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Anna Overseas

4/21/2005

So, one of the things on my 43 Things list is "Read 52 books in 52 weeks." When I first added that to my list, I figured, "Hey, piece of cake." I still remember when reading 52 books in 52 days seemed like a piece of cake. No big deal, right?

Well, like everything I do, I had to go to the extreme. Not just simple little fiction books for me, oh no. I wanted to load up my read books list with lots of intellectual sounding things. Out of the Garden: A Woman's Reflections on the Bible or Women in Purple, which is about some of the Empresses of Constaintanople. Because it's all about impressing people who read my blog, right?

After reading on Jeanne-Marie's blog about how she's read about a million books so far this year, I said to myself "Screw it," walked into the used bookstore, and asked for something girly and light. (This is not to say that I think Jeanne's reading girly light stuff. I just gave up on the idea of trying to only read intellectual and clever sounding things. And I needed to start somewhere other than the collection of romance novels that I just can't seem to get rid of.) They pointed me at Bridget Jones' Diary.

Oh. My. God. What the hell is wrong with people?

I tried to read it. I really did. By the end of the first "month", I had resigned myself to something not that great, but at least it would be a good popcorn read, right? By the end of the third month I was muttering and ranting in my head about people sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves all day. By the end of the fourth month, I threw the book at the wall.

"Problem?" said my friend, curled up in his favorite chair, reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

"ARG!" I tend not to be very coherent at the beginning of a rant. "I just don't get it!"

Being terribly patient, he marked his page and put the book down. "What don't you get?"

"This whole turning 30 and not having a man is the end of the world thing! I mean, gah! What is the point? That... that... women only exist to breed or something? That if you're not in a relationship you're somehow incomplete? I don't get that idea at all. It makes no sense to me! 30 is about a year and a half away for me, and I'm not worried about not having a husband and a baby. I'm worried about turning 30 and still being in freaking CANADA!"

"You turn 30 in a year and 3 months, not a year and a half."

I gave him a dirty look. "You are missing the point. It seems that everywhere I look, women are getting advice on how to find a man, how to get married and settle down, and I don't get it. Why don't I want that? What the hell is wrong with me that every other woman (with a few notable exceptions) seems to want a man, and all I want is a plane ticket? Why don't I want kids? Why don't I care about these things at all? Am I just weird? Am I missing something important? Am I refusing to grow up? What the hell is wrong with me that I think this book is a load of crap, and yet both it and the sequel were hugely successful movies? What is everyone else getting that I'm not? I mean, this woman is so freaking neurotic."

"Are you actually worried you're not neurotic enough?"

"No, I'm actually worried that I have all the wrong neurosies."

He looked at me for a moment, picked up his book, and went back to reading.




But seriously, I am considering writing a book about an almost-30 something woman who is struggling to get out of the country without the burden of trying to take a man with her. Because I'd like to read that story, and I hadn't come up with anything for NaNoWriMo this year.




Related to the whole 43 things thing, I have been spending a lot more time with my friends. I saw four movies this month (well, three if you count that I saw Sin City twice). The most recent was Merchant of Venice. I'll just say that my companions found it a much better movie than I did. I think when 4 out of 5 people like a film, I'm probably just not the right person to see it with.

I also tried the third recipe in my book, which was corn muffins, and was greeted with many compliments. I think this whole bread-baking thing is turning out quite well. I'm just worried that the ovens in Scotland will only be in Celcius, and the entire book gives temperatures in Farenheit.

And I bought The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan, which I have yet to get frustrated with, so maybe I will manage to actually read something a bit more respectable than Harry Potter fanfiction this week.

Or, you know, maybe not.

Anna stopped here at 4:12 AM

4/19/2005

I've been trying for almost a week now to write something meaningful about the growing tensions between China and Japan, but everything I write comes out sounding trite and naive. I guess it just comes down to the fact that I don't live there, and even when I did live there, I didn't understand the racial tension, the seeming hatred for other countries. I regularily heard Lily and even Bao Ying talk about "dirty American dogs", and I remember typing up tests for the teachers that included long paragraphs showing how evil Japan and America are. I spent some time this week talking to a co-worker from that area about the tensions, and his passion about how evil Japan is was something I had never really experienced here, and I find it disconcerting.

I'm really quite glad I'm not in China right now. One thing I distinctly hated was hearing just hints of what was going on through the various news sources I could access behind the Great Firewall, and having to jump between people's blogs to find out what was really going on. And even then, a lot of it was rumour and conjecture. Sometimes you'd get lucky (and I probably would today, if I wanted to look for it) and read a first hand account. There are a lot of ex-pat bloggers in Shanghai and Beijing, I could find the stuff if I wanted to. But I like being in my cocoon, I think, and I'd rather not know for certain how bad it is right now.

I never mentioned to my students that I wanted to go to Japan. I didn't really want to deal with the fallout.


It's been a busy weekend, such as these things are, trying to get things prepared for going away.

I did end up getting a pair of "trial contacts" that I'm to test for a week. My face feels strange and light. They can't get an inexpensive lens for my right eye. As the doctor said, it's not worth the effort of getting the vision in that eye up to even 20/40 unless I lose it in my left eye. So, everything's just slightly off while I get used to having this lens in. For those of you unaware, I can't drive, so the world is still safe. I'm really glad I can't drive - the first few hours with these lenses I was a mess, trying to figure out how to focus again and dealing with the fact that my face felt so strange. I looked at myself straight on in the mirror without glasses for the first time in a very long time, and didn't even recongize myself.

Today, which is Tuesday, a friend of mine and I are dropping various of my boxes off at various places. I'm quite excited to get them out of my house. We're also taking a few things that are broken beyond repair to the dump. I just want to wiggle all over with bliss. Some of the stupid walls of boxes in my house will be gone, and I'll be able to seriously reclaim the space. For what it's worth, since I'm leaving so soon. I wish I had done this decluttering thing much sooner. Ever time I get rid of something that I didn't really want anyway, I feel so much better. Of course, since I'm *such* a packrat, and feel deep inside that if I get rid of something I'll somehow be betraying the person who gave it to me, or the person I was when I bought it, it's hard to say if I would have done anything of the sort without the push of wanting to leave Edmonton.

Speaking of Edmonton, I recently joined something called World66. Basically, it's a user-created Travel site. I submitted a couple of things to the Edmonton page (most notably a mention of the Princess Theatre, which is one of 5 independent theatres in Edmonton, none of which were on the page), and have perused the Scotland page with much glee, excitedly pointing out everything I could to my friend. I get a little strange about such things. But then, I did entertain myself for several days by reading key sections of my guidebook outloud to people. Anyway, one feature I enjoy is the option of making a map of every place in the world that you've been. There's nothing quite so simultaneously daunting and encouraging as seeing a map indicating that you've only been to 2% of the world's countries. Here's to at least doubling that by the end of 2005.

And just to add to my geek factor, I made another recipe from my big bread book. Blueberry muffins. I won't go into too much detail, except to say that the entire dozen was eaten quite quickly, and that lemon zest is my new best friend. I made the big yummy loaf again, too, and I have to admit that I could happy spend every day of my life smelling fresh bread. It's such a relaxing scent.

Anna stopped here at 5:29 AM

 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.

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