A Daring Adventure

Nope. No Onward Assignment. But, Really - it's Okay

Yes, everyone - you're going to be shocked to hear this. Although there was another panel yesterday...

James didn't get an onward assignment. Again.

But, actually? It's okay.

It's okay because things are starting to fall into place for our family. Things are starting to make sense. Things are starting to come together. There's beginning to be a big picture. That we can see. And discuss. And make long term plans for.


I'll be able to share a lot more a bit later, hopefully, when plans have been made and paths are on course. 


It's funny. For the last nine months (and yes, we have been bidding now for NINE. MONTHS. As in, if I had gotten pregnant when we got our bid list I'd be ready to have the baby now) this whole bidding thing has totally been

THE NEVERENDING STORY

But the next panel is May the 17th and I'm optimistic that not only will James hopefully get an assignment that day, but that it will make total and complete sense for our family. Our WHOLE family. Including, you know, me.


And then I'll be able to tell the story. And it's a fun one, y'all. 


In the meantime, I have two weeks of classes left in this semester. I haven't really talked about what I'm taking, but it's, um, not exactly an easy load. And my cumulative finals are coming up and I'm sorta in the weeds studying for them.

Have I mentioned that I'm pretty much a Type A Nutjob and that any grade less than a 100 is like an "F" to me? Yeah. Good times. I'm a lot of fun to be around right now.

It's a busy time. 


Guess if I stress myself out too much while studying and end up with a headache, I can always go grab my trusty

Flot water bag. Everyone should have his or her own flot water bag. And also, don't get all over me for posting Chinglish pictures. I wholeheartedly admit that my Chinese would produce much more hilarious results if I had to use characters to properly label a "hot water bag" in Mandarin!

Anyway!


May the 17th, I have high hopes for you. DON'T DISAPPOINT ME.  

Earthquakes, Earthquakes, and Yet More Earthquakes

It's been a weekend of continuing earthquakes, y'all.


I mean, I've always read about how when there's a big earthquake (like we had here just two days ago, and if you didn't get a chance to read that blog post of mine yet, you may want to start there and then come back) there are then "many aftershocks."


Yeah, sure.


Let me translate the phrase "many aftershocks" for you. "Many aftershocks" means: And then, for the next several days, you will have literally hundreds** more earthquakes...they just won't be quite as large as the first one was.


Some of the hundreds** of earthquakes will be small enough that you don't feel them. Or you only feel them barely. But some/a lot/many/most? will be big enough that you feel them. And not just that you feel them, but some will be big enough to also alarm you.


One "aftershock" yesterday was an earthquake that measured 5.5. It was big enough that James and I lept out of bed and started to leave the apartment again. All night long - both last night and the night before - there were earthquakes that would shake the apartment and the bed and wake us up or keep us awake.


I'm sorry, but continuous earthquakes (and they come regularly, sort of like labor pains), are no fun. One will hit and during it we'll be all



 

And then it will be over (until the next one). Leaving us even more stressed out.  


Or, if we're REALLY unlucky, we'll be trying to sleep or rest and a bigger one will hit (the kind that starts shaking/rocking the bed and the stuff on dressers back and forth) and we'll be all




And then you can FORGET about sleep.


For the last two nights, we haven't slept. 


We are tired.


We are VERY tired.




(But we won't get one.)


James is stressed out and exhausted. I am also stressed out and exhaused. The kids are freaked the heck out, my younger one big time. 

 
Don't get me wrong. PLEASE don't get me wrong. We are alive. We are safe. We have a roof over our heads and electricity and running water and drinking water and food and people who are looking out for our welfare and safety. We are a thousand times more fortunate than many others nearby. And just like I predicted two days ago when the big one hit, the death/injury totals have been steadily climbing. As of today, the lastest news is that 186 people have been killed, 11,200 have been injured and 8,200 have been hospitalized. Many of those have been hospitalized here in Chengdu, as the epicenter of the quake was only 70 miles away from us and Chengdu is the capital of the province. 

 

I stole both this photo and the next one from the CNN story I linked to, above.

 
And our family isn't the only family freaked out by the "aftershocks" - many other folks are, too:

People are sleeping outside... or in their cars... because of the "aftershock" earthquakes

The continued "aftershock" earthquakes also are truly annoying because all of the shaking and all of the movement gives you a kind of a seasickness feeling. Like the sort of way you feel when you've been on a boat for a while and then you get back onto the land. You sort of feel like you're still moving, you know? Well, couple that with motion sickness or some kind of sea sickness and that's how James and I are feeling. And you can't get away from it because it's not like you can go somewhere that isn't shaking all the time. 


We've just gotta - wait it out. It's day two. Hopefully it will end soon. But I feel awful for all of the people nearby who have lost family members or lost their homes or are awaiting being rescued or are injured or have no drinking water or no food. Please keep this area in your prayers.  

 

[**UPDATE: Know how I put in my blog earlier that there have been "hundreds" of aftershock earthquakes since the big one hit two days ago? Yeah, well, I was a little off. There have literally been MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND. I stand corrected...] 

Earthquake! (And Also: It Pays to be Slothful)

Oh my gosh, y'all, what a day it has been.


James and I were just starting to wake up this morning and were lying in bed checking email when a very strong earthquake hit here in Chengdu. It hit hard and fast and we both vaulted up out of the bed and went racing toward the boys' bedrooms. All we wanted was for all four of us to be out of the apartment building as soon as possible.


Both boys were already out of their bedroom doors and into the hallway by the time James and I reached them, so we all went sprinting together out of the apartment and barrelling down the stairs. Mercifully, and in direct contrast to lots of other folks in China, our apartment is less high up than the average. I mean, seriously, some buildings around here are crazy tall - like more than thirty or forty floors I would wager - but we are lucky in that our apartment is close enough to the ground such that we were able to actually run down flights of stairs and get outside.


As we were running down the apartment stairs, we heard the emotional chaos going on inside the apartments were were running past - children screaming and crying and the sounds of things falling off of shelves and walls and falling onto the floors. 


Because it was a pretty Saturday morning, some of the other Consulate families were not in their apartments. Some were at sports gatherings, some were out and about on their own, and some were together on an official Consulate/CLO outing that actually took them directly into the epicenter of the earthquake. But when James and I and our boys hit the outside of our apartment building, we didn't know those things. We only looked around and saw the others who had also decided to run out of their apartments. There were terrified, crying children and there was much fear and uncertainty. 


I did my best to scoop up and soothe little ones needing comfort. Other families came out of the buildings. James and other Consulate daddies headed in to work, for that is where they are needed during disasters. Never mind that James and I were dressed in our pajamas - mercifully, James' "pajamas" basically look like workout clothes, so when he spent the morning wearing them at the Consulate doing whatever a James-type does during disasters, I'm sure he pulled it off - but I was in pajama bottoms and a tshirt with no bra on and my hair messed up seven ways to Sunday... looking like total hell in front of James' coworkers and their families.


It took the little ones a while before they were psychologically ready to start playing together outside, but they ultimately did. We all spent quite a while outside before being told that we could go back in. While we were outside, I got a chance to speak to a Chinese woman who had been here five years ago during the earthquake in Chengdu that had killed 68,000 and injured 374,000. Talk about a big, horrifying earthquake - it is rated as the 21st deadliest earthquake of all time.


She is now very scared of earthquakes, and she told me that five years ago there had been large "aftershock" earthquakes one, two, three, and and even four days after the big one had hit. She, herself, had been injured in the earthquake five years ago, and she was hesitant to go back into the apartment building even after we'd been told that we could. I can understand her fear after being through what she had been through. Heck, I can understand her fear and I haven't even remotely been through what she's been through.  


When I got back into my apartment, I found that many things had fallen off of shelves and tables. Pictures had fallen, artwork had fallen, even dishes that had been drying on my dishrack on my kitchen counter had fallen out of the dishrack or even onto the floor. Cupboards were open, drawers were open... it wasn't absolutely trashed or anything, but we knew that an earthquake had occurred and that it that had been big enough to really disturb our apartment. 


A little while later, there was a knock on my door. An American family that hadn't had a chance to get any Mandarin before coming to China asked if I would please use their phone and call their ayi to make sure that she and her family and her apartment were okay. I did, and everything was fine, but this was such a good idea that I also called my own ayi and made sure that everything was also fine there (which it was, thank goodness).   


It is absolutely on days like today when I am grateful for having gone through language training (though I would argue that doing a chapter at FSI on earthquakes and natural disasters and, you know, pandemic flu would have been ever so much more helpful in real life than all of those pointless chapters about global thermonuclear warheads. BUT WHATEVER). While outside, I was able to talk to Chinese folks (those who had been through the other earthquake and those who were in a position to know more about what was going on than I did) because I had Mandarin, and then I was able to relate back to the other Americans around what had been said, and this was quite nice to be able to do. It was also nice to hear that our apartment building had withstood the disastrous earthquake five years ago, etc. Very comforting.


We have since felt may "aftershock" earthquakes - along the five-something richter scales - and the boys and I have been inside the apartment but bracing ourselves each time one hits to feel it and figure out if we should go outside or not. The news reports are just coming in - depending upon which nation's measurements you use, this earthquake was either a 7.0 or a 6.9 on the richter scale - and there are already reports that more than 113 are dead and thousands injured after this quake. The numbers are still climbing, and I'm sure they will be higher than that in the end.


Mercifully, James' coworkers who were literally basically right at the epicenter of the earthquake when it hit (because the Consulate/CLO outing was bound for there) are all fine. I have heard fifth-hand reports of mudslides or rockslides on the road during their travels, and these reports are also to be found in the news, so it will be very interesting to hear what their journey was like.


But, really? James and I had toyed long and hard with the idea of going on that particular outing today, though we had ultimately decided not to because we are lazy and the outing was leaving super early in the morning. And this, my friends, is just another reason to be slothful sloths of epic slothyness, like we are. YOU ALSO can decide not to go on a CLO outing and thus end up avoiding being at the epicenter of a major earthquake! 


ANYWAY.


It has indeed been a crazy day in Chengdu today. Please keep this area in your prayers.


In the meantime, my boys have positioned the family tvs in such a way that aftershock earthquakes will not knock them off their tv stands and onto the floor:

In case you cannot tell, this is a super-blurry picture of a tv lovingly arranged on the unmade bed belonging to my fourteen-year-old son. Because ONE MUST HAVE ONE'S PRIORITIES, mustn't one?

 What a day, my friends. WHAT. A. DAY.

 

Way to Rub Salt in the Wound, Facebook

So I've whined before, at length, I'm sure, about how China blocks Facebook and so if you don't have a VPN you can't be on Facebook. And I've also whined and how China now is super awesome at immediately taking out VPN connections, and so when it comes to doing anything fun on the internet, I'm basically out of luck.


No Facebook, no Twitter, no blogs, no Pandora, no Netflix, no Hulu, no YouTube... no nothing. 


You remember this, right?


Anyway, you would THINK Facebook would be sensitive to my plight. You would THINK Facebook would know that, if I'm absent this long from logging in, that I'm either DEAD or I'm LIVING IN CHINA.


It's not like I haven't told Facebook that I actually AM living in China. It's not like I haven't posted on status updates that I'm living in China, posted pictures from China, pinned locations in China, etc. And it's not like Facebook hasn't acknowledged that it knows I'm living in China, since it has long ago started giving me advertisements entirely in Mandarin Chinese.


But what does Facebook still do to me??!?! Facebook sends me "We see you haven't been on Facebook in a long time! Please come back!" emails that I find emotionally excruciating particularly painful. Facebook will even email me tiny little teaser snippets of everything fun I'm missing, as though it were my fault, as though I could just log in any time my little heart desired and see everything that's gone on in my absence.

Just a few minutes ago, Facebook sent me this in an email and I WANTED TO DIE:





Donna. Jen. Heather. Connie. Other friends. My favoritest people in THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD. And really? REALLY, FACEBOOK? Way to rub my face in my own misery. Way to remind me of all the fun I'm missing. I REALLY NEEDED THAT THIS MORNING, FACEBOOK.


So now I'm all




Never mind that I'm supposed to be studying. Never mind that the semester is coming to a close and I'm facing a ton of tests and finals week soon. Instead I'm sitting here, wallowing in misery, feeling horribly sorry for myself, and whining internally (and on my blog). SO PRODUCTIVE.


Meanwhile, I should be doing my Chemistry homework. Was a Chemistry major a long time ago (before I switched majors in my junior year to political science. Would you like fries with that? Can't even get an EFM job at the Consulate with a BS in Political Science. Fat lot of good THAT major did for me!), and so it's nice to get back into it. 



 

Actually, I have to make fun of my Chemistry textbook for a second. Because, check it, y'all:

Since when do Chemistry textbooks get to act like they're really Biology textbooks? Back in my day, Chemistry textbooks actually had, I don't know, complicated, scary pictures of molecules on them or something. What is education these days COMING TO? Darn kids, get off my lawn!

 

And no, I'm almost all the way through the semester and the penguins haven't meen mentioned ONCE. DUH. BECAUSE IT'S CHEMISTRY, THAT'S WHY. 


And speaking of getting almost all the way through the semester, unless I wanna see this happen to me:





I better go get my studying on. 

Chickening Out

Not sure if you've heard - it's been on the news here and there - but there's some kind of flu thing going around in China and it's, like, a super big huge deal right now.


It's currently feeling pretty WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! all up in this place, y'all. 





So much so that just today I've gotten two emails from different places telling me not to eat chicken or eggs. And on top of that, my ayi informed that she, also, doesn't want us eating chicken or eggs. 


I negotiated with her. I told her that the chicken already long ago bought and placed in our freezer is proabably fine and that I'm okay with us eating it. However, I'm thinking whatever eggs I have on hand are the end of the eggs for... I don't know how long. I will be rationing them from here on out until things calm down here, chicken-products-wise.

Sorta how it feels when you're trying to decide whether or not you want to buy and eat eggs and chicken in China right now.

On top of that, today my sons' school sent out an email saying that they have suspended serving chicken in school lunches. That they will revise the menu, and will get back to us on what the new, chicken-free menu will look like for this month.  


This whole no-chicken thing is going to be hard for China. Because, seriously - chicken and chicken products are a big deal and are eaten A LOT. I mean, check it:

An awesome girlfriend of mine just took this picture of a random street here in Chengdu a week or so ago. Chickens for sale off the back of a bike - why not? Except I'm thinking this kind of chicken-selling cart (that you can see all the time, normally) won't be out and about on the streets nowadays. Or probably anytime soon.

So, you know: CHICKEN. 


It's what's NOT for dinner.



                                              ~   ~   ~


What else is going on here?


James was recently in Cambodia for about a week at A Work Thing. He really, really liked Cambodia. He was in Phnom Penh, and he soaked in the sunshine and the great air. GREAT air. He got to see some good, good friends (you know who you are!!) and he got to take a couple of pictures while he was there. 

An open market in Phnom Penh - lots of different food available

In Cambodia, he got to ride in a tuk-tuk for the first time, which he said was quite an adventure. He even took some video, but I can't post it because I can't get to YouTube because I don't have a VPN.


ANYWAY, he said there were tons of people all around - just like in China:

Just a few folks here and there...

And then he left Cambodia and came back to China. 

JUST IN TIME for the bird flu!!  


Lucky guy, LOL.