Taking Care of Business... Everyday

I had an abrupt, but beautiful start this morning. I woke up at 7, rather confused as to where I was, but this was not the abrupt start. I got a cup of tea this morning, and finished off the last of the cereal I have (I have absolutely no idea what I am going to have for breakfast tomorrow morning) but this is not the beautiful start. No, the abrupt and beautiful start to my morning was at 8 AM, when I had a conference call with most of the people who did the Hoffman Process with. Hearing all of their voices took me right back to that magical week, and all of the feelings and emotions came flooding back, and hit my like a wrecking ball. I am not ashamed to say that I started crying. Not huge heaving sobs, but more like tears of joy. It made me feel connected and happy again, and when you feel like that, it is hard not to cry. I was completely overwhelmed, and so happy to be.

Unfortunately, I had to cut it short. I had to go to class. That might be the hardest it has ever been for me to focus. I felt so distracted, and so filled with love for all of my Process people, that I had a hard time focusing back on speaking Chinese. I told my teacher I was very 感动了 (moved) because I had had a very intense conversation with some friends this morning, and she didn't touch that statement with a 10' pole. Wise woman. I probably would have really started bawling if I had had to describe it, and then realized that my Chinese wasn't actually good enough to describe it. Talk about double whammy.

My first class went by without a hitch, as it always does. My teacher is super relaxed, and likes to have fun just as much as we do. She is a fantastic teacher. My second class didn't go quite as well, but no surprises there. My teachers is much more of a hardass in that class, and I struggled a bit more than I should have. But I felt so happy riding on the wave of emotion I got from the Hoffman call that I didn't even care that I was making stupid mistakes. It was just me and one other guy in class today, as the last guy never showed up. Good riddance, he is a little arrogant anyway. We had a great class without him. I made some stupid mistakes, but what are you going to do?

My last class did not go quite as well. I had previously decided not to prepare for it, because if I did prepare for it, then I got the new words way too fast, and we had the awkward "Now what do we talk about" moment for the last 20 minutes of class. However, I have since seen the error of my ways, and decided that this might not have been the best of my ideas, and that I probably should prepare for class. My teacher did not seem pleased that she had to tell me the meaning of so many of my new words.

At lunch time I raced home to talk to my sister, only to find out that plans had slightly changed. So I had a fantastic, open conversation with my mom, the first one we have had since I got back from Hoffman. And it felt so good to be open, and to be trying to have a deeper relationship. Thank God for Hoffman.

I also decided it was high time that I take control of my Chinese. So I spent the next couple of hours making flash cards and reading over my textbook, trying desperately so that I won't make a fool of myself in class tomorrow. I feel the strong desire to prove myself, and prove that I am not as much of a moron as I am sure that they think I am. My teacher has this way of staring at me that is rather unsettling. I'm not sure how to describe it. I'll get back to you.

Well, I gave up around 2:30. I was exhausted, what can I say. I figured taking a nap was most definitely the right thing to do, as it would build my energy levels back up. So I set my alarm for 4, and went to sleep. 4 rolled around, and that was way too early. So I set the alarm for 4:30. I still couldn't get out of bed at 4:30, but I couldn't let myself go back to sleep either, for pride reasons. So I just dozed for another hour, until a text woke me from my dozing. Dinner time! Unfortunately, I only had 200 kuai in my wallet, which might be enough to buy me a cheap, crappy dinner. Bugger.

After a quick stop at the bank around the corner (which, thankfully, did not eat my debit card. That would have been hellish) a friend and I went to a Thai place around the corner (after gorging myself on hot pot last night - I probably ate half a cow, and at least 10 scoops of ice cream - I couldn't handle the thought of a lot of food). Unfortunately, it turned out that this was one of those bad restaurants disguised as a good restaurant. We got more and more disappointed with the food as it came out. It has zero flavor, and some very suspicious smells. The icing on the cake was the dessert, which turned out to be varying flavors of jelly. We cut our losses, paid the bill, and left as quickly as possible.

I spent most of the rest of the night in Starbucks, drilling through my 200 flash cards, trying to cram all of them into my memory. There are four that I still can't remember, and I would bet money that those 4 are going to be the most important ones tomorrow. Of course. I guess only time will tell.

After a lovely talk with my sister, I feel it is high time that I should hit the hay, as they say. I'm going to stop now before I make any more terrible rhymes. Good night