mind the gap
map


People Safe From Being Picked Out of a Police Line Up
(at least by me)
jump the tracks
Laugh
Snark

Anna Overseas

3/11/2005

So ... tired ....

I pulled a total Anna today, and I feel like such an idiot. I was standing in the kitchen at work holding a glass of pop. It fell out of my hands just seconds after the cleaners had finished that part of the floor, shattering glass and spilling pop all over the nice clean kitchen. And all over me. My shirt, just returned from the cleaners, has a big stain on the front. And my pants are sticky with pop.

*sigh*

I am so clumsy some (most) days.

In unrelated news:
Discount airline Jetsgo isn't going anywhere -- announcing early Friday that
it is grounded, effective immediately.

Jetsgo advised customers to make alternative arrangements before heading to
the airport since there will be no Jetsgo staff or planes available.

Travellers who are already away were told their return tickets are no good
and to make other arrangements to get back home.

The company issued the stunning announcement shortly after midnight on
Friday.

...

Jetsgo said that difficult market conditions and competitive pressures led
the company to discontinue operations and ground all of its planes.

"We are very concerned about our customers and the significant hardship that
this action causes. In the meantime, we encourage our passengers to contact
their travel agent or an alternative airline."

Hours after the company issued its release, its website was still active with
no note to travellers on the situation.

The company said in its statement that consumers who have paid for Jetsgo
tickets should communicate with the Canadian Transportation Agency or provincial
consumer affairs ministries.

Recent problems at the discount airliner built up something of a backlash
against the company, even leading some travellers to launch a website -- www.jetsgosucks.com.

(Taken from www.edmontonjournal.com)

Interestingly, I can't get to either jetsgo.com or jetsgosucks.com from here, but that may be a work thing and not a thing thing.

The reason I bring this up is because this is the company that Don took when he flew off for university. The trip was a nightmare. The flight he was to take was cancelled, and the notation on his account said that he'd been contacted earlier that day and confirmed he'd take the flight the next day. Here's the catch: the phone that he would have been contacted on had been disconnected already the day before.

The woman he was dealing with fought tooth and nail for him to get on the flight going out that afternoon, with a comp stay at a hotel so he could catch a connection the next morning. It was a long battle, too, since he had "agreed" to the change.

Then, when he tried to get something to drink on the plane so he could take his medication, they told him (on the flight, mind you, this wasn't discussed anywhere before) that they charged for all drinks on the flight.

I know there was more to this saga, but the whole thing was just so stupid. Although I feel for the people who are being screwed (the stranded passengers, the unemployed people), I am glad this company went down.

That's my snarky for today. And I haven't even left work yet.

Anna stopped here at 5:19 AM

3/9/2005

Garden in Nanjing

I wish I could remember which garden in Nanjing this was. I remember it was the first one I went to, and if I had my guidebook to hand, I could find it easily enough, but I can't find my guidebook right now. (More on that later.) The thing I remember most about this picture, though, was how different this garden was from the area surrounding it.

This garden is in the middle of Nanjing, and the city is noisy and insane. I'm not a big fan of noisy and insane cities. They make me uncomfortable. (And I went to China, where "noisy and insane" is kinda the norm.) I remember feeling much more claustrophobic and very alone. This trip was during Spring Festival, or maybe just before, and it was one of the first overnight trips I went on without Paul.

Anyway, my point. There was the noise of the ciy, and the feeling of being lost, and the constant feeling out of place... then there was this place. Just walking inside the walled garden, and there's this sudden silence. It's like the city is a million miles away.

Unlike a lot of the other places in Nanjing, this place had very few people in it. I don't think I saw more than one person the entire time I spent in the garden, and I was there for two hours. The paths are very windy, and there was the sense that I was walking right next to a part of the path I'd already gone through, but I couldn't quite see it, so it felt a lot bigger than it could be.

A lot of China's gardens are like that. They seem so huge, so peaceful (even with a million tourists all taking pictures), and there's this overwhelming sense of history in the whole thing.

I really miss that when I'm here. I love Canada, don't ever think I don't, but I miss that sense of history when I look at things here. Alberta is proudly celebrating 100 years of being a province. China has 5000 years of history.

I think pictures like this are a lot of what people think about when they think of China. They think of those 5000 years of history, they think of stereotypical Asian stuff, and this garden is what they come up with. They think of families with gardens like this in the back yard. They think of the movies we've seen of China, where this is typical. But when I think of China, I think of the crushing mass of people and how there's no sense of privacy. I wonder at why places like this are so... empty, really. But then, that's a cultural thing, isn't it? My need for privacy and personal space, versus the Chinese need for people around them. I remember talking to someone when I was there about that, about how Chinese students who do overseas trips go crazy from the quiet, while we go crazy from the noise.

See Also:
A quiet place to rest {click to enlarge}

I think every garden I went to had a setup like this in some quiet shady corner. It was very pleasant.




So, the missing guide book thingy.

I'm talking to a friend of mine about how I'm updating my blog again, but I don't just want to put "And I was in China, and that was the only exciting thing I ever did in my life, and now I can die." Which, really, I'm certain it wasn't the only exciting thing I did in my life, but some days, I'm telling ya.

Anyway. My friend says, "Well, write about those little projects you're doing."

Me: What little projects. {This is me, looking innocent.}

Him: You know, the de-cluttering of all of your stuff.

Me: Oh.

Him: And the getting back into running.

Me: Right.

Him: And that stuff with those games.

Me: Okay, I see your point.

Him: So, you could write about that.

Me: But that means I actually have to do them.

Him: ...

Me: I suppose I could lie...

Him: No, no you can't.

Me: You suck.

So, yeah. I'm doing these little projects, you see, and the big one, the one that will take me the rest of my natural life, is the decluttering. Anyone who has ever met me, talked with me, or seen me in the street carrying the portable hole that is my purse can tell you that I need to declutter. I have way too much stuff for any three people, and I live alone with my cat. I have an entire room that just has *stuff* in it, and I don't know what to do with it all.

I read this little article some place about this one woman who, when she died, everything she owned could fit in her car. I want to be able to do that, not because I have some desire to run away from home, but because all of this *stuff* is ruling my life in a really nasty way. I don't have people over, because I don't want them to see the amount of *stuff* I have. It's insane.

So, yeah. I'm going through it all with this goal in mind. I'm never going to achieve it, but it's a nice goal to work towards. The problem is, my apartment is in a constant state of uproar while I try to determine what to do with all this *stuff*. Right now, my big goal is to gather together whatever is donatable and give it to Edmonton's WinHouse, which probably has a better use for 16 plates than I do.

Just to give you some idea, last night I finally threw out my history notes. From Grade 11. My ten year high school reunion was last year.

But yes, that's why I can't currently find my guide book. It may be on the overcrowded book shelf in the living room, one of the 4 overcrowded bookshelves in the bedroom, on the cluttered desk behind me, or on the cluttered desk I'm sitting at, or under a couch, or eaten by the cat. Who knows?

So, yeah, whatever encouragement or advice anyone can send my way would be appreciated. Any offers of help in carting all this stuff out of my damned apartment would be nice, too. If anyone wants any of this junk... well, you're welcome to it, although a few people have called dibs on some of it. (Hi Crash!). Hell, any advice on what to do with 7 years of back issues of magazines would be nice. Or a bunch of craft stuff that I never use, but I spent money on, so I don't want to get rid of. Just, gah.

Anyway, the other projects are for another day. But I'll try to write about the decluttering stuff, because it would be nice to get some encouragement there. It's harder to get through that every day then going running again. And that's saying something, because I am very very lazy.

Anna stopped here at 9:16 AM

3/7/2005

Me and the Terracotta Warriors

I don't think I could ever forget how excited I was to see the Terracotta Warriors. I looked forward to the trip for weeks, getting Bao Ying to help me get the train ticket (it was a hard seat, more than 24 hours, but I can't remember how long it took anymore), pushing the school for the promised time off (I finally pointed out to Lily that none of the promised "trips around China" had ever taken place, and they agreed to let me take a few extra days to go), and told all of my students about it. I even started singing a little song about it. Do you remember that song by Presidents of the United States of America, I think? The song about peaches? Yeah, that one. Except I did it as "Going to Xi'an, gonna see a lot of statues. Going to Xi'an, gonna see a lot of statues. Millions of statues, statues for me. Millions of statues, statues to see."

Yeah, I'm weird.

By the time I went, Paul had already gone back to New Zealand. He ended up really regretting not coming with me, and I think he would have had a good time.

Enough about that, though. The actual seeing of the statues... I was in awe. I've studied them in history classes, they came up in my Chinese History quite often, but to actually see them... It's a very awe inspiring sight. They're divided up into several different warehouses. each one extremely large. The one that we most see in pictures is the one where all the statues are lined up, still in their trenches. Frankly, no photo does it justice. Heck, the whole experience really doesn't do it justice. It's incredibly overcrowded (how could it not be?), but so... oh my. I can still close my eyes and see it, smell the dirt in the air, and remember what it was like to actually be so close to these parts of history. I don't think there are words to describe it.

In the last warehouse I went to, they had several of the more famous statues in individual glass cases, so you could get a lot closer to them. It was so strange, to see these proud looking Chinese warriors, all with their individual faces and poses, up close like that. I wandered around them, wishing I could touch and totally understanding why I couldn't. But I so wanted to. Can you imagine, touching that bit of history? So much skill and effort went into creating these statues, so they could be left under the group for centuries, with no one to appreciate them. And there's no way the people who built them didn't know they were going to be underground, and they put that much effort into them....

Anyway, that last warehouse had a place where you could get a picture of yourself with the statues. I had a "proffesional" one taken, which comes with this purty certificate that says I was there, and this one was taken by the photographer's assistant with my camera. They both turned out. I love how the blue in my shirt matches the blue on the horses.

I have to say that going to Xi'an was one of my favorite experiences in China, and the one I look back on the most fondly. I got to explore this amazing city, meet a lot of interesting people, and generally do whatever I wanted for several days at a time. It was an outstanding experience, and one I'd love to do again. I remember at one point thinking "But, then, if I come back with a friend, I'll be all blase about this stuff. You know, been there done that." But in retrospect, I don't think I could be that way about Xi'an. It's just such am amazing place, with so much to do. I'd love to live there, should I ever return to China.




In completely unrelated news, my cat is home.

I hadn't mentioned that Little Demon Spawn went missing, mostly in an effort to keep myself in denial. Basically, he was staying with my friend Margery while I was away in Halifax, and about 2 days before he was to come home, he disappeared. Since he's well known to be afraid of the sky, afraid of cars, and basically afraid of outside, neither Margery nor I thought he had gone out. Her house is about... oh... 4 times the size of my apartment, which is a lot of space for the little guy to disappear into, especially since he likes to hide.

Eventually, though, we had to accept the idea that he was out. She went looking for him, went door to door to the neighbours, called the vets, and was making posters and ads for the paper when she was told by a neighbour that they had caught sight of a black cat hiding under their deck, but he ran away. That was yesterday, and she didn't want to get my hopes up.

Well, this morning, all pitiful and probably quite hungry, he showed up at her place again. She called me in the wee hours this morning while I was at work, and I couldn't even begin to contain my happiness. My cat, my little devil in a cat suit, is home. She brought him back up to Edmonton this morning, and he is now curled up near my feet, not going anywhere. He's a bit thinner, and is meowing more than usual, but he's safe. He even bit me in that loving way he does. I'm so much happier.

I know I meant to write about something else today, but frankly, my cat's home, and it kinda drove all other thoughts out of my mind. It's my weekend (yay two days off!), so I'm going to catch up on my sleep.

Anna stopped here at 5:06 PM

3/6/2005

Yay!

I did the move over to blogger, it's working, it's easy, and I'm content with the world.

All the posts from China are in the Archives section still.

Oh, the joy of push-button blogging!

Anna stopped here at 3:32 PM

 mind the gap

A 20-something Canadian who used to teach English in China. There's lots in the archives about my experiences with teaching, with culture shock, and with my adventures in China. Occasionally it meanders into melancholy (part of the culture shock), which must be very dull to read, so you can skip that.

But right now, I'm back in Canada, and kinda determined to do something with the several thousand photos I took, as well as write more about China and other stuff.

People I Could Pick Out of a Police Lineup
(and thus should stay on my good side)
change here for:
past imperfect

Site Meter