I have just gotten over a nasty stomach problem that robbed me of energy, appetite, and dropped me to about 147 lbs., or the lightest I've been since sophomore year in high school. Now I have a sore throat, and a fever just as my appetite was returning and my girlfriend came back from Holland. Since she was at the gate she's been telling me already she wants to go back home to her family and friends and a job in her homeland, and that she doesn't want to come back to Shanghai. I deeply love this girl, and the thought of losing her after almost half a year of work and ups and downs and progress and ultimately a state of love and caring, after only a relatively short time of happiness is too much for my soul to bear.
I'm exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. I can't think straight and can't think about the future. I try and reassure her with all my "writer's words" and the most tender touch I can imagine. as it hurts to even swallow. Smiling as my head clouds up congested like some dark room filled with soaked boxes vexed over ages ago and since forgotten. I know that if she leaves I will bawl like a baby. I've already been surrounded by those fed up with Shanghai and ready to leave, or already left. A trail of friends gone and an air of negativity overpowers the crystal good moments I experience. These moments are mostly spent alone. If I have to be alone in Shanghai it will be hard, and I will long for her for a very long time.
I will try my best, and if it's not enough...well someone once very special to me recommended a book called the Alchemist. The jist of it is that one's goals are much harder to pursue because of our own fears and doubts, but even the twisting path before us and its many pitfalls and monsters should not deter us from pursuing what we want. And achieving it. I will stay strong, it's all I have left right now as I shiver.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
nan guo day
Today I was nursing some serious, for lack of a better word diarrhea >_<. I hadn't eaten all day after making the stupid decision last night to "defeat" diarrhea using a method of all you can drink Asahi and all you can eat Japanese. I had to 上厕所 about 6 times in the night and and and...and by the end of the night I was very gingerly using toilet paper. Sorry, no more imagery of any kind I promise. That is to say if you are still reading.
So today I was nursing some immense stomach foulness and canceling multiple appointments. As is my custom when I bum around the apartment, I surfed the web and did not study all that much. I did decide by the afternoon that I would wash some clothes so as not to waste the entire day. I took a rest in bed while the pleasant hum and churn of the washing machine carried me away into sleep. I woke up to, what else, use the bathroom. There I found about an inch of water on the bathroom floor. I saw that the tube connected to the washer had fallen off, so water poured directly onto the floor instead of the much more suitable area of inside the shower. Am I living a tough life or what? I remember once I was taking a shower and suddenly washer water, a little gray and grimey, suddenly started pooling at my feet. Well, compared to this that was SUCH a pleasant circumstance to be in. I frantically mopped with the squeegee mop I'd bought at Caree Foure a week earlier. After mopping and squeezing, mopping and squeezing, I had the bathroom serviceable in about 20 minutes. Pain in the ass I thought leaning on my squeegee mop when I heard a rapid knock at the door and opened it expecting to see G with medicine for me. It was not G at all!
It was an old Chinese granny with a lot things to say but the one word that really stuck out was SHUI 水. Water. Lots of it apparently coming from my floor through here ceiling. I told her I didn't' understand most of what she was saying but that I was sweeping things up. She left after a while and that's when I noticed a little pool of water outside my roommates' closed door. I knocked, opened, and found the real problem.
I spent the next forty five minutes laying down all my towels, tank tops, shorts and t shirts. It barely soaked up half of the water that had seeped in as i slept. I was in my boxers mopping and squeezing washer water into three tubs I'd found. I was on my hands and knees trying to fix this disaster i had caused, considering briefly whether or not I could clean this mess up before my roommates came home. Yea right. Sally, my quietest roomie came in and immediately did not start yelling at me but helped me. I felt really bad because the water was not only all over their stuff on the floor, it was clearly enough to cause some problems for said granny below. We got it all up but not before granny and grandpa came back this time with a slightly less wrinkled old lady who was the angriest of all.
I nearly shouted 都怪我！ but they wouldn't settle for me taking the blame, launching into a tirade (I acutely observed) that had me feeling worse for Sally since they knew I couldn't really understand them. As they left I said sorry, and the second woman stepped back into our apartment and fixed me with scary eyes: "Sorry don't cut it." Dang. She used Mandarin and didn't catch all of what she said but that was basically the jist. Sally and went to buy some stuff in the supermarket, especially a basket of fruit we picked ourselves as a peace offering to our unfortunate and angry neighbors.
We were two nervous ones when we rand their doorbell. As the door opened I blurted out 情收到我们的礼物. But granny and her husband wouldn't accept the fruit basket, instead pushing us out of the door! However, it wasn't because they were angry and didn't want to see our faces, but rather because they blamed the landlord and not us. They couldn't accept the gift, though Sally admirably tried to force the basket on them with all her strength. Granny was tough stuff, and had pushed us halfway up our own flight of stairs when she said just be careful next time we washed our clothes. They smiled at us and that was that.
Now we have a huge basket of fruit, and our neighbors may actually like us instead of loathe us. A good end to a bad day.
Except my stomach is rumbling again...
Oh, and also a guy came into our apartment and checked out my passport and I told him that I had three girls in the other room as roommates because I didn't realize that 3 to a room in an apartment this size is illegal and plus I was only wearing my underwear because I was in the midst of soaking up a lagoon zaijian.
So today I was nursing some immense stomach foulness and canceling multiple appointments. As is my custom when I bum around the apartment, I surfed the web and did not study all that much. I did decide by the afternoon that I would wash some clothes so as not to waste the entire day. I took a rest in bed while the pleasant hum and churn of the washing machine carried me away into sleep. I woke up to, what else, use the bathroom. There I found about an inch of water on the bathroom floor. I saw that the tube connected to the washer had fallen off, so water poured directly onto the floor instead of the much more suitable area of inside the shower. Am I living a tough life or what? I remember once I was taking a shower and suddenly washer water, a little gray and grimey, suddenly started pooling at my feet. Well, compared to this that was SUCH a pleasant circumstance to be in. I frantically mopped with the squeegee mop I'd bought at Caree Foure a week earlier. After mopping and squeezing, mopping and squeezing, I had the bathroom serviceable in about 20 minutes. Pain in the ass I thought leaning on my squeegee mop when I heard a rapid knock at the door and opened it expecting to see G with medicine for me. It was not G at all!
It was an old Chinese granny with a lot things to say but the one word that really stuck out was SHUI 水. Water. Lots of it apparently coming from my floor through here ceiling. I told her I didn't' understand most of what she was saying but that I was sweeping things up. She left after a while and that's when I noticed a little pool of water outside my roommates' closed door. I knocked, opened, and found the real problem.
I spent the next forty five minutes laying down all my towels, tank tops, shorts and t shirts. It barely soaked up half of the water that had seeped in as i slept. I was in my boxers mopping and squeezing washer water into three tubs I'd found. I was on my hands and knees trying to fix this disaster i had caused, considering briefly whether or not I could clean this mess up before my roommates came home. Yea right. Sally, my quietest roomie came in and immediately did not start yelling at me but helped me. I felt really bad because the water was not only all over their stuff on the floor, it was clearly enough to cause some problems for said granny below. We got it all up but not before granny and grandpa came back this time with a slightly less wrinkled old lady who was the angriest of all.
I nearly shouted 都怪我！ but they wouldn't settle for me taking the blame, launching into a tirade (I acutely observed) that had me feeling worse for Sally since they knew I couldn't really understand them. As they left I said sorry, and the second woman stepped back into our apartment and fixed me with scary eyes: "Sorry don't cut it." Dang. She used Mandarin and didn't catch all of what she said but that was basically the jist. Sally and went to buy some stuff in the supermarket, especially a basket of fruit we picked ourselves as a peace offering to our unfortunate and angry neighbors.
We were two nervous ones when we rand their doorbell. As the door opened I blurted out 情收到我们的礼物. But granny and her husband wouldn't accept the fruit basket, instead pushing us out of the door! However, it wasn't because they were angry and didn't want to see our faces, but rather because they blamed the landlord and not us. They couldn't accept the gift, though Sally admirably tried to force the basket on them with all her strength. Granny was tough stuff, and had pushed us halfway up our own flight of stairs when she said just be careful next time we washed our clothes. They smiled at us and that was that.
Now we have a huge basket of fruit, and our neighbors may actually like us instead of loathe us. A good end to a bad day.
Except my stomach is rumbling again...
Oh, and also a guy came into our apartment and checked out my passport and I told him that I had three girls in the other room as roommates because I didn't realize that 3 to a room in an apartment this size is illegal and plus I was only wearing my underwear because I was in the midst of soaking up a lagoon zaijian.
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