Rebecca A. Foster

I transferred my blog to a new host provider. If you would like to read it, it is www.beccaplaying.com.

You know those dainty little thrower-uppers, who just sort of tilt their head down, put their hand to their mouth and spit up? It's like they had throw-up classes at finishing school, or were the most well-behaved babies ever and never grew out of it. Yeah, that is so not me . I am a throw-up drama queen, all moans and groans and heavy breathing. It's like the end of the world, or my liver, when I puke. I was reminded of that this week when I woke up Thursday morning at 4:30 AM and rushed to the bathroom before emptying my stomach several times over, to be repeated with water, Sprite and dry heaves for the next few days. Stomach flu is the worst! But, as always, it reminded me of something funny. (I consider my ability to find the humor and funny aspects of life to be one of my more humane qualities. You're welcome, humanity.) Picture it: China, spring time, T.'s apartment, 1 AM. I'm slowly turning green and it's apparent I'm going to start tossing my cook...

This weekend I was making pebre  and my serrano peppers were not getting the job done, so I pulled out a couple of habaneros. I asked my mom,"Do you think these will be hot enough in the pebre?" "Well, how hot are they?" Hmmm. I sliced one open and licked the pulp. Just in case you didn't know, licking the inside of a habanero is a really dumb way to determine how hot it is. THE BURNING IT GOES ON AND ON HOLY HELL WHAT WAS I THINKING. I couldn't feel my lips or tongue for the next several hours, but on the bright side, 'licking the habanero' is now my new favorite euphemism for doing something stupid you probably knew better not to do. Example: "Yeah. I went out with that guy even though I knew he was bad news. I totally licked the habanero on that one." Live and learn (the hard way).

If you have ever met someone for the first time and been asked, "What are you?", I think we could be friends. It's a perfectly logical question, really. What I hear: "You look different than what I expect and I need to have a category to place you in, so I want to know: what are you?" I usually explain that my father is (was) American, my mother is Chilean, and yes I look like my American father but with the coloring of my Chilean mother, no I don't speak Spanish as my first language, yes I can speak some Spanish but it is Chilean Spanish, yes I prefer wearing dresses not pants, no I don't go anywhere without lipstick on, yes I dress a little formally, no I'm not Catholic, yes I have been to Chile and can make manjar and pebre and empanadas, no I am not expected to date or marry a Chilean. These are some of the common questions I am asked and I'm not offended by them.(Okay, it is a little embarrassing when I meet someone and they begin spea...

All of the Anthony Weiner press coverage makes me feel somewhat validated for having done this . I stand by it. I don't as a general rule comment on current event news stories here, because I can't imagine anyone gives a rat's ass what I think about the news. However, the subsequent debate about whether or not sexting is cheating reminded me of the short, personal checklist I've amassed of potential red flags that the guy asking you out/hitting on you isn't as uninvolved as he claims to be*: 1. Only wants to see you during non-prime time hours, i.e. lunch but never dinner. 2. Gives you an email address and/or phone number just for you (you usually find this out when he calls/emails you from the other by accident). 3. Only wants to talk to you from work. 4. He has a cat and lives alone (so he says). (I have a bias that young, single men who want a four-legged pet get dogs, not cats. Also he turned out to be married so I was right.) 5. Only wants to see you f...

The chopsticks I brought home from China are all stainless steel or melamine (melamine: okay for chopsticks! Not okay for milk!), but I have a few sets of wooden ones I brought home from Thailand several years ago. I put all the chopsticks in my dishwasher to sterilize them but most ended up in the bottom near the drain, and one of the wooden ones was snapped in half. Oops. Preface: I have this big, passion-from-across-the-room crush on our apt.'s head maintenance guy, V.  He's Chilean, looks like a Spanish soccer player and has gorgeous hazel/green eyes. I met him the day I moved in and I've only run into him twice since them but both times he remembered me and we chatted and he's charming and did I mention, super hot? This guy + light eyes = V.  Thus far, I have avoided purposefully breaking things in my apartment so he has to come fix them. I know, right? I'm so adult and stuff. But ever since the chopstick incident, my dishwasher doesn't drain properly...

If I could install a magic mirror in my house? This is what I would see in that mirror. Her beauty and fashion style in this picture is my idea of perfection: I know it's really important to love and accept yourself, everyone is beautiful in their own way, blah blah blah, but I would so totally buy that mirror.

"Rebecca," people will say to me, "you have crazy stories! How do you get yourself into these situations/meet these people/do such crazy things?" I don't think I have a good answer, but the answer I do have is: I take chances. Sometimes they fail, spectacularly so. Sometimes they are a joyride in the slip and slide of my life. Sometimes...it takes a while for me decide which column to choose. When I read this article in the NYT about technology and love and ego and the difference between liking and loving and being a whole person, it clicked: the times when I seesaw and waver and hem and haw and wonder if what I am doing is of value or going to be painful or joyful or awful or gratifying, these are the times I am probably living up to my fullest potential as a human being. Not a great human being. Not a successful human being. Just...a human being. And that's enough. My dad, when he came to pick me up from the airport two days after his terminal cancer d...

I'd never heard of Magnum bars before I went to China, but they quickly became my favorite treat. One of my favorite ways to spend an weeknight evening was meeting up with R., J. and V. for dinner in R.'s neighborhood, then walking off dinner before crashing at a beer garden for some late night laughs. I spent more than one night searching for Magnums at every little ice cream seller we came across; more often than not, no Magnums, so when we DID find them, that made the evening all the better. I "mmmm"-ed all over the place. So of course when I saw Magnums in my local grocery several weeks ago, I excitedly took a phone pic to send to R: Magnums! In the U.S.! Worlds collide! In my humble ice cream opinion, they are better than Haagen Daz bars. I recommend the coffee ones, if you can find them.

Ma La girls like hot pot. I had a hot pot dinner party at my house this past week, with spices I brought home from Chongqing. (I saved the wrappers and I'll be taking them to the Asian market to see if they can order more for me.) Here is the food table, next to the eating table. In China the plates of food for hot pot come out on a multi-tiered cart, but because I don't have one of those, I used a card table. There are meatballs, little smokies, lotus, rice sticks, quail's eggs, noodles, squids, and two kinds of tofu. (We also had golden mushrooms and chicken pieces but those were already on the table.) Here is a shot of the table set up. I bought an induction cooker to use in my apartment, because that's the kind of cooker I had in China and I found I prefer it to the convection cooking more popular here in America. I used it that night for the hot pot; not only is it portable to the table, but inductions don't get hot like convections so no one was going to ...

(A topic from the book.) My 4-inch platform sandals were cute and somewhat practical in America, with our cleanly paved sidewalks and parking lots and car transportation culture. But in China, with its broken tiles, ripped up sidewalks and walking culture? Still cute, but wildly impractical. (Below, a typical sidewalk in my part of the Chinese woods.) I wore them anyway. 'Cultural integration' is one of the phrases you hear often in the Peace Corps; a large part of our pre-arrival weekend meeting involved telling us if we didn't successfully culturally integrate into our country of service, we were going to be a failure as a volunteer at best, and at worst, dead in the street. (No, not kidding. Now you know why I was so stressed out that weekend .) V. and I were making our way home from an evening downtown, he in his appropriate footwear and me in my platform sandals. I hadn't walked in shoes like these for several months and about every 50 feet, I weeble-wobb...

My Holy Grail of bras: no lining, no padding, and cute. Beige bra with embroidered flowers: Felina . Black lace bra: Victoria's Secret. Both have matching panties available. (I bought my Felina at Macy's.)  

While in China, I put this mix list together for a friend. I have vague memories of dancing to it one night at his apartment; I have even vaguer memories of dancing to all of these songs back in the day. The 90's were fun. (I've included hyperlinks to every song on YouTube.) 1. Wild Thing - Tone Loc 2. I Wish - Skee Lo 3. Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison 4. Dazzey Duks - 69 Boyz 5. Ain't Too Proud To Beg - TLC 6. Get It On Tonite - Montell Jordan 7. 1,2,3,4 - Coolio 8. Doin' It - LL Cool J 9. You're Making Me High - Toni Braxton 10. The Humpty Dance - Digital Underground 11. Hypnotize - Notorious B.I.G. 12. Rumpshaker - Wreckx N Effect 13. Sweat - Inner Circle 14. Wiggle It - 2 In A Room 15. Move This - Technotronic 16. Temptations - 2Pac 17. Do Me! - Bel Biv Devoe 18. O.P.P - Naughty by Nature 19. Pony - Genuwine 20. Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-A-Lot 21. Tootsee Roll - 69 Boyz 22. Ditty - Paperboy 23. Whoot! There It Is ...

Fabric ceiling in my study/library: Closet w/ vanity: Mural in Spanish Harlem (I think, not sure where it officially begins): George Washington Bridge: Boston:  Boston Public Library:  St. Patrick's Day in Boston:

You might have heard that China doesn't allow people to express their opinions about the government publicly and doesn't allow freedom of speech. This is all true. One of my great disappointments in learning Mandarin was realizing no one was saying anything really worth overhearing. People won't express a contrary opinion publicly, so they don't say anything opinionated at all. Casual conversations flow about food, fashion and money and not much else. Which is why it was so shocking when I was judging a Shanghai Education Press-sponsored, city-wide high school English speech competition, and one of the girls opened her speech in the crowded auditorium by saying, "Our hands built the buildings that fell during the earthquake; our hands made the milk that killed the babies." (Referring to the tens of thousands killed by shoddy building construction and the tainted milk scandal hushed up because of the Olympics.) I was floored, and shocked, and nervous fo...

(Note: I really dislike Facebook in theory and practice and I've given up for the second time trying to use it. It's not you, it's me, Facebook. Well, maybe it *is* you.) China and I have a complicated relationship these days. So many things I miss: my sense of community, my fruit lady, my veggie lady, my shaokao guy, my baozi girl, the stairs and hills and daily walks, the easy-going nights, the fun days of teaching, my friends and students and public transport and feeling like every day was something new. And of course that includes R. and T. and V. and J. and my other close friends there. Some days I feel like I'm never really going to fit in in America again, or be content here. It would be weird, right, if I spent all that time in China and didn't change? How can I come back and live an ordinary American life again? How can I want to date an American who is going to expect me settle down in a suburb with an SUV? (Short answer: I refuse to do that.) But th...

1. The Guggenheim building is far more interesting than the Guggenheim collection. 2. I thought St. Pat's Day in Boston would be cra-zay. Maybe for New England, it is. I would like to invite all Bostonians to San Antonio for Fiesta . Cra-zay! I really liked Boston, but I am far too spirited and not nearly preppy enough to ever live there. 3. We went back to a friend-of-a-friend's apartment, where I accidentally left behind my McSorley's mug when leaving to go home for the night. The friend-of-a-friend had to walk me back to his pad to get it. Pretty sure he (and his doorman) thought this was as ploy for me to stay the night. Nope, I just really am that absent-minded. On the way to the subway (again), he asked me "You're not going to tweet about this, are you?" (Meaning everything that went down that night. He's an actor.) I was caught off guard by his question; is that really a thing people say now??? No. No I'm not. 4. NYC, please get a mag-lev ...

A big part of Chinese culture is sitting at night at a beer garden; this activity starts after dinner and often goes until the early morning hours. The beer gardens are located outside restaurants or sprung up on sidewalks next to food tables and carts. It is common for the sidewalks in my city to be lined with beer gardens. Beer gardens aren't a weekend thing, they're an everyday activity. As I have mentioned here before, it takes so long to do anything in my part of China, there isn't an expectation to do more than 1 or 2 things per day. For the Chinese in my city, sitting at night at a beer garden with family or friends is a really important part of daily life. Chinese culture is structured around relationships; this is part of building them. Most volunteers took to this custom quickly and easily. The video below is not only a good example of the atmosphere of these places (notice the blue stools we're sitting on), but also of the amount of free time we had on ou...

I'm taking advantage of the MacBook Pro I use for work and putting together some movies of my pictures and videos from China. Between that and the book, it's one reason I haven't been around here much. I keep finding treasures in the crevices of my picture files, like this picture of a 'ma la' skirt. In Mandarin, 'ma' 麻 means 'numbing' and 'la' 辣 means 'spicy', and 'ma la' is a phrase commonly used as slang to describe Chongqing girls; the weather and the food are numbingly hot and spicy, and so therefore are the women. This is an adult woman's skirt. As you can see, it's about half my size. I can't imagine getting even my butt in this thing, let alone my legs. Chongqing style is very ma la: short, tiny, tight, bright, covered in sequins and embellishments. Chongqing is sort of the Rio of China, I guess. I had a girl once tell me, while dressed in tiny panty shorts and a see-through shirt: "I am a tradit...

Is there any age when the death of a parent doesn't pierce your heart and affect every facet of your life? My dad was in the hospital room when I was born, and I was there when he died. I know many people don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't know if they would have the same feeling I do about helping someone transition out of life into death. But for me, to be there with him was an honor. My heart aches for those who lose their loved ones to accident or trauma, who never experience holding someone's hand as their body breaks down and their heart and lungs labor to beat and breathe and even though it breaks your heart, you're glad they aren't doing this alone, and you believe under that labored breathing and unconsciousness they know you're there with them, supporting them, loving them, telling them it's okay to let go and move on, that you'll be okay. It's taken me these years to see the beauty in living; not just the appreciation, or ...

My favorite bridge in NYC, the George Washington Bridge in Washington Heights. This is a phone shot from 181st street. We had dinner at a Dominican restaurant, window-shopped and enjoyed a long stroll through this vibrant neighborhood. Wonderful day.

Maple sugar pilgrims are definitely my favorite candy pilgrims. And, a neat view downtown. Happy St. Patricks Day from Boston!

On the street in Flushing; oh man, did these bring back memories. These spicy lamb sticks are sold everywhere on the streets in my part of China, day and night. And joking around in mandarin with the street vendor was almost like being back in China. What a great day so far, and tonight, Washington Heights and night bridge pictures. This day is only getting better!

My favorite sandwich of all time. Lunch today in Union Park, just before I went to The Strand. Bought two books on Indian (South Asian) architecture and design and had them shipped home. Did you know in NY, if you ship your purchases out of state, you don't pay sales tax? Shipping ground is usually about the same amount as the tax and no lugging around extra bags. Thanks, NY, for making it so easy for me to shop.

New York City makes me miss Chongqing dreadfully. It's a relief to not have to travel by car, to walk everywhere, to be able to pop into the corner bodega for shampoo and little cookies. I brought my iPad so I could work here and there on a work project while I'm gone because of a tight deadline. I activated the hot spot on my phone, uploaded docs to mobileme and downloaded them into Pages on my iPad. I'll use my phone to wifi power the iPad to send the docs back to the office. Technology continues to amaze me. Conversation T. and I had last weekend: Me: "I just want to live in an incense palace with houseboys, is that so wrong?" T.: "There is nothing wrong with wanting to live in an incense palace with houseboys!" I knew there was a reason I love him. And I would like that incense palace to be in New York City. Thank you.

It wasn't my intention to post frivolous things here anymore, but I forgot how I am, in fact, often frivolous. And I unabashedly love looking at hot men in cool clothes. Two looks I love: Love these colors: A man who shows up on my doorstep in that scruff and these glasses is getting sooooo lucky: He's Zoolandering here: just ridiculously good looking. All that's missing is chest hair: Thus ends my shallow, frivolous streak...for today

It is said that of all our senses, our sense of smell is most closely connected to our emotional center. A man's shirt  is an excellent conduit for the essence of the person who wore it: not only the smell, but the shape, the worn and faded spots, the memories I have of seeing them in it. For these reasons, I love it when men give me their shirts. As I regularly recycle my wardrobe in the spring and fall, these shirts have a permanent spot in my bottom dresser drawer. I'd never consider getting rid of them. My favorite shirts were given to me straight off the wearer's back, still warm and musky. I deliberately leave them unwashed for as long as possible. Not a single of these shirts fits me properly, so I wear them to bed or the gym or while lounging about in my apartment. I don't know that any shirt I've received was significant to the wearer before they gifted it to me, but I can't wear them without feeling the happy memories I have associated with the gifte...

I read this blog post about a memorable mix tape, and it reminded me of the box of mix tapes (and mix CDs) boxed up in my storage space. I got my first mix tapes from A., in high school. He was the rebel, I was the studious good girl, and twain we met over debate class and mix tapes. His tapes leaned heavily on b-sides of The Posies and Fugazi, with Nitzer Ebb  and obscure Japanese-release-only Depeche Mode songs thrown in for good measure. My friend C. made me mix tapes in college, mostly songs by alternative bands he found rummaging through second-hand record stores; I'd never heard of most of them, but he did introduce me to Henry Rollins, something I'll never forget. He sent them to me through the mail and I loved getting that recognizable padded envelope. We never dated, but I'd like to think a man who will go to the post office for you thinks you're pretty great. The creme of my mix tape cookie was S., who made me mix CDs by the dozens, full of alterna-rock...

After the roller-coaster that was life in China, life back in America can sometimes seem a little...plain. Not bad. Plain. So this is life now: work hard, go to bed early, get up early, meditate, read, study, make time for friends, talk over the internet with far-flung well-loved friends, make vacation plans, work on art projects, watch Community , shop for food, do laundry, clean, Netflix in bed, cook, do all of these things many times all over again. It's a good life. I'm adapting to life here in the American Western desert, but it sure does take some getting used to. I've met some fun people here and I'm reminded again that 99% of people in this world are good-hearted and kind and worth knowing. I'm now able to accept I liked those not-so-good guys in my past because I didn't believe I was worth more than how they treated me. It's hard to admit that, but overcoming it has made a big difference in my life. Kind and steady beats jerky and exciting a...

R. had the great idea yesterday that we should write a book together about our daily life experiences in China. I said this sentence to R. while we were video chatting: "It was when you were in Tibet, the night we had all the gin and tonics and got sprayed down in the street by the paint truck..." and I wasn't even telling all of that as the story, it was just the setup to the story. And she stopped me with a "Do you hear yourself? Our lives are never going to be like that again. When will you ever get the experiences to say a sentence like that again?" And she's right. Our remarkable lives became common place and ordinary to us. So we watch to recapture our now-remarkable-again experiences for posterity. She's the editor; we'll both contribute. I'm really excited to start this project. I picked up a new sketchpad tonight to start collecting things I'll include as inspiration and illustration. Even if we only publish it for two people, i...

Today is my birthday and I have been overwhelmed with the good wishes and kindness shown to me. I plan on answering everyone individually, but until then, THANK YOU! You have made me feel very loved and remembered. A new guy I work with offered to take me technology shopping last week because he knows a lot more about these things than I do. I don't know him well, so I was really touched at his generosity. I am now the new owner of a flat screen lcd tv (the first tv I've ever purchased) and a Blu-Ray wifi dvd player, purchased at his advice, and through which I can stream Netflix and Pandora over my television. The technology available to me in America still blows me away. And as a birthday gift he bought me the HDMI cord I needed to hook my new dvd player to the TV. I was surprised, because as I said, we barely know each other, but he is a generous and thoughtful person. Good people are everywhere. The first movie I watched? This is not a good movie. But, um, I enjoy hi...

When I was in China, I was asked to write an article for the Peace Corps China wiki about what it's like being a female volunteer in China. I guess I seemed well-adjusted? Ha, little did they know the hardships I still dealt with on a daily basis. It does get easier over time, but the challenges never fully go away. I forgot about it, but the other day I searched for it and there it is! My name isn't attached, but if you want to read what I had to say about being a female Peace Corps volunteer in China, you can read it here . It was interesting to me to read it again, after being home for these months. Gosh, it wasn't easy to live there. ___________________ My grandpa has pancreatic and liver cancer; cancer sucks. I was in denial for a while about this. I think after everything I went through with my dad, I couldn't go through this again. I think I'm still in denial about it. Dealing with cancer never gets easier. He's not doing treatment, but being treated f...

How could I have forgotten Xanadu for 'X'? Here's a brief clip of the final medley , during which she wears her little tiger skirt outfit. One of these years, I simply MUST replicate this outfit for Halloween; anyone who recognizes who I am is instantly on my love list. When we were out in the countryside training rural English teachers, we got REALLY bored. It was hot, and there was nothing to do there. So we downloaded this movie and spent an afternoon watching it together. Now I always think of Yunyang, China when I hear songs from Xanadu. (Which is more frequently than you'd imagine.) For those who haven't seen it, please know this movie is all kinds of ridiculous and the ending makes no sense. But, it's an 80's kitsch classic. Another time, I overheard a guy in Target gushing about Xanadu. I immediately sent out a text that I was in love. My brother texted me back: "You do realize the chances he is straight are very slim, right?" Or someth...

I bought this cinnamon and frankincense candle  and loved it so much I went back and got the fragrance oil. It smells very warm and spicy and reminds me of the smell in the Buddhist temples. I bought the oil both for the oil burner I keep in my study/meditation spot and for adding a few drops to a hot bath. I'm about to be so meditative and relaxed. I recommend it, if you like spa-y, spicy smells. ____________ I've been working on putting my memorabilia from China in some sort of organized format. For my small papery souvenirs, I chose these cardstock cards, with a plastic cover on the front side and heavy cardbard backing on the back side. Here's what it looks like fanned out a bit:  I don't like that ring, so I'm going to get a leather string and use that to tie it off instead. I'll use another peace of leather through the bottom holes but tie it in a bow so it an be untied for viewing. Another project: I asked all my students to give me 'name ca...

I mentioned recently that if you're a guy, and you wind up, you should follow through so the girl doesn't wonder why you dropped the ball. Well, I have dropped a few balls in my life, friends. I don't know if I remember all of them, but I remember these: J.: Sorry about the symphony, and that night at my house, and the next morning at breakfast. I don't know what got into me. You were so cute! You just out-cuted me. S.: Sorry about the fishing trip. But like I said, I'm not really the outdoorsy type. T.: Sorry about how we said goodbye. I know it's my fault for misremembering when my plane left, which meant we arrived at the airport 15 minutes before my flight took off. Things were a little rushed. Sorry. And yes, I always double check now. B.: Sorry for that night on my doorstep when you were hugging me, put your hand on the back of my head and sighed. I thought we were Just Friends. I didn't know what to do about the sighing without thinking about...

Last week I walked into a restaurant bathroom and fully expected to see a row of squat toilets. As in, I was shocked and briefly disoriented to see Western toilets in front of me, not squats. Something in the restaurant must have reminded me subconsciously of a restaurant in China. I still experience these little disorientations in other ways too, like when I visualize in my mind needing to go to the store and the image is the Carrefour in the main square near my house, not the Target down the road. (Sorry, Target! I hope we can still be friends!) Evidently China is like Hotel California*: you can check out, but you can never leave. I have a theory that the more emotionally difficult or significant your experiences are, the more embedded those memories become. China almost broke me, but then became the thing that saved me. I guess you don't forget that easily. *Every Chinese person I ever met in China loves this song. I don't know why. If you ever go to China, learn to ...

Confession: I love having someone else to help zip up my dresses. And zip down. It feels very decadent, no? And did you know this dress exists? I had no idea, until I was googling 'zipper.' All I can think is, it must be very uncomfortable in hot weather. Ouch! I also love my black & beige zebra print napkins I bought at Pier 1 Imports years ago. Tried to find them online to show you a photo, but looks like they don't carry them right now. I'm too lazy to go take a picture so: picture zebra print napkins. I love them. Just for M: Zoolander's best scene .

Picture it: Arizona, 1997-ish. I've gone to visit my friend T. in Mesa, but we are Just Friends, capital J, capital F. The kind of Just Friends who, because we attend universities in different states, travel to visit each other a couple of times a year. Around 11 PM we go for a late night swim (yay Arizona winter weather!), then head downtown in his brand new car. I'm poking through the CDs in the center console when I find one clearly labeled 'Make-Out Mix.' Now, let's ignore for a moment the fact someone actually labels their CD 'Make-Out Mix' instead of something more innocuous like 'Slow Jams.' (Those two things are always the same, right?) I hold up the CD so I can see by passing streetlight if my eyes are really seeing what they're seeing. Being the kind of girl I am, the following exchange goes down: Me: "Make-Out Mix? Realllly?" T: "Oh... yeah. Um, I've had that CD forever, it's old, I forgot it was in there....

My Chinese name is Libeisha, which is three words combined: li (丽pretty) bei (蓓 flower bud) sha (莎 no real meaning, just used for the sound). But the word 'sha' with the character 杀  means 'murder.'  I sent an email to a student and was typing too fast and when I hit the keys for 'libeisha' the character string that came up first was the murder-sha 杀, not the sound-name-sha 莎. I chose the murder character, didn't notice, and sent off the email. Hoo boy, did my student find that amusing! He wrote back immediately, "Are you okay? You have been murdered? Oh no!" And told me he had gathered up his classmates to his dorm room so they could see and laugh at my mistake, too. They love that I study Mandarin, but they got quite a kick out of their teacher calling herself  "murdered." Oops. Sometimes, your language skills are only as good as your typing skills. I use Google Mandarin for my keyboard conversion program, btw. Google owns so many p...

One difficulty of living in China: lack of privacy. Sometimes in ways you'd never anticipate. We had a disagreement in the middle of the very crowded, busy public square near my apartment; no yelling, but I was pretty upset. He asked if he could walk me home; the two kilometers to my apartment were passed in absolute silence. Oh, what I would have given for the privacy of a car at that moment! A car I could jump into and speed off and listen to the radio too loud to assuage my hurt feelings. A way to get the hell away from him right on the spot. Near my apartment, we ran into American friends at the beer garden just outside my building. They beckoned us to join them, and as we sat down on our little playskool-sized plastic chairs, we had to pretend everything was fine. And a funny thing happened: everything became fine. After hanging out with them for a while, he and I went to my apartment; he cooked me some food, we talked, things were okay. One of the hardest things about C...

I found this link through Twitter; it's a short animated visual graphing of the rise of the wealth and health of nations over the last two hundred years. The Chinese breakout especially interested me; GuiZhou and the rural parts of China he mentions are where Peace Corps volunteers are mostly assigned; GuiZhou is the province just to the east of Chongqing. And yes, going to Shanghai was like going to Europe as far as wealth, cleanliness and public behavior were concerned. If you like social science, you will probably love this. If you don't like social science, you will probably love it after watching this.

The best Y in the world is New York City. As I've said before, Shanghai is more developed and other cities have more history and beautiful architecture, but New York has a flavor and spirit like nowhere else I've been.  I've booked my plane ticket and hotel reservations for my trip to NYC and Boston in March; I'll be gone a full 8 days, 4 days in each city. I'm going to spend time with friends from my time in China, and I'm really excited to go to the Chinatowns in Flushing and Manhattan. And of course, I have to go to Washington Heights and see my favorite bridge and walk those interesting streets. In Boston, we are doing the whole St. Patrick's day celebration thing, and I want to go on the Boston Haunted Walk. Other than that, playing it by ear. So many possibilities for fun!  When I'm in NYC, I always eat mounds of falafel. Looking forward to eating many deeleeciours foods. And being in a crowded city again. Salt Lake City is beautiful, b...

Guys, I can't think of anything to write about for 'X'. I've been delaying and delaying and...nothing. X marks none of my spots. Sorry, X. In lieu of X, here's a picture of me when I was a toddler. I found this picture because V. and I were walking down the street one day and he asked me what my natural hair color is. I told him, "It's pretty close to the color it is now." "But your hair is like three different colors." I remember feeling flattered he'd noticed my hair at all. So when I got home I dug this out of my electronic files to show him my natural hair color is pretty close to his: black. And also to show him I'd mastered jazz hands at an early age. (Well, my left hand did.) My favorite part of this picture, though, is my red tights. My mom was always dressed us very fashionably. Pretty sure I was also wearing matching red Buster Brown shoes. I don't think there was a time between ages 1 and 10 I didn't own a ...

I like to use the word 'lick' to convey my attraction/desire for someone. Mulder: after all these years, still very lickable.   This picture also reminds me: beard burn? Always worth it. (It also reminds of the pictures I never shared from last Halloween because I had beard rash in places other than my face.)  And this might be the military brat it me, but men with badges are hot. Even when they're not hot, they're still hot.  If Don Draper had a badge, I'd probably kitten-lick him to death. I mean, come on . 

Chinese students almost uniformly make the mistake of pluralizing 'clothes' into 'clothes-es' and we are the kind of teachers that mimicked our students most common mistakes when talking to each other, so now I say 'clothes-es' all the time in my head. Other things we said: Deeleeciours (delicious) Advices I wish you happy every day! I miss speaking Chinglish on a daily basis. Luckily I still talk to folks in China so when they say things like this, I write them down. You think you won't forget, but you do! Did you know in Chinese culture it is normal to wear the same clothes for several days in a row? (Not underwear, that I know of!) You wear them until they are dirty, then change into new clothes and wash the ones you've been wearing. It was really hard to get used to at first, but then I loved it. It's much easier than having to choose new outfits every day. My students thought it was really strange Americans change our clothes every day. ...

I had a refreshing talk with my friend E. over the weekend. And let me digress and say, My stories from China often involve the guys because I saw them frequently and they were always up for shenanigans. But the guys will fade away from my life, it's inevitable. The girl friends I made there were fewer in number and I didnt see them as often, but they are rocks in my river of life. They are smart, beautiful, funny, kind and giving. The boys are fun to kiss! And hang out with! And make me laugh hard! But the girls-- R., N., E., C., and J: they are the people I want to become. ANYWAY, E. and I were talking about taking the unconventional path in life; Peace Corps often attracts people who take the unconventional path, each in our own way. When you take an unconventional path, you have to make your own markers of success, contentment, happiness, etc. How do you do this? Where do the markers come from? It can be stressful at times, having to choose and gauge and live by your own mark...

Today I mailed off the paperwork to donate my body at death to the University of Utah Medical School. I already knew I wanted to be cremated and scattered, so it made sense to me to add this part to it. I checked with my family, because they are the ones this decision would affect, and they were very supportive of it. The medical school cremates you when your service is finished. I had the option to:  1. Have my ashes buried in a donor's plot at the local cemetery; each year, they bury the ashes of donors who wish to be buried there and conduct a memorial service for the families, medical students and anyone else who wants to attend.  2. Have my ashes mailed to my family by certified mail, with return receipt. This caught me off guard-- I had no idea you could mail ashes. Technically, you could mail them to somewhere random and boom, that's your final resting place.  3. Have your family pick them up at the medical school. This is the option I chose. My sister asked m...

Found my camera when I cleaned out my study. A few pictures from my new apartment: I live near the mountains, in Salt Lake City. It's a 2 minute drive to the entrance to the nearest canyon, and within 15 minutes I can be in 3 or 4 other canyons, including the one that leads to Park City, where Sundance is held every year. I never expected to live here at this time, but it's where I got my great job. This is the view from my balcony. It doesn't really do it justice, the mountain peak is 12,000 ft. elevation. My dining room, with my Buddha scroll, rice cooker, electric kettle and Chongqing Starbucks mugs on the stove back. It's like I'm back in China all over again. My living room: Two pictures now hanging in my living room/dining room: A little qipao I bought in the Shanghai airport so I wouldn't have to change that money back to dollars: A picture T. took in Tibet last year of two Tibetan monks in an alleyway, holding hands. It's now above ...