working on my fitness

I've been wanting to join a gym in Shanghai since I got here, but dragged my feet on following through with it because...well, I don't really have a reason. I guess my reason is I'm lazy. Which is why I wanted to join the gym, to y'know, not be lazy.

I knew that the foreign teachers last year all joined a gym that was "close by" but no one ever told me exactly WHERE it was, so I kept using that as my excuse to not workout. Oh, I don't know where the gym is, guess I can't run 3 miles today. I'll just eat this entire package of oreos instead.

Well, two of my co-workers joined a gym last week and told me where it was, so I really had no excuse to not check it out. I was still feeling a little hazy from last night, but I thought I should start off the day with some productivity so I went by the gym at about 9 to check it out.

When I got there a guy told me to come back at "shi dian" (10 o'clock), putting his index fingers together in the shape of an X which is how they hand signal the number. This put a damper on my whole productivity thing, but I went back to my room, made a few phone calls, bought some stuff from Carrefour, then went back to the gym to talk to whoever I was supposed to be waiting for.

I didn't really need to be sold on the gym. It's the only gym close by, I need to work out, convincing me wasn't necessary. But, the guy gave me an awkward tour of the gym anyway. A friend of his decided to tag along and laugh at him every time he spoke to me in English. I can't decide if this made the experience more awkward or less awkward, but it was definitely entertaining.

I ran into one of my students which was great since I was hungover and looked like crap. I heard from Fox that the kid puked in class the other day (after drinking a bunch during lunch to get the courage to talk to a girl, so he said), so it's not like he has anything to judge me over, but it was still weird seeing him. Now I know how all my teachers felt when I would see them outside of school. It's kind of nice, like "Oh hey, I know you" but also kind of lame like "Oh hey, don't come talk to me because it's my day off and Miss Strawberry probably still smells like the white russians she was drinking less than 5 hours ago".

My tour finished up, then another friend joined my tour guide and talked to me about prices. It was a little overwhelming sitting with three Chinese dudes that were all talking to each other, then me, then laughing at each other speaking English, then shouting across the room, then laughing nervously at me, then talking to each other. Somehow they managed to convey to me that it was going to be 3,000 yuan for a year. THREE THOUSAND! That's two weeks salary for me. Even when you convert it to USD, it's outrageous. I wasn't really in the mood to bargain with them, so I just said it was too much and left, but I'm going to try again tomorrow and hopefully I can get them down to 2,000 which is far less ridiculous of a price to be paying.

what doesn't kill us

I do this thing when I travel or take trips places. This very annoying, inconvenient thing.

I don't know what comes over me, but I suddenly want to be this chic-er, better dressed version of myself when I think of spending an extended period of time abroad. So, to expedite the process, I only bring chic, uncomfortable clothing.

Beggars can't be choosers, right?

So if I only bring one t-shirt and more than a dozen fashionable work blouses, I'll be forced to wear the fashionable work blouses, right?

Wrong. I'll just wear the one t-shirt every day and curse myself for being so lame and not packing more.

Of course, when I was packing to move to a country where it used to be common practice to bind women's feet, my size 10 self thought "Yeah, I'll only bring pumps and heels because then I'll be sure to always be cute! All the time! No matter what!"

Ya, well, walking for hours in black leather pumps in weather that is 78 degrees but "feels like 107" according to weather.com because of the humidity is not a combination that automatically brings "cute" to mind. It does, however, bring to mind the words "blister" and "backache".

Needless to say, I have been relying way too heavily on the two pairs of three dollar Old Navy flip flops I thankfully had the presence of mind to pack. I brought 10 pairs of shoes and all of them are heels, save the no-traction death-trap flip flops.

The thing that bugs me the most is that I literally had several pairs of sturdy Reef sandals in my hands ready to be put in my suitcase, but I put them away, deluding myself into believing that in China I would become that girl that wears heels everywhere.

Y'know, that girl that doesn't exist in real life. Like Carrie Bradshaw. Or a happy French woman (yeah, they wear heels everywhere, but have you ever seen one of them smile?).

So I've been surviving so far with my cheap-o shower sandals. But barely. All the flooring here is made out of cheap wanna-be marble, my guess is because it is cheaper than concrete. Well, slippery tiling and rain pretty much mean that I have to waddle everywhere for fear of falling on my ass. That is, when I'm not actually falling on my ass. Behold, my bruise (and the one t-shirt I brought to China):

It is actually much worse than it looks, I assure you. The entire right side of my body is still sore from my total full-body fall two days ago. I probably broke something, who knows. But so far it's not life threatening, hence not worth a trip to the scary Chinese doctor.