work day, as I understand it. Which means I'll go around town on foot, or maybe curl up in my hotel room. Probably no internet access either way.
Really quite like it here, though I guess that's understandable. If it weren't so cold I'd probably rate higher than quite like.
I have decided that this webcomic is the best thing since sliced bread. It's how I've spent today.
Current Mood:  quasi-spiritualistic
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10:42 am
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Last nights thoughts:
Just watched the last 2 episodes of Defying Gravity, had to do this via the Internet, since my copy of the disc was kinda screwed.
Really need to get EET Pudong to commit to getting em a work permit, or rather, commit to saying they’ll get me one, so that I can justify the expense of booking a ticket back here in January. Y’know? Maybe not.
Looking forward to the prospect of next year, pretty much unreservedly. I know, I shouldn’t use a qualifier on a statement like that, but I suffer from anxiety and depression, it’d be a LIE if I didn’t admit to having at least some worries at all times.
Really need to remember the names of all my coworkers. Currently can remember most, but have been here long enough that I feel embarrassed by the prospect of needing to ask.
Didn’t learn any Chinese today that I can think of, though I continue to learn a word or two here and there, and generally to just try and use a bit more every day. That’s the way, right? No doubt I ought to be actually studying, and pursuing some form of lesson structure, but meh. This way flows easier for me.
Besides, Simon explains words to me, and I’m pretty sure a few of them are sticking, over time. And my coworkers are happy to help me work on my pronounciation when they can work out what the hell I’m trying to say in the first place.
My continuing failure to pronounce Xinxilan correctly disturbs me though, I mean, it’s the name of my home country for crying out loud.
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