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ikilledlennon
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Name: Molly
State: Massachusetts
Interests: Hurling sarcastic remarks, indie/foreign films, urban enthusiasms, idiosyncracies, wine, & the gaping hole in Donald Trump's soul.
Expertise: I like to philosophize and expand my mind as well as destroy it through substances (dichotomies play a large role in my life).
Message: message me
AIM:  Starstealer07
Member Since:
8/18/2003
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| How do I spend my summer days? Well, I'm lucky to have only night
classes to teach, so I don't have mornings unless I have to, wake up
around noon, then bum around until it's time to go in. And why do
I wake up so late? Little does anyone know that I stay up until
the wee hours of morning listening to Compay Segundo's Cuban melodies
and study my own reflection in the mirror while I dance to them.
None of this is due to vanity or boredom but an intense desire to enjoy
the music to its fullest potential, and you honestly can't enjoy this
music sitting still. It requires a sort of secret reveling.
I only wish there was someone I could share this silly urge with, who
wouldn't mind pretending with me that there was nothing more
appropriate to do at 2 a.m. than this. I'm so addicted . . .
I know I need to make some minor adjustments to my schedule. I
know I can't just waste my daylight hours the way so blatantly. I
will. I'll go out and look for more Latin jazz CDs
tomorrow. And don't tell me that you think it's sad that I'm not
taking advantage of my time in Beijing by "exploring." I have
been doing that for the last four months or so. If anything, I've
been living more like a local--feeling perfectly content with just
staying in when I can.
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| THIS JUST IN...
I've decided to start writing in this Xanga again, and no, I never
abandoned it for another secret journal, which was the case for
several occasions in the past, even though I never told you about
it.
I'm embarassed to admit that my ability to write for an online audience
has sort of evaded me after such a long absence and a gradual
deterioration of the English language, but I'm afraid that if
I don't start up again almost immediately, this Xanga will officially
become yet another ground for virtual decay. So . . . I'm back, I
suppose, well . . . until this sudden motivation secedes from my
consciousness, which hopefully won't happen within the next two months
I'll be here.
Yes, I'm staying for the summer. Last Friday was the last day of the
semester, but I've decided to remain in Beijing until August. I'll be working at Modern English,
an English oral language training company. If your mom watches
Chinese satellite like my mom does during the day, you may have caught
a segment of their TV program. I've been told that learning to
speak English is not only still the number one fad in China, but
knowing English is now probably the most valuable skill, maybe even an
essential life skill. For instance, this company's most popular
advertisement presents you with this provocative message:
"Good English = Good Career!
Good Career = Good Life!
Good English = Good Life!"
And it's perfectly grounded in logic . . . hah.
As much as I want to recount the last five months, I have so much to
write, and I'm really at loss . . . I don't know how or where to
start. So
much time has passed since the
moment I arrived in Beijing that I hardly remember the bus ride back
from the airport, except that I sat at the front of it, staring out the
window at the dark, foggy Beijing night and trying hard to ignore my
reflection, which looked surreal. I continually transitioned from
staring out the window to glancing around the bus at so many strange
faces,
listening to strange voices from strange mouths. I felt so
fucking
overwhelmed. Eventually, we pulled up into a narrow street, which
I at first mistook for a hutong,
and then I remember nearly dying from
the weight of the two suitcases I struggled to carry to my new
room. Upon entering, I threw them on the floor (I never throw
things, especially personal belongings). Then, I collapsed in a
bitter and sticky coma after I failed to take a shower because in
China, sometimes, you just don't get hot water.
What afterwards? Well, without delay or hesitation, the semester
began, and classes consumed my life. God, so, I thought I could
take it easy during my semester abroad, and some people can (isn't that
what studying abroad is designed for? Isn't that the incentive
for students to go?), but not the Clark China program, no no no no no
no. For the first part of the semester, classes ran from Monday
to Thursday, everyday from about 8:25 to 11:30, then from 12:30 to
1:30, with an hour lunch break inbetween. AND THE WORK
LOAD! Quizzes--dictations--everyday. A new lesson everyday
whereas back at Clark, it was a lesson every week. For a month, I
suffered from sleep deprivation, the usual stress, and not to mention,
the Beijing winter air
that seriously sucks all the moisture out of your skin like the way
absinthe sucks all the water out of your mouth. I've never
known and could never even imagine a cold like that. During the
second part of the semester, we had one hour less of class,
but I'm confident to say that even if my schedule had remained
unchanged, I wouldn't have found it so difficult to live by the same
routine. Either I had adapted and grown stronger or . . .
I had simply become numb to the blows.
But enough about academics. As for the people, the city, and the
culture, I've experienced nasty, wonderful, and everything
inbetween. For that, I consider myself extremely lucky. I
know I'll walk away with a three-dimensional perception of my time
here, when there are some who chose to see only the cultural
differences that annoyed them and then blaming those differences on the
backwardness of China, or refused to alter their American college
lifestyles and then blaming Beijing for not being able to fully
accommodate
their American habits. It takes no effort singling them out, as
they are the ones constantly pining for the day of departure and have
color finally return to their cheeks on the last day. I felt a
little sorry for them.
By now, I've formed several substantial friendships, had some
rather close encounters with natives, and, at one point, became a
victim of shitty public service. I also had the
opportunity to visit the Beijing countryside twice, and I'm talking
about the very rural peasant villages buried deep in the
mountains. There, the peasants
have never seen a foreigner before. While we visited, I felt
conflictingly curious and
excited to see the lives of real Chinese peasants in motion but also
torn
and powerless at the brutal circumstances they must confront on a daily
basis, but . . . since many of them have never known greater luxuries
or even ventured outside their tiny village, they pass time together in
isolation, the way they're used to. Of course, luxury is relative
in modern society, everyone knows that. A luxury that one very
rarely has the chance to enjoy may be to another something that's often
enjoyed, where it'd no longer make sense to call it enjoyment, but it'd
still be a smaller, simpler luxury. But we can all objectively
agree on a stable list consisting of material life essentials that's
basic to any modernized society. Yes, we take these things for
granted, such as the fundamental flushing toilet and running
water. While they are available to us everyday that we expect to
have them (because we need them) everywhere we go, at moments not even
registering their existence, they are luxuries to some, not all, of the
peasants. Whenever someone truly understands the relativity of
luxury, I think that's when they'll either start to truly to appreciate living
or tumble into despair from the injustice.
Sigh. There's so much more to be said, but my insomnia miraculously vanished with the sunrise.
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| MY LIFE HAS BEEN SO ENGAGING I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO WRITE ABOUT IT. THE END.
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| I'm starting to love my housemates (for those of you who don't already
know, I live in a themed house--Vegetarian/Vegan Cooking) and only got
to know these people this year. What a wild bunch of smelly
hippie boys. The other day they went dumpster diving at Panera,
lugging back a colossal bag of assorted breads.
Nobody kisses like the way he does, and he says the same about
me. Flattered. I tried Long Island Iced Tea for the first
time today, which he mixed. It tasted shitty, but it was most
likely due to his shitty mixing job.
I'm going to New York City this weekend for mid-term break, well, at
least I'm hoping everything will work out. I don't make plans
anymore. I've forgotten how to make plans even.
I'm doing mediocre in my classes. Lacking motivation in
general. I'm allowing myself plenty of room for fucking up and zero productivity until
mid-term break, then kick me if I don't pull my act together.
Half-assed entry. Sorry. Meanwhile, this book and vegan chocolate chip cookies await me.
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| I try to understand him through the songs that he listens to over and
over, the psychoanalyses of him by his friends, the subjects he chooses
in his photography (landscapes, even other girls), the tone of his
voice he takes on only when he talks about wine or Prague, and most of
all, everything that has transpired between us over the duration of a
year, which isn't much at all, off and on, hot and cold, but after all
this time, I'm starting to wonder if this is it . . . and why is it
that, even while I saw other people, he has remained, fixed and
unforgettable, in the background.
To quote Miss Vivian, "Stuff doesn't go away."
Perhaps I've subconsciously hung onto him, while consciously attempting to forget him, and now . . .
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