Calm Before the Storm

I blame the weather for my lazy weekend. Seriously. It was all because of the weather that I stayed inside. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

Well, okay. Maybe I will kind of sort of tell the truth. The weather was my excuse. But it really was horrible. The smog was bad, and there was that bad feeling in the air that was threatening to piss down with rain. Therefore, I decided to hedge my bets and not get caught in the rain.

This weekend was my chance to take a deep breath, calm my nerves WAY down, and then start again with a renewed vigor this week. I know, I know, I probably should have been studying, or at least reviewing, but to be honest? I was in such a post frenzy daze after my finals were over that all I wanted to do was sit on my ass, and try to collect my thoughts again. I took my opportunity to do so.

Guess where I went on Saturday night? It's not a big secret, nor is it hard to guess. If you said "massage" you got it right. I swear, I feel like I am spoiling, myself, getting a massage every weekend. But when an hour Chinese massage is only 10 dollars, who am I to say no? They are exceedingly civilized. This time, I just went with Grace. It is becoming our Saturday night ritual. Our planning normally happens over Skype and includes:
"Massage?"
"Yep."
"Meet downstairs in half an hour."
"See you there."

Tonight, I had an Inner Mongolian guy who was giving me a massage. He was the guy that gave Grace a massage the first time we went. He's pretty talkative, and remembered me. As soon as we walked in, he goes "Ah, 18 year old pretty girl!" It's not as creepy as it sounds, I promise. That's just one of the hazards of translation.

I have never really understood why people think that massages feel good. Sure, after the massage you feel good, and relaxed, and sometimes even during the massage, I can almost fall asleep, but sometimes, it is also extremely painful. For some reason, tonight my guy was basically trying to break my skull using his hands. It wasn't comfortable. But I told myself: tomorrow, when you are relaxed, you are going to appreciate this. So I sucked it up. I will admit, that kind of pain feels good when it is directed towards my back, but not so much when it is on the juncture between my neck and my head. Ouch.

I am definitely getting better though. I no longer get the odd "you might want to lose weight" or "your back is simply horrible." Well, they say practice makes perfect. Well, that and a massage every week plus the gym.

Sunday was when the fun really started. I spent most of my day doing background research for my social studies project that starts this week. I am researching acupuncture and cupping in the broader context of Chinese medicine. By the end of the week, I have to write a 1500 character essay in Chinese about my findings, or about my research. I took this weekend as my opportunity to start looking things up in English, and get a grip on how I am going to organize my paper, and what sort of questions to ask when I start doing interviews. I am planning on going to get acupuncture and cupping done, so that I will have an excuse to talk to the people who do it. Wish me luck.

When Sunday night, it was time for dinner. And oh, what a good dinner it was: 火锅！Also known as hot pot, the food of the gods. Basically, you get your own little pot of boiling water (water with something in it, and you can also get it spicy) and then you cook meat and veggies and whatever else you want. It's so so SO good. You really can't get it in America, and I was dying to get some. I went with my friend Kirie to this place that my Chinese family used to take me, right around the corner from where I used to live. It was just as good as I remember it being.

The rest of my night, typically, included finishing up writing and translating questions for my interviews, and watching The Man From Snowy River. Have you seen that movie? IT'S AMAZING. It's an Australian movie, made in 1982. It's about a man and his horse, who have to get work on a cattle station, and what happens. The man is an amazing horse rider, and classically Australian. It's pretty predictable, and I think that if I hadn't grown up on it I wouldn't like it, but since I did, I do. It was one of my childhood movies. I would watch it again and again and again. Watching it last night was a blast from the past. I realized that I can still remember a lot of the lines from the movie. Hell, I still say them to myself every day, I had just forgotten where they had come from. How's that for old? It's now a part of my psyche. Basically, if you haven't seen it, watch it immediately.

And that was my weekend. I know, not full of fun and games, but everyone is away in all corners of China, and I had to get ready for my social studies project. Stay tuned for more!

Sophie