The above titling convention, of using the date one day ahead of the events I'm writing about, may have to be changed, since I didn't get to write this post about the 23rd on the 24th- it's the 25th! And to be honest, even though it's only 6:20 pm, I really want to sleep, which might mean I don't start this post until the 26th! What!
Cut me some slack though, I've been sick- I keep taking extended writing breaks to hork up snot or take medicine, or take a recovery nap or whatever. I know, I know, excuses excuses.
Okay, I'm sleeping now. I'll be back to talk about my Saturday soon.
Tuesday 1:17 am
This will be pretty short, seeing as by now I've forgotten most of the day.
I got out of the shower in the morning to feel some skin irritation around my right shin, I seem to recall it looking a little off as well. My dad had a reaction to some medicine last year that had an extreme effect on the skin, starting down at the legs, so that was concerning. Plus, both my parents had diabetes, so I'm always on the lookout for that, despite the fact that I'm not too concerned considering my usual lifestyle choices (unless the last month of surprise Chinese desserts has ruined me already).
I arrive at work, where my first class is a Lower Intermediate level 1- so they've just completed the beginners circuit. My voice is still messed up at this point of course. Besides the lesson plan I also taught the words for astronaut and detective- detective because this young girl, Belinda, figured something out really quick and I said she was like a detective. The best thing about making a kid smile is that there's enough time to really see the gears turn, the time between you saying something, and the time when they smile because they figure out you're telling a joke. It's great.
Let's see, what was lunch... well, it was either Saturday or Sunday that I had this tomato soup type business and some sweet meet stew dealie- I ate them both on the same day, at the same time. I was trying to incorporate more fluids into my meals, as I had determined that something that was limiting my recovery was not getting quite enough fluids. The big change I noticed after enacting this policy was that my nose got runnier and I had to go to the bathroom more (plus side, diluted urine), which in turn resulted in a higher frequency of hand washing, wish has led to dried out hands. It was probably Sunday when I noticed a crack in my left index finger knuckle- which is bad, once your skin is dry enough to crack it takes much longer to get it back, healed, to silky smoothness. That has been my experience in winters past- I haven't let it get this bad in years, but I've also had a tough time with moisturizure procurement. I should have snagged one of my bottles from Canada- oatmeal based moisturizer. I'd probably start eating it. :P
Pulled up my pant leg on my break and didn't like what I saw - but I realized the issue wasn't any kind of reaction to medicine or food, that it was most likely dry skin, no different from my hands, and that I'd been too rough on my favourite means of transportation by letting them get all wind swept and whatnot in the cold.
I won't keep you in suspense- my legs are fine now. Once I realized the issue it was easy enough to solve: I walked out of Web with Dany who had offered to show me where I could get some long johns outside Carrefour. It seems I'm basically the only sucker walking around with just pants on. The sales person offered my a pair at 69 Yuan, but Dany has some chinese under his belt, said that was a little high, and knocked it down to 60. Wow, thanks Dany!
Dany left to continue his own apartment hunting adventure (He'll be fine) and I went in to Carrefour proper to pick up a 4L jug of water and stare at some baked goods for a while. I ended up getting a box of orange peel infused cookies in the junk food section and, as I walked out of the grocery store, I picked up some, what I thought were, glazed donuts at a stall directly across from the Carrefour cashiers. What was great about the person that sold these "donuts" to me was that she understood I didn't speak a word, so we communicated through easy pointing. *Point* Is that the price? *Point* Yes it is.
See? Easy. Everyone else that wastes their energy on giving me a long speech I don't understand, what's that about? Like, you're not even speaking slower. I'll speak two words in slow English and gauge whether or not you understand and then you blast me with 50 quick words in Chinese.
Anyways, I walked home and it was torture. It was crazy cold, and carrying this jug of water was keeping my hands out of my pockets- my gloves weren't getting the job done without the warm embrace of their partners, left and right pocket. I kept considering ducking into the subway, or some other building, but felt that if I did that it would take forever to get back to my apartment. I needed to keep my momentum up.
So I kept travelling north, but on the east side of the street- and there's a fence in the way on the road, so I was getting to the point where I was worried about finding a way to get across the street once I did make it parallel to my place.
I forgot to mention this before I think, but that day I took my journey to the west end of town I saw this kind of old woman hop over one of these fences in the middle of the road. I thought it was awesome.
There is a bridge that goes up and over the road and connects to right beside my apartment. I was worried that maybe it was a bridge that didn't connect over to this side of the road, maybe it wwent somewhere else, or only half way or whatever- that I wouldn't able to use it to cross over. I was really cold and any thought that I'd have to stay out here longer than I had to was distressing. Fortunately the bridge, you know, operated like a bridge and connected the two sides. The lighting was suboptimal (everyone here talks about how safe the city is, actually they say that about China is general, very little crime. Which is all well and good until you remember, what, how much of that is propaganda? This bridge would be an amazing place for a troll to rob you and eat your bones) and the steps didn't seem to have a lot of space on them, either they were worn down or there was some packed in snow reducing the safe surface area to step on, so I was very careful in picking my way up and down the stairs.
Finally home, I had my oatmeal-vitamin-medicine combo, but first came donuts... what?! These aren't donuts! They're some kind of tiny apples covered in sugar! I didn't want any sweet and sour whatsit, I wanted baked goods!
I had four or so, spitting the relatively giant seeds into the shopping bag, before giving up and switching over to the box of orange slice cookies. I opened the box and each cookie came separately wrapped (there are so many bins of individually wrapped things at Carrefour). Then came my proudest moment- opening that first package, the cookie came flying out and landed on the floor. "ARRAUGHIDONTCAREIT'SSTILLGOODI'MEATINGIT."
Probably should have left that out of the blogpost. You know. For my dignity. But you deserve a laugh.
So I just sat there eating cookies until there were no more cookies. That's about 1800 calories, which is a lot.
2:19 am, that was Saturday.
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