Becca's E-version of a Chrstimas Newsletter

So after a telephone conversation with my grandmother yesterday -

Grandma: (Telephone Rings) Hello?

Me: Hi, Grandma! It's Becca!

Grandma:........Where are you?

Me: I'm in Carson City!

Grandma:........Well how did you get there?

- I decided that I had better post another blog stat, so at least if I die my family knows where to come looking for my body.

I have finally returned to the States. I'm staying with friends in Seattle until I can find a place of my own and working in a somewhat monotonous but well-paying job at King County. Honestly, I'm not really sure what it is I do, except that it involves making lots of copies and playing around with MS Word. I've sent out my grad school applications, and have little to do but twiddle my thumbs while I wait to hear back on them in February or March.

In order to stave off the boredom of everyday life, to which I am not yet re-accustomed and with which I have never really been able to make my peace, I have subjected myself to yet another trip on an airplane. This time I'm on a weekend jaunt to my hometown of Carson City, Nevada, to "celebrate" Christmas with my brother (and yes I use the term loosely, my brother isn't exactly the most jovial Christmas celebrator ever, and Carson City isn't really a place that anyone would purposely go to celebrate anything). I've found that I've become more or less Zen about the whole airplane experience; while other people in the airport were freaking out about weather-delayed flights and the holiday crowds, I just shrugged, yawned, and fell asleep with the hood of my ski jacket covering my face. I wanted to stand on a chair and yell out the story of my last flight to Beijing, just for the purpose of telling people to chill out and that things could be worse, but to be honest I'm not sure anyone would have believed me anyway. The funny thing is that I don't really see my indifference as a good thing. I used to get so excited about flying that I couldn't sleep the night before a trip. Now I'm so used to it that even trips to China seem run-of-the-mill.

Flying into Reno was a strange experience, driving into Carson even more so. I rarely come home, and when we were hovering at 10,000 feet over the airport I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe, like I was trying to squeeze into a pair of jeans I owned when I was twelve and have since massively outgrown. I've changed so much in the six years since I've been back to Carson that when I came back it was more like visiting a dream than it was returning to a past reality. Things haven't changed all that much, but I can't remember how to get anywhere or where to go to find anything. It's like I'm going back to someone else's past, and the feeling creeps me out. If this is someone else's past, then where is mine? If you don't have a past, can you even really exist? And isn't it a little strange that I feel more comfortable going to Shanghai than I do to my own home town?

Home....what a strange word. It has so many meanings that we never think about until we realize that we don't really have one, no matter how you define it.

Nate and I did, however, make the trek out to Fallon (if you don't know where it is, don't bother looking, it isn't worth the effort) to visit our grandparents yesterday, and had a nice visit. Pa was sick, but he says he's doing better now than he was before, so we pray for his quick recovery from whatever bug it is that's ailing him.

For all the complaining I do, I am grateful that my brother and his wife had me over for what would otherwise have been a very lonely Christmas for me, and I'm looking forward to a day of presents, navigating my way around the non-vegan food, and spending time with family members who I rarely see. It's not a white Christmas with a thousand people huddled around a huge tree and a fireplace, which is what I was really craving for the holidays (yet another definition of the word "home," I guess), but at least I'm with people that I love for Christmas.

蘇軾 - 水調個頭

江小宗。。。我永遠不會忘記了。。。


明月幾時有
把酒問青天
不知天上宮闕，今夕是何年？
我卻乘風歸去，又恐瓊樓玉宇，高處不勝寒。
起舞弄清影，何似在人間。
轉朱閣，低綺戶，照無眠。
不應有恨，何事長向別時圓？
人有悲歡離合，月有陰晴圓缺，此事古難全。
但願人長久，千里共嬋娟。

What I Learned in Hualien (or) Under the Table

Our devoted readers may have noticed a glaring absence of posts in myself and Lindsey's blogs of late. This is because of one single and absolutely annoying reason: it is graduate school application season. I can think of no worse way to spend my last few weeks in Taiwan than writing these asinine personal statements: advertisements that I crave the judgment of others and which do little more than re-package my long string of mediocrities until they shine like the brand-spanking-new attributes of a person worthy of studying at the world's most exhaustingly pompous institutions.

I have, due to some financial and personal reasons, decided to go home for some much-needed emotional down time and an even more desperately needed requisition of living funds. Determined that I have what she called "one really good memory before you leave Taiwan," last weekend Maini dragged me away from the rigor of selling myself for a trip to Hualien, on the eastern coast of the island. It is a beautiful place - pictures will follow, pursuant to the much-called-for truce in the war between blogger.com and the dial-up internet - and we had a beautiful time. We had foot massages, traipsed up and down the seaside on a rented scooter, and even had a personal driver (the result of some strange mix-up with the tour group regarding our vegetarianism; I still don't completely understand it) who took us on our own private tour of the breathtaking Taroko Gorge.

Over lunch at Starbucks on the second day we somehow found our conversation turning to the subject of censorship in the Chinese mainland. Fan though I am of the Chinese people (usually) no one will ever call me a proponent of communism, and I told her how sad it often makes me to think of my friends on the other side of the strait. China can get richer and richer, I said, but unless something changes I'm afraid that the friends I love so dearly still won't be free.

"Well at least they have you," she said, and with her sweetly innocent smile and in her sweetly innocent English she continued, "maybe you can make a difference under the table."

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to "make a difference," especially in the light of these retarded personal statements I have to write for grad school; why exactly is it that I want to study Chinese? I can vaguely remember wanting to use it to do some good in the world, back in the days before exhaustion, the GRE, and the Analects took over all of the free neurons in my brain, but is it really even possible? Or desirable? Who am I to preach the benefits of democracy or the delicious possibilities that arise when we focus on the good in people instead of the bad and actually give them the benefit of the doubt?

But when I looked at Maini sitting across from me, when I counted the amazing friendships that I have forged across some of the stiffest and most inflexible cultural boundaries in the world, I realized that yes, it was possible to make a difference. Not just me, mind you, but me and Maini. Me and Maini and everyone who makes the effort to step outside their own comfort zones and reach out to another person. Everyone who realizes that it really is possible to transcend our differences because we are, deep down, pretty much all the same. People like us, we're making a difference under the table. And if you're one of those power hungry war mongerers, if you think money is more important than world peace, if you're so attached to your own way of thinking that you find it impossible to love another human being not only in spite of their being different than you but actually because of it, then you'd better get out of our way. The best you can do is build the tables, but we're busy building bridges.

Hiking!

I wanted to create a post with all kinds of neat pictures - today's topic is really better described with visual aids - but at the moment I'm using dial-up, and apparently dial-up internet and blogger.com are at war with one another. Blogger.com has imposed sanctions upon said dial-up internet, disallowing the uploading of any cool pictures taken deep in the jugles of Isla Formosa or elsewhere.

So, at least for the moment, you'll have to use your imagination. I hope that isn't too painful for some of you; I know there are at least a few engineers and computer programmers who read this on occasion, and we all know what happens to them when they use their imaginations too much.

And, having thusly warned my readers, I shall hereby continue with the theme for the day. One of the cool things about Taipei is its close proximity to some very large and very forested mountains, making it a great place to live if you like to hike. Hiking here is a unique experience too. Never before in my hiking career have I encountered old men hiking barefoot while singing old folk songs in Taiwanese. Not to my recollection have I seen altars to the Virgin Mary and to Buddha standing side-by-side on a sheer rock face on the side of a next-to-abandoned path, cigarettes propped up on sticks burning quite literally as offerings below them. And I do not recall having ever before seen - not even in California! - any signs warning hikers to beware of the monkeys.

On Saturday my friend Jeff and I took our most recent excursion, to a mountain out of town at a place called Wulai. It was a rather long trek, interspersed with random staircases carved out of the rock face on the side of the mountain and bridges made quite literally of twigs that had been nailed together, some of which were already snapped in two. After a couple of hours we were tired and extremely hot, so when we came across a river we decided to stop and dip our feet in the water, whereupon we were promptly attacked by psycho man-eating shrimp.

The tiny river shrimp literally descended upon us en masse, nibbling on our toes and nipping the arches of our feet with their little pinchers. Never one to be enamoured by slimy things, I retreated to dry land (where I was not entirely safe, I might add; a dragonfly did dive-bomb into my head). Jeff, on the other hand, took his revenge by capturing several of the larger shrimp and confining them to one of his empty water bottles. He packed them along with him, intending to relocate them to another river and thereby put an end to the insurgency*. A little further up the mountain, however, the path got quite steep, and became more of a mountain climb than a hike. Somewhere in the violent shuffle between man and nature the water bottle fell out of Jeff's backpack, and the poor little shrimp went plummeting several hundred feet. I'm certain they either died of shock or were boiled alive in their tiny plastic cage. It was really hot that day.

On the way back down the mountain we encountered an old man sitting under a tarp near a hut on the side of the path. He informed us that some men were bathing in the river, that they were naked, and that - because apparently we weren't aware of this - I am a girl.

"Is that ok?" Asked Jeff.

"Eh," I said. "I'm sure I've seen worse."**

The old man then said in broken English, "Wercum to here."

"Thank you," I said.

"Where you fum?"

"I'm from America," I said, and then added in Chinese, "You speak English very well."

He beamed. "Is becuz you ah so bootiful."

Unsure what my appearance had to do with his language skills but willing to take the compliment all the same, I thanked him and turned turned to follow Jeff down the path. We did come across a river, there were indeed men bathing in it, and they were, in fact, naked. When they saw me they stopped, blushed momentarily, and then made cat calls at me as I crossed a twig-bridge above their heads. After we had passed I could hear them behind us yelling, "Hey! Why didn't you warn us a girl was coming?!"

It was quite an adventure, what with all the naked butts and the murderous shrimp. When I got home that night I went to bed at 8:00 and slept for nearly twelve hours, and I'm actually still sore two days later. I'm pretty sure that entire hike was 500 miles, uphill the whole way. It's funny how you never remember the part of the hike where you actually got to go back down...


*I'm not entirely sure I understand the logic here, but I imagine he was thinking it was something akin to taking John Gotti away from the mob.

**I haven't.

Death is All Around Me!

People ask me periodically whether I ever miss eating meat. For the first couple of years, I'll admit, I did. I'd smell a steak at a restaurant or pass the rack of roasted chicken breast at Safeway and have momentary, albeit very spirited, argument with myself as to whether my activism was really worth anything at all and whether that chicken didn't really want to be eaten in the end anyway. When your imagination is wild enough to anthropomorphize animals in the first place, it isn't hard to expand the concept to chickens willfully lining up to nobly and knowingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Or whatever.

But any long-term vegetarian will tell you that after those first couple of years, your mindset really begins to change. At first you simply find yourself not craving meat at all. Your friends eat it in front of you, and you are surprised to find that you are not only not jealous, but that what you see between the hamburger buns is less tasty morsel than it is quarter pound of saturated fat. Pass another year, and the very thought of meat is so nauseating that you have to cross the street when you encounter a Burger King just so you can avoid the smell.

So this morning on my jog, I was suddenly overcome by the nauseating, gut-twisting smell of MEAT. I should add that the air in Taipei at any given time is an amalgam of every kind of aroma, most of them originating in a food stand, and I like it that way. It adds to the atmosphere. But this was the most overpowering smell I have ever experienced in my life. I never knew that meat could smell so strong.

Not thinking, I turned my head to look into the restaurant, wondering what on earth they could be serving that would give off such a pungent odor.

They were butchering a cow! On the table! This chick was sawing off its leg!

My knees almost gave way underneath me. I looked away as fast as I could, but the damage was done: I was so shaken up that I had to walk the rest of the way home. It was only a block, but still...

I'm still not sure what to make of this. Just because I'm a vegetarian - and super sensitive too; I'll admit it - it doesn't mean that I don't know that death is out there or even that I'm overly offended by it. But a little advance warning would have been nice! It was such a creepy sight, and I wasn't emotionally prepared for such an upheaval. I'm an American. I don't want to know where food comes from.

Right now, I am mad at Taiwan. Every time I start to think I'm getting used to it it throws me another curve ball.

Taipei is Going to the Birds

I realize it's been a while since my last post. This is because a) I'm lazy, b) I've been busy and c) I've been having internet trouble. I wish I had more valid excuses than these, but that's all I can come up with for the time being. It's 11:00 pm and I'm not feeling creative.

There is a bird in my air conditioner. He lives there. He wakes me up every morning with a song that would be beautiful any other time of the day but at six a.m. sounds more shrill than a fire alarm. Ned, far from being irritated at the presence of a squatter in his appliances, explained to me that the presence of a bird at one's apartment is a sign of good luck, and that we should be thankful that it chose to rest its overeager little beak here of all places.

And in keeping with this theme, when I was out with my friend Roy a few nights ago a bus passed us while we were waiting on a street corner for the light to turn green. On the door of the bus was a huge red sign that read, "NO BIRDS." Roy, misreading the confused look on my face, quickly sought to explain the prohibition: "It's because of the bird flu."

"Ok, but....you take your birds on the bus?"

"Sure," he said, as though it were simply common knowledge. "Lots of old people like to take their birds for walks. It's especially popular in Hong Kong. People there take their birds with them to eat dim sum."

Seriously? Birds like to go to dim sum? What if someone mistakes them for food? If I were a bird, I'd be terrified.

And while I can't say I'd like to see someone eat my air conditioner bird, I don't think I'd mind if someone put him on a bus to, let's say, Kaohsiung or something. Maybe then I could get some sleep.

Slippers (or) Here is Great!!

I went with some friends on a weekend trip to a place called Ilan, which is situated on the eastern coast of the island. This should give you an idea of how small Taiwan actually is: Taipei is more or less on the west coast. It took us less than an hour to get to our destination on the other side of the country. (If you're interested, you can take a look at the map at http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/asie/images/taiwan-map-admin.gif. I think it's a pretty decent one.)

At any rate, in order to kill time on what in Taiwanese terms amounts to the longest drive ever, my friend asked me if I had become accustomed to life in Taiwan yet. I answered that yes, for the most part things were ok. It was just the little things, I said, that still made me feel out of place.

"Oh," she said. "Like what?"

"Well, like, for instance, you take off your shoes when you enter the house here. In America we don't do that."

"Oh, I know," said her husband. "You wear slippers inside, right?"

"No," I said. "No slippers."

They paused and looked at each other.

"Then what do you wear?" he asked.

"Our shoes."

Another pause.

"What shoes?"

"Our shoe shoes."

"You mean your shoes from outside?" My friend looked troubled.

"Yeah, just our regular shoes. We don't take them off or change them when we go inside."

"Well that's weird."

The truth is, I really can't get used to what I am now referring to as the "slipper culture" here. They have slippers for everything. For example, in my apartment I have:

1. A pair of slippers next to the front door. When I come home, I have to take my favorite pair of Converse off and leave them vulnerable and alone outside the door, take an elephant step in through the door, and put on a pair of slippers. These are my Wandering Around the House Slippers. When I leave again, I must acrobatically and strategically find a way to step out of the house and directly into my shoes, since apparently walking outside in your socks - even if it's just in the hallway in front of the apartment door - is frowned upon.


2. A pair of slippers in front of the bathroom. They're bright pink with pictures of hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) on them. These are my Bathroom Slippers. When I want to use the bathroom I must first a) take off my Wandering Around the House slippers and b) replace them with the Hippopotamus Bathroom Slippers. This is due to another strange cultural phenomenon: the absence of any shower curtain in my bathroom, which leaves the bathroom floor literally in a puddle of water every time I shower. The Hippopotamus Bathroom Slippers both keep my socks dry and keep my feet from making muddy footprints on the floor, in the unhappy event that my Wandering Around the House slippers are not doing an adequate job of keeping my feet clean.

3. A pair of Semi-Outdoor Slippers for the enclosed patio upon which my clothes are hung out to dry. This brings to mind another cultural oddity: people here think clothes dryers are for sissies. It's not that most of them couldn't afford one; they just really prefer to hang the darn things up and let them dry naturally, which in the Taiwanese humidity can take three or four days. It drives me crazy, because not only do my jeans take a week to dry, but when they finally do dry they come out wrinkled and stretched out. And to add insult to injury, I must wear the Semi-Outdoor Laundry Slippers when I am hanging them up.

It sounds silly, but it's really those trivial differences - the no shoes in the house, the no shower curtain, the no clothes dryer - that make me feel homesick. This morning, however, when Ned sent me his daily message on the internet to check in on me, I told him I was missing home and he merely wrote, "No."

"No?" I typed. "No what?"

"Don't go back," he said. "Here is great!!"

I had to laugh in spite of myself. Here is, in fact, great. Even if I do have to wear pink hippopotamus slippers in the bathroom.

A Small Request

I understand that there are people out there who disagree with me about a lot of stuff, especially in the area of politics. I also believe that these people have as much right as I do to express themselves. I don't mind my blog being used as a forum for political discussion either; as a matter of fact, I welcome it. Insightful, spirited debate is always a good thing.

But please, please, please, for the love of God and Pete and all that is Holy, don't post anything vulgar, offensive, uneducated, or rude. I've had to field a few nasty comments from mainlanders in the past few days, and I'm unimpressed. Educated, well-thought-out arguments are fine, but you're not going to win anyone over with snide, insulting remarks.

You Know You're a Foreigner When....

Just about any foreigner who has lived here for any length of time will tell you that Taiwan is a great place. The people are super friendly, the food is amazing, and it has a certain charm to it that you can't find anywhere else. I would venture to say that there is not, however, a single expat who bears any fondness at all for the bureaucracy here. And it's especially bad for foreigners, because it seems like the government tries to make life as difficult as it can for us. You have to leave the country to renew, change, or generally deal with your visa. The rules regarding employment and studying are bizarre, unenforced, and nearly incomprehensible. You need a visa to come here, but in order to stay here you need to spend even more money and apply for yet another piece of paper. And really, that's all it is. Just a $30 piece of paper.

Today it was my turn to pay $30 for a piece of paper. I've been here for 15 days now, and it was the last day for me to apply for my Alien Resident Certificate - kind of the equivalent of a Taiwanese green card. So I got up early, collected my passport and some cold hard cash, and followed the directions in my student handbook to the police headquarters, which is apparently where they do that kind of thing here. The directions led me to a metro station, and then abruptly and dramatically ended. Long story short, the police station was nowhere near the metro station, and I had to ask a myriad of people for directions and walk around for two hours before I finally found it.

Then I had to wait in line for two hours.

Then the guy who helped me was watching TV while he was filling out my paperwork. Or should I say, instead of filling out my paperwork. While I was waiting for him I looked up at the message board on the wall and saw...

Pacman. Pacman was chasing some little monsters across the marquis at the foreign affairs office of the police headquarters of Taipei county.

So I left home at 9 am this morning, and when I was done with everything I had half an hour to make it to my 2 pm class. Sure that I would never make it in time if I took the metro - assuming I could even find the station again - I hailed a cab. The cabbie was super friendly and loved to talk, but he kept repeating over and over how pitiable he thought Taiwan was, as though I could do something about it just because I'm white.

"Lots of people thing we should join the US and become a state," he said, and whether he was joking or not I couldn't quite tell. "What do you think?"

They should change the official name of the country, he said, from Republic of China, which is too close to the mainland's People's Republic of China, to Taiwan. Taiwan is losing face because it's not allowed to carry its own flag in international sports competitions. It sucks to be a cabby in Taipei because all the business owners in Taiwan are moving their factories to the much cheaper mainland, which is affecting the Taiwanese economy, and it's all interrelated you know. These are the things I learned from my afternoon cab ride.

The problem is that in a lot of ways it's true. I haven't even been here that long and I can already feel it; there's a huge gap between the ambitious, optimistic attitude in Shanghai and the downtrodden, hopeless attitude I feel in Taipei. These people are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Most of their money now comes from the mainland: if they do something to endanger those ties, it would bode ill for the economy here. And yet their identities are wrapped up in their independence from the mainland. Most of these people see themselves as being as Chinese as much as Americans might see themselves as being British. They share a history, but in the here and now they are very much their own people with their own way of doing things and their own extreme love for their democratic independence, an independence which they see threatened by the potential of mainland interference. The differences between the two countries, and yes I'm being assertive when I phrase it that way, are overwhelming. Their traditions, their personal interactions, their ways of viewing the world, at least from my outsider's point of view, are not only disparate; I personally can't even see how they could be compatible.

A Student Once More

The Chinese - especially the Taiwanese, who tend to be more traditional - still use their original lunar calendar when it comes to defining the dates for special traditional events and so forth. It's lunar July now. Actually, it's the second lunar July; for some reason this year is special and has two Julys. Ned tried to explain why, but he tried to explain it in his broken English and two weeks later my head is still spinning from trying to understand it.

At any rate, lunar July is apparently Ghost Month, and although most Taiwanese will tell you it's just a silly superstition they all still seem to look back over their shoulder whenever the wind blows wrong. Ned, who is getting married in December, even decided to wait until after lunar July ends to go get his wedding pictures taken, just to be cautious. And wedding pictures are a big deal here.

And me, I'm a stupid white girl. I live in a rather big apartment, all by myself, and when I got home tonight I was a little creeped out because a door that normally remains permanently closed for some reason kept opening itself. Forgetting that it is Ghost Month, and forgetting further that I am in Taiwan, I mentioned jokingly to a friend:

"I think I have a ghost in my apartment."

"Oh!" he said in all seriousness. "Do you need to come stay at our place?"

I can't seem to adapt my sarcastically playful personality to the local culture. Every time I try to make a joke, even a small one, I end up freaking someone out.

In further news (I mean further than its being the second lunar July, which I'm very sure everyone at home cares about) I finally started school this week. I am overjoyed, because having nothing to occupy my mind was getting slightly dangerous. I was actually originally placed in far too low a class - whether it was due to some administrative mix-up or my own incompetence on the placement test I'm not really sure - and I've had to spend the past three days changing classes and filling out paperwork and negotiating with teachers and etc. etc. etc. trying to get in a class that was more suited to my level. It's been exhausting, but it's keeping me busy, which at this point is the general idea. The class I ended up in will still be a little easy for me, but I think it's just at that right level where I can review a little without being too bored.

Lifestyles of the Taiwanese and Famous

I was having tea at a coffee shop with my friend Roy and his girlfriend Cherry tonight when Roy caught me ogling an extremely good-looking man sitting in a corner in front of a laptop.

"Handsome, right?" he asked, nudging me a little.

I flushed, embarrassed at having been caught staring, and admitted that he was indeed rather attractive.

Roy shrugged. "He's a singer. He was a celebrity." He leaned forward and repeated for emphasis, "Was."

I find the celebrity culture in Taiwan a little baffling, to tell the truth. Here this guy who apparently used to be quite famous was sitting off to the side of some nondescript coffee shop minding his own business, and all the rest of the people in the place knew who he was and were just kind of ignoring him. No one was pointing or staring or whispering behind his hand like they would have with a has-been in America. He was just another guy who at one point happened to have been famous. Roy would never have even thought to mention it to me if he hadn't noticed me looking at him.

The thing is that for as small as Taiwan is - the population of Taipei isn't much more than that of Seattle - they still manage to produce a thriving pop culture that's almost on par with our own, if on a somewhat smaller scale. They have the beauty magazines and the pop stars and the famous models, and it's a culture that extends across the strait and into the mainstream on the super-populated mainland. What the Taiwanese don't seem to have much of, however, is the culture of idolotry that we tend to. My sneaky suspicion is that the size of Taiwan makes it a little more difficult to be high-and-mighty, because at any point any of your fans could bump into you on the street...

The Home of the Brave?

People keep telling me I'm brave for coming here, a single woman all by myself in a big city in a VERY foreign country. Especially my Taiwanese friends. Chiawei keeps telling me she could never do what I'm doing, and Ned calls me at least once a day to make sure that I'm ok...

The thing of it is, I kind of wish they would stop saying it, because until people started calling me brave it never really occurred to me that there was anything to be afraid of in the first place. I mean sure there are emotional difficulties involved with being away from home for so long, but those are just annoying, not frightening. Really, living in a foreign country isn't that bad. Of course you find things that you dislike, but you just remind yourself that there are thousands of other people who have been living like that their whole lives and there's no reason that you can't do it too. Then you suck it up and move on. And there's always the benefit of making new friends and learning new things to make it worth the effort...

Still, it makes me wonder if I shouldn't at least be a little frightened, if there's something in my brain that kind of blocks the usually inherent need to be surrounded by the familiar, and whether I wouldn't be better off if that blockage could somehow be surgically removed. Is it possible that there could come a time when I'm incapable of forming an attachment to anything at all? Is my sense of adventure just damning me to a life of nomadic uncertainty?

Do I think too much?

Hooray for Malapropisms

One of the more amusing things about interacting with people whose native language is so different than your own is the occasional ironically misused vocabulary. Take, for instance, the following: during a recent conversation with my friend Chiawei and her boyfriend Chiachi, Chiawei became curious about my motivation for being a vegetarian. She thought it might be a religion thing - lots of people here are vegetarians because they're Buddhist - but she couldn't think of the word for it.

"Do you believe in booty?" she asked.

Chiachi, whose English is near-native and who is somewhat more familiar with American slang, chimed in "I definitely believe in booty."

It took us a while to explain to Chiawei just exactly what it was that she had just said, whereupon she flushed a bright color of pink. Thank goodness she had a sense of humor about it, though; since then it's kind of become a running gag. It makes me wonder what silly and/or meaningless things I've said to complete strangers without even knowing it...

Taipei 101 (Literally Speaking)

Taipei 101, the current tallest building in the world, at a height of roughly a billion kajillion feet. To be honest, in person it looks a little stubby for the title it holds. Then again, I of all people should know better than to automatically pass judgement on stubby things, seeing as how I'm not so tall or graceful myself...

I'm slowly starting to get settled in to life in Taiwan, and the initial shock of being here is wearing off a little. Ned went home to Taichung yesterday afternoon, leaving me with a large apartment and a lot of free time to myself, so a friend suggested that I ride the metro to a bookstore downtown.

I am no longer homesick.

This place was amazing. It was story after story of every kind of book you can think of in any language you could care to read. When I first walked in I had to stand in the lobby and let the shock wear off before I could even move. Suddenly a year in Taipei doesn't seem like long enough. Seattle? What is that? Never heard of it! Huge dictionaries, Tang poetry in the original and English translation, a whole wall of martial arts novels, and a New York Times Bestseller wall for the foreigners who are either less than inclined to be courteous guests and actually learn the language or who are courteous guests and simply need a break from going cross-eyed staring at Chinese characters. (I, by the way, belong to the second category.) This bookstore had everything. I probably could have slept in there, with a bilingual edition of Ding Ling as a pillow.

I spent the morning trying to get registered for classes, which proved to be quite a chore considering that (a) the school will only take tuition payment in cash and (b)no one working at a bank in the Guting district seems to have heard of a traveler's cheque before. ("Wait a second, I have to ask...Hey! Xiao Wang! Can we exchange traveler's cheques?"..."What? Who is traveler's cheque?" was how the general exchange went).

Usable funds finally secured, I had to go wait in line behind some fruitcakes from Nicaragua who had somehow arrived at the conclusion that it would be okay for the four of them to share the same scholarship certification letter, which incidentally belonged to a girl who wasn't even there. My patience was wearing a little thin by the time I finally made it into my placement test, which in itself was rather asinine. I suspect that even someone with only slightly higher than average intelligence who spoke no Chinese at all could have passed it:

"Mr. Zhang gave the book to you. Answer this question: who did Mr. Zhang give the book to?"

The experience was still better than the one I had at Fudan, though, in which the entire placement test consisted of a two-minute interview with a less than enthusiastic teacher who had been randomly chosen to teach over the summer.

And in keeping with this line of thought, I will hereby present a list of things that, at least so far, I like better about Taiwan than I do about the Mainland:


1. stinky tofu and the funny man who sells it on the corner who talks to me about everything under the sun every time I eat there
2. sit-down toilets
3. the bookstore
4. the bookstore
5. the bookstore
6. I can see, post on, and generally maintain my blog without difficulty, and do so without being labeled a selfish anti-communist foreigner
7. I have yet to be poked, prodded, elbowed, pushed, shoved, cut in front of in line, stared at like I have a foot-long beard, or be the victim of any other kind of physical, emotional, or mental abuse.

I like the last one best.

Taipei 101 (Figuratively Speaking)

I've finally arrived in Taipei, which is both relieving and a little frightening. I'm stuck here for a year, which means both that I finally have a semi-permanent home on the positive side and that I am stuck here for a year on the slightly more disturbing angle. I'm tired. I'm homesick. I'm emotionally spent. And I really miss Lindsey.

I do, however, have some very good friends here in Taipei. Ned, who is letting me stay at an empty apartment he owns here, drove all the way up from his home two hours away to pick me up at the airport. He's been staying with me and showing me around the city. We also met some other friends for dinner last night, and afterward we went to a night market. It was crowded and it was hot, but I had a good time. It's been nice to see some familiar faces in this place that feels so foreign to me.

And on that note, it's remarkable to me how not like China Taiwan is. I really think that somewhere in my mind I expected it to be just like a more modern Beijing or something, but it's really not. This city has its own personality, and I think the shock of it feeling so unfamiliar is something that I didn't really expect. It's probably why the homesickness is so much worse than I had anticipated.

I'll post more when I have pictures. Right now I'm still settling in and stuff (including my camera) is scattered everywhere...

Leaving Shanghai (Reprise)

I came home from taking Lindsey to the train station this afternoon to find that the maids had cleaned the hotel room and that there was a cherry pit stuck to the toilet seat in the bathroom. I am, and shall likely forever remain, slightly bewildered.

Lindsey left in what amounted to a panicked rush for Nanjing this afternoon; we left for the station two hours early and how it ended up being a rush seems a bit blurry to me now, though it had something to do with the fact that the fuwuyuan had taken Lindsey's luggage into a place where as a non-ticket holder I apparently couldn't go, and Lindsey was obliged to follow on their heels in order to keep adequate track of her things. They weren't the sort of people to stop while you said a sappy goodbye, so we ended up with a sloppy goodbye instead. Probably all for the best anyway. I'd hate to be the white girl standing lost and forlorn and crying alone in a sea of bustling Chinese in front of the train station.

I spent my last night in Shanghai with my good friend Max, who treated me to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and then to a quiet walk along the Pudong side of the Huangpu River. It was a nice way to spend my last night here, even if it did make me sad to be leaving. I feel as though I didn't have nearly enough time in Shanghai. Still, I'm starting to wonder if any amount of time would have been enough. With all the friends I have here and all the little quiet spots I've carved out for myself in the city, I've started to think of Shanghai as a second home. It hurts a little to have to leave again.

I'm leaving my hotel for the airport at 4:30 tomorrow morning. It's 10:38 pm now and I haven't even started packing. My stuff is still scattered around the room, although there are hollow spots in certain chairs where the absence of Lindsey's stuff is a little too conspicuous right now. I'm excited to finally get to Taipei and to get settled down a little, but at the same time I can't help but drag my feet. I don't know if I'm prepared to go through any more changes in life. I'm sure that I wuld stay in Shanghai forever if I had the option...

Pondering a Child

It has come to my attention that until now my blog has not allowed for anonymous postings. I've fixed it, so those of you who don't have a blogger account can post things if you want to. Just no spam, please. I'm tired of serving as an advertisement for blogs about hair restoration surgery and rapid weight loss products. Any relevant statements - or even the irrelevant ones, as long as you're not selling me anything and they're not too bawdy for a general audience - are welcome.

We went to see a friend's baby yesterday. She's a month and a half old and absolutely adorable; it's so amazing to watch her sleep and wonder what it is she must be dreaming about when she scrunches up her little hairless eyebrows and bites her lip with her little teethless gums. Everything about her radiates trust and vulnerability, and I find it equally reassuring and discomforting. She lives in a VERY well-off family and will live a very privileged life, but she doesn't know that. She doesn't know about global warming, doesn't worry about whether she will die in her next cab ride, doesn't understand that there will be some days that the sunsets take her breath away and others when she despises the sunrises.

She doesn't know that someday someone will break her heart.


There was a small but persistent part of me, a rock-hard tumor of disillusionment tucked somewhere in a shadowy back corner of my brain, that yelled at me that someone should tell her these things, tell her how much life is going to hurt her and how people are going to abandon her, before she has to find out on her own.

And then I looked at Lindsey, who was holding the baby at the time, and I realized how ridiculous it was. The truth is, I'm so lucky. I've had friends like Lindsey who have stuck by me even when I couldn't get out of bed, let alone return the favor. I've traveled all over the world. I speak one of the world's hardest languages (kind of). I've met amazing people and seen amazing things. Yes, life hurts me sometimes, but I think it's just because there's so damn much of it. And the reality is, I can only hope this little child is as lucky as I've been, and that in the end she'll have the strength to pay the price that such good fortune sometimes ends up costing.

Yu Yuan and Lu Xun

One of the bad things about traveling with someone who also has a blog, who is on par with you in terms of writing ability, and with whom you are generally attached at the hip anyway, is the fact that whoever gets to her blog first has first dibs on the funny stories. This morning was Lindsey's turn. So I have nothing left that is either amusing or interesting to say. Maybe I can find a picture that she hasn't posted yet...(we're sharing all our photos too, so it might be a challenge):

This is us with some friends at a vegetarian restaurant near Huaihai Zhong Lu. Take that, Lindsey Victoria.

To get even with Lindsey Victoria - who I will address by her full name until I have finally forgiven her for not leaving me any amusing anecdotes to post on my own blog - I will hereby be the first to post about our day trip yesterday. We met with a friend for a tour of the Lu Xun museum and the Yu Gardens. Lu Xun, for those not quite so interested as I am in Chinese literature (and who I'm guessing comprises 99.9% of my readership), was a very famous figure during the literary revolution in the early part of the 20th century and, for my money, one of the more interesting Chinese people ever.

They didn't allow us to take pictures at the museum, but we went from there to the Yu Gardens and got some pretty nice pictures. It was beautiful, as most Chinese gardens are, and we did get some good pics there. At least I did; the zipper on Lindsey's purse broke halfway through the trip and her camera got stuck inside.

A Night on a Train

It's amazing to me how Chinese people can at once be so incredibly rude and so incredibly friendly. Take, for instance, our train ride from Beijing to Shanghai:

Lindsey and I have a plethora of luggage. That is the only way I can think to describe it. We both panicked a little at spending a whole year abroad and I think we both brought everything we owned. At any rate, upon arriving in our taxi with our abundance of baggage, an old lady met us at the taxi with a small hand cart and offered her services in taking us across the very busy intersection from the taxi hub to the station. We agreed, knowing that we would never be able to carry it all ourselves, and suddenly a male counterpart materialized, who also asked to be paid. We shrugged - it was only $2 US a piece, and they probably needed the money more than we did anyway - and allowed them to take our stuff. Then they abruptly stopped a foot away from the crosswalk and demanded payment. Lindsey adamantly refused and told them they would get nothing until we made it to the station, whereupon they angrily (and loudly, and two inches from our faces) responded that they had no way of knowing whether we would cheat them. We finally arrived at a compromise where we would take the money and hold it visibly in our hands until we got across the street. When we finally got there, we somehow got mixed up and Lindsey and I both paid them the full amount, which meant we were taken for what ended up to be a good five dollars.

Then another lady charged us ten kuai a piece for the privilege of putting our baggage on a cart that we had to get on in order to go into the station. Then another man charged us another ten kuai for physically putting our bags onto the train. Only he did it before he told us he was charging us. When we finally got to the train, we discovered that our tickets were for two different cabins in two different cars, and the "customer service" agents were less than sympathetic. Honestly, I think they thought we were crazy for complaining.

On the other end of the spectrum, though, were our cabin-mates, who ended up being the nicest people on earth. I shared my room with an engineer from Microsoft and two Ph.D. candidates from Fudan, who amused themselves for a good portion of the ride by asking me questions about the U.S. and practicing their English with me. They apparently found it utterly humorous that a dog in the United States would be so spoiled as to have a place on his master's bed at night. Lindsey's roommates were also quite entertaining, one of them even treating all of us to dinner in the dining car. When we finally arrived in Shanghai, all of them banded together to help us with our luggage, each one dragging a different suitcase. One even went so far as to help us all the way to the car.

The train itself was really nice, with the obvious exception of the bathrooms. The beds where comfortable and the rooms were clean. I highly recommend them if you ever have occasion to travel in China.

Shanghai is just as I remember it: hot, muggy, and full of life. It's nice to be back and to see my old friends again. Odd how the once-so-foreign Shanghai would be the only thing that really feels familiar in my life right now....

Kids on a Wall

Lindsey and I are quickly discovering that the best way to improve our Chinese is to practice with the xiaopengyou. Case in point: two of the kids on our hotel-sponsored tour bus yesterday to the Great Wall. One was a little ham of a boy whose surname Hou (which he explained to us in a very grave tone is also the word for monkey) fits him nicely. I don’t think he stopped moving until the last ten minutes of the trip home, when he abruptly fell asleep on Lindsey’s shoulder.

The other was a precocious little nine-year-old girl named Shuting who, although shy at first, quickly opened up to us and at one point during our tour of the Ming tombs actually reached out and held my hand. This was during a very heated conversation in which she was making it clear that she was absolutely certain that indigo (the English word) was a shade of green and that I must be mistaken in my assertions to the contrary. She entertained herself in the museums at the tombs by repeating “what do you want to learn? I’ll teach you!” and showing us how to read some of the more difficult characters on the signs; when we made tone mistakes in repeating it back to her she would respond with a disapproving grimace and immediately and sharply correct us. She also explained to us the phenomenon of foot binding, the fact that hats (maozi, not daizi) were worn by emperors, and taught us the word for comb. Her expression was so serious and intense that it was all we could do not to laugh.

We entertained ourselves on the hour-long bus ride home by both drilling them on their English vocabularies and being drilled by them on our Chinese. Both were very serious teachers. And curious, too: over the course of the day we were asked, among other things, whether we had chickens, whether we had ever eaten pizza or hamburgers or ice cream, how to say “shorts,” and where Seattle is. We were also instructed in such essential matters as Mickey Mouse’s Chinese name, how to say “crocodile,” and that a horse (ma) says his name (ma) when he speaks Chinese.

It’s a long, steep climb up the wall, and I got what felt like a life-threatening stomachache halfway up that would persist for most of the day. We were exhausted when we got home, and after going out for some food promptly returned to the hotel and literally fell into bed. An hour later, the phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Wei?” A small voice on the other end answered me in Chinese. “Who is this?”

“This is Becca. Who is this?”

“This is Shuting.”

“Who?”

“Shuting. I taught you some things this afternoon...”

“Oh, from the trip to the Great Wall?”

“Right!” She persisted to jabber away for a few seconds in a rapid Chinese that my half-awake brain couldn’t quite catch. Then she said, “So, what are you doing?”

“Lindsey and I were both sleeping. We are very tired from our trip today.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a little disappointed. “Okay then. Good bye.”

And she hung up the phone.

Both children were absolutely adorable, and I think it was just what Lindsey and I, still a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of not only being in China but being here for so darn long, needed to help us settle in a little. Sometimes China is overwhelming, and in large groups the Chinese people as a whole can be even more so; it was nice to be reminded of the little things that make everything we’re doing worth it.

Worst...Jetlag...Ever...

So Lindsey and I, suffering from unusually intense bouts of jetlag exacerbated by what I shall henceforth refer to as boy trouble,* woke up at a severely ungodly hour this morning. It's barely six o'clock, and I'm already completely showered and dressed, simply because I really had nothing better to do, other than lay awake in the dark staring at the ceiling. Because yes, and I'll be the first to say it, Chinese TV sucks.

We went to the Forbidden City yesterday. It was a little disappointing because half of it was under renovation, so a lot of the big elaborate halls were completely closed off. It was a nice cool day, though - there was a huge thunderstorm the night before; you should see the video Lindsey took of the lightning from our hotel room - and the air was blessedly and surprisingly breathable.

While standing in line we were halfway accosted by a mother and her dauther, the mother repeating things over and over in English, prodding the little girl to use this rare opportunity to practice her language skills with an American, and the child hiding bashfully behind her mother's right leg. She was not, however, too shy to reach out and curiously rub at the tattoo on my calf. She finally did say "how do you do" to Lindsey, and in the end we persuaded her to take a picture with us. I don't think she ever really did trust us, though. We're freaky, large white women.

Plans for today include the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. If our nasty luck holds out, we might even get the chance to see a lightning storm from the top of the wall. I'm going to use Lindsey as my lightning rod.


*and which includes by definition any real or hypothetical situations which might be described using any combination of the terms "pity," "love," "China," and/or "waiting for one's significant other to finish her Ph.D. in another state and/or country"

Beijing (Again)...

So we're finally in Beijing, after what amounted to the longest flight in the history of airplanes. Seriously, I thought my last flight to Beijing was bad, but it had nothing on this one. I'm actually considering initiating a self-imposed moratorium on flights to the Chinese capital.

Of course, in keeping with my recent string of bad luck, terrorists just had to get caught smuggling liquid explosives onto an airplane on the same day as I was booked to travel halfway across the planet, wreaking havoc on airports worldwide. (I mean the terrorists wreaked havoc, not me, although I have been known to do so from time to time). As a result of the chaos I had to wait in the security line for almost two hours, which made me miss my flight. Lindsey missed it too - she arrived three hours early, just to give you an idea of the insanity - which was the only positive thing to happen all day. We were miserable, but at least we were miserable together.

So after we had waited for 2 hours in the customer service line - and we were in the front of the queue - they rescheduled us for a flight through Tokyo that left now. We had to rush to the other gate, only to finally get on the airplane and be told that the flight would be delayed for the people who were more important than us, apparently, and still waiting in the security lines. They delayed it three times, and all in all we were stuck sitting on the airplane for two hours before it finally took off. Which might not have been so bad, I guess, if the flight itself hadn't already been nine hours long. They didn't have our vegetarian meals because they rescheduled our flight. We almost missed our connection out of Tokyo. And to top it all off, because we hadn't already had almost 30 hours of sleepless, foodless hell, when we finally got to Beijing we discovered that they had lost our luggage.

Again.

This is a running record. Every time I've been to China, three times total now, they have lost my stuff.

But they always find it again (thank heaven for computers), and thankfully it just arrived. "Just" being more than 24 hours after we first arrived, and almost 60 hours since we first arrived at the airport in Seattle. The two of us are awfully stinky; they took away all of our liquids and semi-liquids, including toothpaste and deodorant, and I checked my second carry-on, which conveniently contained my extra change of clothes, in order to save time at security. Which, by the way, didn't help one iota. In fact, I had to go through extra security, because when you get married they don't issue you a new passport, they just print your new name on a page in the back. This, apparently, makes you a terrorist.

Our stress levels have gone down, however, with the arrival of our luggage, and we're hoping that we can make up for the day we lost today; with no deodorant or extra clothes and no idea where our luggage was we didn't dare brave the mugginess and smog of Beijing. So we took a nap in the air conditioned hotel room instead, which actually might not have been such a bad thing. We're having fun practicing our Chinese with the hotel staff, and we had some really good tofu for dinner. So maybe things will start looking up.

I can say this, though: trips to China are never boring.

Graduation

Well, it's official. I've finally graduated. And there's a big hole in my gut where all the stress used to be. It's not necessarily that I'm actually wanting for things to worry about - stress over problems with my scholarship and preparing for the big move are keeping me on my toes - but there's a sense in which I really just don't know what to do with myself now. I've spent the past five years barreling full-speed toward the goal of a silly piece of paper, and now that I've passed the finish line I feel like it was way too anti-climactic. Something else was supposed to happen. Fireworks, maybe.

Unable to satiate my lust for being evaluated, I've started studying for the GRE, which I plan to take before I leave the country. Thanks to a loan from a friend and some generous graduation gifts from family I was able to sign up for a prep course, which I'm grateful for because an initial practice test on Wednesday revealed that I am NOT as smart as I thought I was. In my mind the whole prep course is a little bit like steroids, artificially pumping myself up so I look a lot better than I actually am. But until they develop a better system than the current standardized test fiasco, I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

My New Favorite Quote

"Only those who are crazy have both the will and the perserverance [that are necessary to achieve greatness]. Whoever is crazy about writing may become a successful writer; whoever is crazy about art may become a successful artist. Only the unsuccessful are not crazy at all!"

-Pu Songling, "Strange Tales From the Idle Studio"

Math for Old People

Ok, well I have no idea who Nextday is, but he (or she?) left a comment on my last post, and he/she is right, I haven't updated the blog in a while. I've been working on my thesis all day, and my brain is absolutely fried. But I figured I'd give it a shot, partially since it seemed like a welcome departure from my hectic schedule of late, and partially because I'm curious as to whether anyone other than Nextday even reads this anymore.

Today is the 15th of May. It's a frightening day for me because (1) I've been 25 for eight days now and (2) I'm officially more than halfway through my last month of school. I will never be 24 again, and I will never be an undergraduate again. I don't know whether to be thankful or miserable on either count.

25 was a kind of depressing birthday. I've come to the conclusion that any birthday on a number with a multiple of five feels a little traumatic. 20 was intimidating, and turning 25 is downright scary. My insurance rates will go down, for crying out loud! No longer am I a child. This requires that I finally figure out the answer to the dreaded question "what do you want to do with your life?", which I'd just as soon not answer because I'm perfectly content living in the moment, but to which the rest of society demands a pensive, carefully-reflected-upon answer post haste. My good friend Lindsey decided that we could solve the whole dilemma by simply saying that I am not in fact 25, but rather 24-plus-one. So, for future reference, I never turned 25. On May 7, 2007, I will turn 24-plus-two. Until, of course, I reach 25-plus-25, after which I will have to find a different equation to help me circumvent my age.

The Jewish Guy

I had the most bizarre experience at school today. I was walking across campus on my way home from class, headphones in my ears, when a tall guy in a yarmulke walked up to me and said cheerfully, "Hi!"

I hesitated for a second and didn't even bother to take the headphones out of my ears. My school is really big and really liberal, and it's teeming with all kinds of political nutjobs and proselytizers who fly just below the social radar but won't hesitate to mentally accost you and goad you into a heated debate when they think they can get away with it. At my school, the best policy is usually just to ignore the strangers who are trying to talk to you.

"Hi," I said at last.

With a big smile, he said, "Are you Jewish?"

"Um...I don't think so. Why, do I look Jewish?"

He cocked his head to one side and studied me for a moment before he wrinkled his nose and said, "Um, yeah, not really." He stood there like that for a full two seconds before I finally smiled and politely told him that I needed to go.

Ok, Seattle is weird sometimes. UW, even weirder. But I think that was probably the weirdest exchange I've ever had at school. I can't help but wonder what was going through his head.

Happy New Year (Again) !!

Today is Chinese New Year. Or at least, in China today is Chinese New Year. In the US we have to wait until tomorrow to play with our firecrackers and annoy our neighbors.

Oh, how I wish I was there....this year, I have to settle for Chinatown.

But we're hoping that the year of the dog turns out to be a little more auspicious for us than the year of the chicken was - and I'm a chicken! what's up with that?! The car broke down last week, to the tune of $2200, which is almost as much as the whole thing is worth all by itself. We didn't have any choice but to fix it; with John working two jobs it was almost impossible to survive without the car. He was getting up at 1 a.m. to catch a bus to Costco and coming home from his second job at the Times around 5 p.m. I literally haven't seen him for a week and a half.

But with the help of some family and a little finagling with some payday loan places, we were able to scrape together the money we needed to get the darned thing fixed, so we've traded the stress of exhaustion for the stress of no money. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds. When you're a student, you're used to both kinds of stress, and we've found that the no-money kind of stress is decidedly the more tolerable of the two. The thing I find especially ironic in a grim sort of way is the fact that I sold my piano last week - two days before the car broke - to get some money to put toward the impending move halfway across the world. Instead I got to spend it on rent and a new head gasket.

And I miss my piano. It may be the closest I'll ever get to having a child. And since it's been gone, I've had to get my stress out by banging on John instead.

Is This Blog Starting to Get Repetitive?

Nothing new to report. Stop reading now. I'm very serious. I'm just going to bore you, because once again I've started school. Once again I don't know how I'm going to manage to pull through. Once again I'm going to do it, much as it exhausts me, I'm going to write some random self-important blog entries about the plight of the female college student and aspiring professor in modern-day America, maybe mixed in with a few playful anecdotes about multi-cultural interactions, and then you are going to fall asleep. Because, really, you've heard it all before.

Do I sound tired? Overwhelmed? Disillusioned? If I don't, I'm either not a very good writer or not trying hard enough.

Really, now that the new year has come, the focus is starting to shift from getting through school to getting through graduation, which may sound like the same thing but actually isn't anywhere close. Suddenly I'm faced not only with what I'm going to do after I graduate - which is intimidating enough - but also with how I'm going to make it through the entire process. It's a process which involves graduation applications, graduation announcements, finishing a nearly impossible honors thesis, and trying to keep my grades up high enough that I still have a reasonable chance of going to graduate school. It's piling up emotionally to the point where I don't really want to do anything at all, which is bad. I'm surprised every college senior in the United States isn't on a federally mandated daily dose of prozac.

I am, however, excited about graduating and eager to see what life has in store for me next. WHICH BRINGS ME TO AN ANNOUNCEMENT: my graduation ceremony is scheduled for June 10 of this year, just to give a heads-up to anyone who might want to come. I won't be sending out official announcements until probably April, and I know that that might be too short of notice for some of you. So....there it is.