food and classes

I'm still doing alright here in Xianyang, but, as expected, the language barrier is pretty intimidating. I went out for lunch yesterday, but of course the menu was only in Chinese and no one there spoke English. I tried to order by pointing to dishes that others were having that looked good, but that wasn't working, and since I couldn't say "I'll have that" or anything else in Chinese, I just picked something at random from the menu to have. It turned out to be chicken (I think) with corn, green peppers, and ginger. It was pretty good, and I successfully asked for rice to go with it and more tea. For dinner I had some bread with fried pork in it (and cinnamon, at least that's what it tasted like) that I had had for breakfast on my first morning here with Pingde, the man from the Foreign Exchange Division who I talked to online to get this job. Ordering that was a bit easier since it was the only thing they were serving, and I successfully asked for two of them (I do know my numbers in Chinese, but am a bit shy about using them). We'll see how today goes. I was planning to go to the market this morning to buy some fruit, vegetables, eggs, and maybe some chicken so that I can make my own meals (at least breakfast - going out isn't expensive. My lunch yesterday, for example, cost just over a dollar and was quite good, but I don't like the idea of going out for every meal, mainly out of convenience. Also, Chinese people tend to eat in groups (as do most people), and order multiple dishes to share. I really like that when I'm in a group, but trying to eat alone is difficult because it seems strange that you would only want one dish, but of course I couldn't finish more than one on my own.). Anyway, as I was saying, I was going to go shopping today but it's been misting/raining all morning, so carrying lots of things doesn't sound like the best idea. Still, it's now lunch time so I think I have to go out and find something to put in my stomach. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, classes: I spoke with one of the English teachers yesterday and she gave me my preliminary schedule. It looks like I'll be teaching two oral English classes on Tuesday afternoon and another two on Wednesday afternoon at the Xi'an campus of the university, which I'll have to take an hour-long bus ride to. The bus doesn't sound like fun, but I don't have much of a choice, and of course having to take it means I have less room in my day for classes, so it could mean less work for me. Also, it could afford an opportunity to practice Chinese, if I can make a friend on the bus. Those classes actually started this week, but since they just told me about the yesterday afternoon, there was no way I could make it to them. I should be getting the textbook sometime today or tomorrow, which would give me plenty of time to prepare. Even if I don't, the first class should be pretty easy, since I'm sure they'll have lots of questions for me, and I'll have plenty for them too.

Now I'm getting hungry so I'm going to head out into the wet world in hopes of finding sustenance.

travel photos

Here are some pictures of my journey here and of my apartment as it was when I more or less first got here:

Last view of Cincinnati


Lake Michigan


Siberia


Airport in Shanghai


Kitchen


Table


Bathroom


Bedroom


I still haven't taken any pictures outside of my apartment (looking like a tourist is no fun, but I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough), but when I do I'll put them here too.

I made it

I'm writing this post from my apartment on campus at the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology. I'm pretty tired from the plane rides over here (about 24 hours of traveling, 4 of those in airports), so I should be getting off to bed to try and eliminate any jet lag, but first I want to let you all know that I made it here without missing any flights (though I came close in Chicago), losing any luggage, or having any other mishaps. There's a 13 hour time difference from EDT where I came from, but my body feels like it's bedtime so I guess it's okay. My apartment here seems pretty nice - certainly bigger than the one I had in Santiago. It has a living room, bathroom, kitchen, small dining room, bedroom, and "office" with the computer I am typing on and an extra twin bed. I'll put some pictures up tomorrow.

Okay, I think that's about it. I guess I should mention that I finally got to meet the director of Foreign Affairs (I think that's his position) with whom I'd been talking via email to get this position. He was at the airport and brought me here (in a Cadillac I might add), pointing out a few sights along the way (it was dark, but still it's nice to start getting oriented).

I don't really have much else to add now, so I'm off to bed.

Revision of itinerary

The last leg of my flight has been changed to China Eastern Air 2158,
departing Shanghai at 7:50 pm, arriving Xianyang 10:10 pm.

So it looks like I'm actually going. Today's been a hectic day
packing and dealing with American Airlines's horrible customer
service. Fortunately that should all be over now, and China will be
mine to experience.

Just so you know, I should be able to keep posting information on this
sight from the Orient. If that is not the case, I'll find some way to
make that known here and let you know where I will be putting that
information. There will also be a picture site as soon as there are
some pictures to put on it.

Back to my last minute preparations . . .

reAmbulation

Tentative plans:

Flight 1
AMERICAN AIRLINES #4289
OPERATED BY AMERICAN EAGLE
Depart : Cincinnati (CVG) at 9:27AM - September 03, 2006
Arrive : Chicago (ORD) at 9:38AM - September 03, 2006
Class : Coach Seat(s): 10A Meal(s): Food for purchase
Flight 2
AMERICAN AIRLINES #289
Depart : Chicago (ORD) at 10:55AM - September 03, 2006
Arrive : Shanghai (PVG) at 2:20PM - September 04, 2006
Class : Coach Seat(s): 39J Meal(s): Lunch, Dinner
Flight 3
AMERICAN AIRLINES #5792
OPERATED BY CHINA EASTERN AIRLINES
Depart : Shanghai (PVG) at 6:15PM - September 04, 2006
Arrive : Xi An (XIY) at 8:30PM - September 04, 2006
Class : Coach Seat(s): unassigned Meal(s): Snack or brunch

home

I got home yesterday around 2 PM. The flights weren't too bad since I had both a window seat and an empty seat next to me on both of them. It's nice to be home but also sad to not be in Chile. I'd elaborate but I'm about to go to bed - just wanted to let you know I'm home safe and sound.

Also, I got a new cell phone: (513) 435-1102. The bad news is that my old phone is dead, completely dead, so dead that it isn't chargeable . . . wait a second, now that I look at it again, it did charge and does have all the old numbers in it. But feel free to give me a call anyway.

last exam in 2 hours

My last bit of school in Chile is just about over. The complex variable exam starts at 3 and by 6 it along with my formal education in Chile will be over. It seems that the semester started just a few weeks ago, and now it's over.

presentation

In a few hours I have to give my final presentation for my translation class on the tranlation I did of a math text (well, 4 pages of it) from English to Spanish.

Tomorrow I have my topology exam, and my complex variable exam is on the seventh. After those, school will be completely over.

More amazingly, June is nearly over as well. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time can disappear, even if you are looking.

I'm doing well, enjoying winter, etc. Now I need to make some lunch and finish preparing for this presentation.

school's out . . . almost

Tomorrow I have my last class in Chile. It's sad, really. The semester has disappeared without my realizing it, which isn't surprising since it tends to happen just about every year. In any case, I have a presentation and two exams in the following weeks and I will be officially done. Crazy.

Also, I have less than a month left in Chile. Once again, the saying from my Peru trip comes true: The days are long, but the weeks [or, in this case, months] are short.

Now I need to work on my translation final project (due on Friday) since Friday I'll be working on the final group paper for my narrative class.

he llegado

Just got back to my apartment in Santiago a few minutes ago (or however long it takes to make a cup of tea). Now I have to go out to buy lunch, pay the power bill, and go to class. What fun.

Oh, by the way, Buenos Aires is an interesting city and I enjoyed my visit. More on that later.

Buenos Aires

I'm in Buenos Aires now. Just wanted to let you know I made it and whatnot. So far I've seen lots of old bookstores, which is exactly what I was looking for.

travelling again

Tomorrow night I'm flying to Buenos Aires. Seems like a good idea, since Argentina is so close and the city is supposed to be amazing, more like a European city than an American one. I'll be there until Monday morning when I fly back in time for class. It's only a 2 hour flight over the Andes. Hopefully I'll get a window seat for the way back and be able to see the cordillera from above. I'll be sure to post something on Monday to let you know I made it back alright, and maybe I'll even write from there, but we'll see. For the curious, my flights are with LAN Chile, LA491 from Santiago to Buenos Aires and LA560 on the way back.

new photos

I've had internet again for almost a week now, but haven't posted anything here. It seems that I post more when I don't have regular access . . . weird. Probably has to do with me wasting time in internetland instead of using it for productive things like letting you know how I'm doing.

I don't really have anything to say at the moment other than that you should go look at the photos from my trip to the south that I finally got scanned and online. They aren't amazing quality since they are scanned from not-so-great prints, but it gives you an idea of where I was. Oh, and I put full sized versions of the other photos up too (and the scanned ones, but since they are smaller you get to see the full sized version right away).

It's late so I am going to be productive and try and get tired. Taking a nap in the early evening is not a good idea when you have to get up at a reasonable hour the next day.

Off to read Rayuela or study complex variables.

still disconnected

Hopefully we'll get the internet back soon - it's debilitating when you depend on something for so many things, like news, music, dictionary abilities, etc., and then suddenly it's gone, or at least moved to a much less convenient and more expensive place.

Just wanted to say that last week I went and watched the director of COPA (the program I studied with last semester) do some simultaneous interpretation. Really quite amazing stuff. I found it hard to listen to the Spanish and English at the same time. Regardless, it seemed to be a fun activity, with all sorts of wonderful time pressure. It reminded me of theatre and mock trial from high school, just with another language thrown in. Oh, and I was able to help her out when she didn't know what "empaste" meant (it means binding, at least in reference to books). Interpretation is much more fun and challenging than translation.

Now that I've been here for 20 minutes I'm going to pay my less-than-50-cents and get home to make some dinnner.

internetless

There's no internet access in my house at the moment. Boo. So I'm posting this from an internet cafe. It's amazing how much I depend on the internet for communicating with people, even with people here in Santiago. Since my cell phone doesn't get reception in my apartment, I'm completely cut off from the world without the internet. But on the bright side that gives me more time to read.

I also have a cold at the moment. Yep, winter'll do that to you. But it isn't too bad, so I won't complain much.

My birthday went well on Sunday, nice and relaxing as opposed to the "let's get drunk because I can" attitude that would have existed in the U.S. Turning 21 in Chile just isn't that big of a deal.

reading

Yesterday I went to the Contemporary Art Museum, or rather, to an exhibition by said museum in a different building since the real building is being rennovated, and has therefore been closed since I got here. Unfortunate, really, because what I saw yesterday was pretty interesting. The exhibition's called "Contrabandistas de Imágenes" (Image Smugglers), and has stuff from all over the world. There was a pretty interesting video display which was two screens which showed the set but mirrored, with mirrored camera movements which just repeated themselves endlessely. The action consisted of a man destroying and then fixing back up his aparment, the same man and apartment on both sides, but usually one apartment was messed up and the other orderly. Hmm. Sorry for the bad description - modern art videos are not meant to be paragraphs but rather moving images with coordinated sound.

Early this week I read La casa verde (The Green House) by Mario Vargas Llosa. A very good novel which I read surprisingly quickly considering its 400-page size. I read it for class, but so far the lectures have been less interesting than I had hoped, but maybe that will change on Wednesday (since Monday is a national holiday for some sort of Chilean military (naval, I think) victory).

Also this past week I made chicken parmesan, using the recipe my parents sent me. Oh so good, and surprisingly easy.

This afternoon was spent cleaning and going to the store to buy lightbulbs, and the evening drinking tea and mate while reading. I finished Amberes by Roberto Bolaño, one of my favorite authors who writes in Spanish, and read a bit of Notas de viaje: Diaro en motocicleta by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and now that I've written this I'm going to read some Julio Cortázar short stories.

tic toc

I went and saw some flamenco on Saturday. It wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't what I expeted. The guitar playing was pretty amazing, but the dancing didn't interest me too much. But it was fun to go and see anyway.

Saturday I went to Thelonious for some jazz music. Again, nothing amazing, but a nice way to pass the evening.

Turned in a group paper today in Narrative class. The whole thing went much better than I expected. In fact, I had planned on just writing the paper by myself so I could freely talk about whatever I wanted, something about the mathmatics implicit in Borges (the paper had to be about Borges, and one or two specific stories). However, the professor was of the mind that all the students should work in groups, and, as such, I was adopted by a group. We met and talked about what we were going to write before writing, which worked surprisingly well. Whodathunk that prewriting really did have a purpose. Our thesis was basically that the reader, in reading, is really recreating the text and the author, and the author, in writing, is creating the text and a (imaginary) reader, and that the text makes the author an author and the reader a reader, because it is hard to write nothing or read nothing and still be a writer/reader. So, if you take that literally, maybe too literally, there is no meaningful difference between author, text, and reader, or maybe I should just say that they are all equally important in terms of literary creation. But yeah, the point is I worked in a group and it didn't suck.

Now I'm going to get back studying for my complex variable test on wednesday and reading about Casa Verde, the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa I have to read for a week from Wednesday.


oh, and I almost forgot (actually, I did forget but there is an edit function): there are some new photos in my photo album if you are curious. and in case it isn't obvious, the "oldalbum" album is, well, the old album.

u of i fall 2005

I registered a while back for my classes at the U of I next semester, just though I should post them here:

4 Introduction to Computer Science - CS 125 AL2 AYC
3 Probability Theory I - MATH 461 C13
3 Introduction to Hispanic Literature II - SPAN 227 X1
2 Spanish Phonetics & Phonology - SPAN 402 X2
3 Spanish Syntax & Morphology - SPAN 404 D1
3 Spanish Literature II Works & Writers - SPAN 452 B2 (ie from Spain)

for a total of 18 hours. If everything transers like it does in my dreams, I'll be able to graduate after this semester. But I don't know if that will all work out. If not, I can drop a course to lighten my load a bit and learn more fun things in the spring, which might end up being necessary if these courses are challenging. We'll see how it goes.

smoothly slipping away

Once again, I apologize for not writing for such a long time. It's so easy to just do all those things I do in a day and not even think about writing here. Maybe that's some sort of sign that, as someone said to me not too long ago, being in Chile is no longer new and exciting for me. Rather, it is the status quo. And of course that person is right, to a certain extent. But on the other hand, there are still things that surprise me, or remind me of where I am. I went for a nice twilight (well, I guess you call it twilight after the sun has set and yet the sky is not black but rather a rich, deep blue) walk around the neighborhood. Well, not so much around as to the bakery (breadery, really, but somehow that word just doesn't work in English) to pick up some bread to go with my dinner (which I've yet to make - not because I'm following the Chilean meal plan, but rather just because I can eat whenever I want to, and I've yet to get around to investing the necessary energy to prepare a meal). Said dinner will consist, probably, of the aforementioned pan, corn on the cob I bought today (the two ears I ate for lunch were excellent), and pasta with tomato, garlic, green pepper, and onion sauce. That's if I'm as ambitious in the kitchen as I am now.

In case you didn't infer from my lack of writing, everything is going along very smoothly. I think I'm doing well in my classes (I got a B+/A on my first topology test) and they are actually pretty interesting. Chilean and Hispanomaerican Narrative is finally getting interesting now that we are reading Borges, who I quite enjoy despite his excessive intellectualism. Short stories really are wonderful. I've also been reading a lot of Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean who lived most of his adult life in Mexico City and Spain, who died in 2003. So far I've only read short stories (though I started a novel, I have to read Borges so it's on hold momentarily), and find him to be an excellent author. As for those of you who are reading this and most likely don't read Spanish, I'm not sure about the availability or quality of translations. While the concept of translation interests me, there is no doubt that I prefer to read things in the language they were written, and thus have avoided translations of English into Spanish and vice versa.

Of cultural interest might be the way the death of the Pope was covered in the media. Without a doubt it was followed here with much more enthusiasm and faith than in the U.S. Chile is a Catholic country. Of note, though, is that just as the conclave was convening, the headline of a major Chilean newspaper announced that a Chilean cardinal could become pope with the support of the United States. As usual, Chileans like to see themselves in world events. There was also excessive and extensive coverage of the Pope's visit to Chile in 1987. Though I didn't watch it, I am told the television channels were non-stop Popevision for days, with interviews of everyone who had been even remotely close to him while he was here (physically, as in "I was 10 feet from the Pope," not "the Pope and I had a lenghty conversation"). In all, there was, as far as I can tell, nothing negative said about the Pope or his sucessor. But that's to be expected from the conservative Chilean media.

Now the hunger as built up enough that I'm going to get cooking. Enjoy spring, those of you lucky enough to be in that part of the world.

...going...

Just writing to let you know life is going well, i'm enjoying myself, etc. School also seems to be good - my first test went well - I got an A, well, not exactly, but the Chilean equivalent. In fact, the professor read a part of one of my answers (the test was two essays, in my Chilean narrative class) to the class when he was commenting on the test and his impressions of our interpretations. Granted, he prefaced it with, "This was written by a foreigner, and I think it's interesting to see the novel from an outside persepective," but still, it made me feel like I was in grade school all over again. But it is a good thing that he took the time to discuss the test with us rather than just hand it back and move on as some professors have the habit of doing.


Not much else new or interesting, so I guess I'll get back to being a student and read some more of Doña Barbara the Venezuelan novel I have to read for that narrative class. Enjoy the day of foolishness.