sometimes surveys are fun

Three names you go by:

Strawberry
Strawberry
Strawberry
(As I so eloquently said to my twin when she used my REAL name on a comment on someone's blog: "it's "strawberry" you dipshit, I use an effing pen name on the internet to keep my precious identity secret. gawd.")

Three things you like about yourself:

My fabulous new Pob (that's the terminology for the Posh bob) hair cut
I'm making a conscious effort to eliminate negativity in my life
I read a lot of books

Three things you dislike/hate about yourself:

Sometimes I'm too nice to people to the point where I feel like I'm being taking advantage of
Sleep is a huge priority in my life
I interrupt people a lot if a conversation is exciting to me, and most are

Three parts of your heritage:

Italian
Irish
Korean (I WISH!)

Three things that scare you:

Indecision
Stepping in puddles
Being coughed on

Three of your everyday essentials:

Kindle
Coffee
Watch

Three things you are wearing right now:

My #1 favorite t-shirt that is nearly a decade old
Red velour zip-up hoodie
Yoga pants

Three of your favourite bands/artists (at the moment):

Dave Matthews
Jewel
Death Cab for Cutie

Three of your favourite songs at present:

Love Ridden - Fiona Apple
Crooked Teeth - Death Cab for Cutie
Who Will Save Your Soul - Jewel

Three things you want to do in the next 12 months:

See Mount Everest
Live in the Now
Complete my thesis

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):

Enjoys cooking
Likes to laugh
Lots of date nights

Two truths and a lie:

I am obsessed with banana chips and pretty much anything banana flavored
I think you're a cool person
I changed my major four times

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:

Mustaches
Good teeth
Nice hair

Three things you just can't do:

Watch Saved By the Bell
Understand people who like South Park more than Family Guy
Not laugh when something is funny, trying to stifle it only makes it louder

Three of your favorite hobbies:

The three Bs:
Baking
Blogging
Being the bomb

Three things you want to do really badly right now:

Have my tailor make about a dozen new dresses
Watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Talk to my friggin parents

Three careers you're considering:

Housewife
Writer/glorified housewife
Stay at home mom minus the mom part

Three places you want to go on vacation:

Thailand
Guatemala
Virgin Islands

Three kids names:

Scarlett
Rhett
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jr.

Three things you want to do before you die:

Live in France again
Write a book (shocking...a blogger who wants to write a book before they die? Unheard of.)
Feel satisfied

i swear i didn't forget! it just...slipped...my mind...

I feel like such a man. I forgot my own anniversary with China! How is that even possible? I mean, I remember people's birthdays who I haven't even spoken to in five years!

Argh. I'm such a failure.

I hope I can find it in me to forgive me. Happy Three Monthiversary, baby, sorry I'm two days late. I'll make it up to me, I promise.

happy thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was never important to me in America (blasphemy, I know), and it's definitely not important to me in China, but I do believe in the whole giving thanks thing, so I figured I would use this opportunity and mention some things I am thankful for.

- cats (specifically of the LOL variety)

- Korean boys

- the pet shop down the street

- enlightenment

- hearing "maybe" fifty times a day

- mustaches

- trail mix

- care packages from my family

- tiaras

- banana chips

- GChat

- the fabric market

- my Treo 650

- being a citizen of The World

- best friend prices

- hair cuts

What are YOU thankful for?

hey mr. postman

I thought only United States Postal Service employees got disgruntled. Not so, as I have learned now that I am so worldly and living in China. Postal employees of all nationalities, shapes, colors, and smells can indeed be disgruntled. And indeed it is over the same inane crap they get upset about in the States.

I'm the type of girl who loves stickers and glitter and pink ink pens. Who knew, right? Well, apparently there is some kind of sticker law in the world of the postal employee who was waiting on me tonight in which stickers are forbidden, and he expected me to peel off every single one of my perfectly placed postcard stickers (which had adorable commentary, I might add) just so he could scan the things through his automatic stamper and not have to give me a physical stamp.


This could not be, I thought to myself as I sadly ripped a glorious blue shimmery kitten from my Aunt Mary and Uncle Frank's postcard. There has to be another way.

Me:"Um, do you have stamps?"
Him: *blank stare through his long emo bangs that he kept sweeping to the side to show off his eyeliner*
Me: "Um, y'know, a stamp, a real stamp, to put on the post card. Like this *lllLLlllllLl pantamiming the action of licking a stamp and making the accompanying noise*"

He huffed and puffed about actually being expected to perform a job duty, but lo and behold, there was an entire treasure trove of stamps! WTF, man! Why were you holding out on me? So he gives me one for one postcard, but I have 6 postcards, so I ask for more and he shakes his head no. And I say "No I need more" then at this point I might have stomped my feet a little bit like a child and whined, but that's neither here nor there. So he gets his beloved stamp treasure chest back out and throws the stamps in my face to mock me or something, who knows.

Then, I went tit for tat with this fella and whipped out 10 MORE postcards (stickered to the max) that all needed stamps. HA! Take that Mr. Stingy Post Man! What are you gonna do NOW? He threw more stamps at me while the security guard laughed and then waved me over to another desk to lick them all so he wouldn't have to look at me any more.

some definitions, by strawberry

In light of one of my more recent posts re: loving a former Korean student, I found it necessary to define a few things for my readers. These are mostly taken from the only reliable dictionary I know of, which is urbandictionary.com. My comments are in italics.

tongue in cheek:
When someone speaks tongue-in-cheek, that means they're joking and kidding.
AKA 80% of the posts I write.

cougar:
A 40+ year old female who is on the "hunt" for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male. The cougar can frequently be seen in a padded bra, cleavage exposed, propped up against a swanky bar in San Francisco (or other cities) waiting, watching, calculating; gearing up to sink her claws into an innocent young and strapping buck who happens to cross her path.
Gimme a few more decades, I'll get there, boys.

strawberry: Equal parts pink princess, redhead, zen master, domestic diva, bitch, sensitive young lady and straight thuggin' gangster. She'll wear a crazy hat or tiara to your party, laugh a ton, mingle, share some homemade goodies with the crowd, then hurry home to talk crap about you all on her blog.
Nuff said.

cradle robber:

A person who taps people significantly younger than he/she is. If X is the older person's age then they are a cradle robber if they date a person who is less than half of their age plus 7 years. But for this function to work, X must be greater than or equal to 18. I'm not sure I agree with that whole "must be greater than or equal to 18 part", but a decent definition nonetheless. Anyway, I hope these definitions cleared up a few things for you. If you have any more questions that need answering, holla!

ohmigawd whaaaaaat

I rarely call my family anymore. I like to think that it's because I'm soooo busy here doing fabulous things, but it's mostly because there's a 16 hour time difference. And I rarely have phone cards. But I got one today, so I figured might as well give the house a ring and see what's new in the land of red, white, and blue.

My dad was home and in the middle of making dinner for my little sister and some friends. The idea of that alone cracks me up because my dad is a crazy chef. He likes to play "survivor" whenever my mom is out of town which means he can't buy anything at the store (usually he will make an exception for milk--but only milk) and has to only eat things we have in the house. Thankfully for him my mom keeps a pretty stocked pantry and freezer section, not to mention he is the least picky eater in the world. Example: My parents went out for Chinese one scorching summer day for lunch, couldn't finish their meal so they got a doggy bag which they proceeded to forget in the back of the car for a few days. My dad notices the restaurant leftovers after a couple of days have passed, and instead of thinking "Oh, gross, this should be thrown away" he put it in the microwave and ate it for dinner! He subsequently got food poisoning, but affirms to this day that it wasn't because the food was disgustingly old and nasty from being in a hot car for half a week, but that he didn't heat it long enough.

Anyway, so my dad was making dinner and we talked a little bit about my trip to Korea and how teaching has been going and the whole living in China thing. Then my sister (hereafter known as Meimei which means little sister in Chinese) starts to make a big stink about talking to me, which is totally weird since I haven't talked to her in about 2 months out of pure disinterest on her part (Me on the phone with my mom: "Does Meimei wanna talk?" Mom: "Meimei, do you want to talk to your sister?" Meimei: "Nah, I'm watching America's Next Top Model"). I was curious what she could possibly want to talk to me about. Cute Korean boys? Something panda related? Sending her some delicious Pocky? Well, she got on the phone, and we had the following earth-shattering conversation:

Meimei: "Ohmigawd. Sister. Whaaaaaaaat? How come I'm not in your top 8? Put me in your top 8."

Strawberry: "Huh? Dude, you just friended me."

Meimei: "Yeah, but still. Put me in your top 8. Ok, here's dad."

reason enough to move to south korea

I hadn't even been in South Korea for more than 12 hours when God gave me a sign that I am meant to live here. Forget that I'm not a very religious person. This was a sign. From above.

My first full day here, November 11th, 11/11, is Pepero Day! Pepero Day is sort of the Korean version of Valentine's Day, except instead of roses and conversation hearts, people give and receive boxes of Pepero. Supposedly, the holiday originated in 1994 as a marketing scheme from the Lotte corporation which manufactures Pepero, the popular thin straw-like wafers dipped in chocolate (the exact same thing as the Japanese snack "Pocky").


Every convenience store in the city had huge Pepero Day displays with a large variety of Pepero treats to choose from. My favorite was the giant box of oversized Pepero about as thick as an adult's thumb and 12 inches tall. Total nom! They also had crazy Pepero formations you could buy, the most popular being a giant heart.

Koreans are way more into holidays than the Chinese, it's fabulous. They even have an amusement park in Seoul that is holiday-themed, and the rides/attractions change according to the season.

One of Romy's students had to leave our school and move back to Seoul with his family. The details of why are sort of shady, but he e-mailed her offering to show us around and is on his way to meet us at the hostel now, so I'm stoked. He and his BFF Shin used to play against me and Romy in doubles table tennis, though, so it will be sad next week when Shin has to find a new partner, but I'm happy to have a tour guide for the evening.

Now that he's not a student, anything goes, right? Is that how it works? I'm still new to this whole "teaching" and "being appropriate" thing.

seoul sister

I'm off to Seoul, South Korea for a week! Lots of updates (with photographs hopefully) when I return.

sort of like flag football

Whenever I'm thrown into a new social situation, I always try my best to really put myself out there and get to know as many people as I can in a truly genuine way. This isn't always possible of course, and when it's not possible, I like to come up with little games I play in my head. Not like "tic tac toe" or "hide and seek"....more like...social experiments. But even that doesn't describe it really.

Let me give an example. My sophomore year of college I was taking a general ed Western Civ course with a sorority sister and there was this dude in there that totally intrigued us. Usually he came to class clad in a full-on business suit, but other days he wore pajamas. No matter the outfit, he always skateboarded. This guy was a mystery. He was so much of a mystery that we didn't even know his name.

So we made it our little semester project to get to know him, and since I was the ballsy-er of the two of us, I made the first move by asking him if he wanted to work on a group term paper together. He did. We learned his name (Gary), found out that he was a 9th year senior or something, was married to a waitress at Applebee's, and basically was a total douche. He brought us chocolates in the shape of nipples for our first meeting on the term paper. He insisted his wife made them, which made the whole thing even more bizarre. There was a lot of laughing that evening, and not the "with you" kind, it was more the "at you" kind, but he was so clueless I'm sure he just thought we found him hilariously entertaining and fun to be around.

Flash forward four years to 2008 to Shanghai. The location and people may have changed, but the game is still the same. Red flags? Bring 'em on. I'll completely ignore them then make it my personal goal to change them. Perhaps I'll eventually learn that people don't change, but for now it's still slightly amusing to me to meet kooky people and try to figure them out. We'll see how long the amusement lasts until it becomes complete annoyance, with Gary it lasted two weeks. He was much more interesting when he was a mystery.

you win some, you lose some

Won: Obama for presidency (can I get a "hell, yes!"?).

Lost: My favorite non-student (he's in Romy's class) MOVED TO SOUTH KOREA. I'm so sad. I didn't even get to say goodbye.

But.

Silver lining.

Romy and I are going to South Korea on Monday for six days! And the student e-mailed her asking our travel details so he could meet us and show us around! Score. I'm still sad, though. Romy and I used to play doubles with him and his BFF in Romy's table tennis class, now who will we play? Le sigh, this sucks.

vote OR DIE

To date, that is my favorite voting slogan ever. It totally powns "rock the vote". Who cares about rocking the vote when there is the possibility of DEATH?

Anyway, all you American peeps that read StrawberrySays better go vote today because I'm all the way in BFChina and I voted. So you have no excuse.

VOTE OR I WILL KILL YOU.

Ok, I like that slogan the best.

at least it's imported

Can you overdose on colby jack cheese? I feel like my body is having a serious reaction to eating cheese for the first time in 10 weeks.

Also, what is the deal with this melamine thing? The news here is horrible so ya'll probably know more about it than I do. I just know that I don't drink soy milk anymore and now I hear that it's in egg and poultry products, too! Which is just perfect since the one Chinese dish I don't hate is fried eggs and tomatoes on rice. Lame.

Friday night I'm spending the night at a student's house with Romy. It's for one of our grad school assignments (an ethnographic research course, the assignment being to spend the night with a Chinese family) and it should be pretty interesting. My student e-mailed me earlier asking me if Chinese dinner and breakfast were okay because her mom wanted to know what to cook...then she told me her mom was going to make us homemade baozi balls! Total score. Too bad the student is already a straight A overachiever, or I would totally give her some extra credit for this.

I still haven't figured out how to post pictures ever since my internet started acting shady. Perhaps Big Brother has his eye on me. I need to stroll over to Coffee Bean and steal their wireless internet and check out the sitch soon.

moments in teaching

I think I'm going to have a new "segment" on StrawberrySays called Moments in Teaching where I will share funny moments from my teaching experiences, whenever something strikes me enough to remember it (the days go by so fast I have a hard time remembering much).

For my 12th grade essay writing class I have my students keep a journal which I have them write in every class period from a prompt of my choosing. Usually I try to do fun stuff like "If you could invent anything new what would it be and why?" but sometimes I aim for entries that are a little more serious and revealing like "What is the greatest lesson you have learned in life?".

I collect their journals every 10 entries or so and read them over for spelling and grammar errors, and also just to get a sense of their writing style and the things they write about.

Well, it's been super fun reading them (though time consuming) and so far my favorite spelling mistake is "relationchip". How cute is that? Relationchip. I want one of those, it sounds wonderful.

dolla dolla bills, ya'll

Man, I think I'm coming down with a case of the Shanghai Cough. Damn this air pollution and my sensitive lungs.

Today on the subway I saw a young Chinese man vomit violently into a trash can, it was pretty awesome. I almost felt sorry for the fella, but you KNOW he had a friggin' awesome night, so why feel sorry? I have yet to get that out of control here, but hey, I still have another 9 months at least. It could definitely happen.

Before coming to China I was in a very zen place in my life. Things just seemed to be working in my favor and I was very much at peace with...well, pretty much everything. I was also going through a big cleansing period, getting rid of a ton of stuff that I had been holding on to for years without really having a reason why. The blog Unclutterer played a pivotal role in this period of my life, and I felt more and more empowered with each garbage bag full of old classroom notebooks to recycle and each tub of clothing to give away. I wanted to simplify my life, get rid of all the junk, strip away the layers of uselessness and get down to the real deal.

And then I moved to arguably the most capitalist country in the world, err, excuse me, the most "socialist with Chinese characteristics" country in the world. Those characteristics of course including buying as much stuff as you can and slapping some kind of name brand logo on it.

I made a conscious effort to not bring a lot of clothes here because I wanted to minimize my wardrobe to a few essential pieces. Then, I got here and realized "Hey, this is Shanghai, the Paris of Asia, not some rural farm town". So after about one week with my minimalist wardrobe, I had my mom ship me a few things from home and went on a shopping spree at H&M. And had 3 coats and 6 dresses hand-tailored at the fabric market.

What have I learned from this? I don't know. Perhaps the Chinese proverb "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness" explains it. The Chinese are a very materialistic people, so why fight against that and distance myself from the culture when I can keep doing what I do best, which is spending money? Ya, I couldn't think of any reasons, either.

boo!

I'm stealing this idea from Frank.

So if I were to come trick and/or treating to your house, what would you give me?

By the way, I would have looked like this, condom lollipop optional.

Sadly, the Halloween celebration in China is completely Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday...WEAK WEAK WEAK! (Ah, I love a good play on words).

there was wood everywhere, too

"We're always lucky," I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

My life suddenly became a lot more hectic and crazy recently, hence the brief pause in Chinese misadventures from Miss Strawberry. Don't worry, I've been having a ton of them so I have lots to catch you up on.

Isn't it annoying when life gets in the way of blogging? I hate that.

18 million people? really?

Shanghai's population would be impossible to ever really pin point to an exact number because of the quality of the government census bureau (very low) and the constantly shifting rural population moving here from small towns and villages. In any event, there's a crap load of people here, on the low end I've heard 16 million, on the high end I've heard 20 million...I think 18 million sounds about right.

So, you'd think it would be impossible to ever just happen upon a person you know, wouldn't you? A couple of weeks ago I was on the other side of town and ran into a classmate in the subway. Not that weird I guess, but what are the odds of that? Then yesterday I was getting into a cab coming back from a trip to Ikea and Fox was on his way to the subway and I saw him, too!

THEN, and this is the part that is weird to me, I was walking to meet up with Romy at Starbucks (she had made a fabulous Chinese friend and wanted to share him with me) and I see a guy wearing a college sweatshirt from MY alma mater!!! I was so excited! He was going to an ATM to take out some money, but I ran up to him anyway (he probably thought he was being mugged) and tapped him on the shoulder and pretty much made a fool of myself blabbing on and on about our university. I think in the end he thought it was pretty cool to run into a fellow Tiger, but not nearly as cool as I did.

time flies when you're having fun

Happy Two Monthiversary to me!

Oh, p.s., I'm not dead. In case any of you thought that was a possibility.

computer issues

Blogger has been hating on StrawberrySays.com recently and hasn't been letting me upload any of my photos which is totally lame since I've been taking some super sweet Shanghai pictures as of late. I'm not sure if this is a Chinese government thing (likely) or an issue with my Gateway (equally as likely), but hopefully I can get it figured out tomorrow while I'm supposed to be lesson planning during my free time.

In less boring news, I've been having a great time introducing myself as "Meow Meow" to people. Euro/American ex pats are usually totally dumb about it and try to get into some argument with me about how that's not my real name, but Chinese people are all so sweet and even make their best effort to not laugh for fear of offending me. I was talking to a vendor today and told her my Chinese name was "Lin Meow Meow" and she stifled a giggle fit and told me "Oh, such a pretty name!"

Damn right it's pretty. Pretty friggin' awesome.

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.