I have hit the jackpot

I have been courted by two campuses of the same school. I have been offered two positions. One: a job working at the campus I have been at teaching ESOL 7th grade (with the team I have been working with and the students I have been working with)in Pudong (EAST OF THE RIVER). The other: teaching 9th grade ESOL and Social studies (Asian History) at the PuXi campus (WEST OF THE RIVER). I have struggled and agonized about this choice for nearly a month. Even after I realized that either position would be great, I am fortunate to be offered either, I would be happy and successful anywhere and I am so damn lucky to have these offers I still was weighed down by this insatiable dread.
Until yesterday.

I made the choice. I told one principle "no thank you" and the other "yes, thank you I would be honored." That started a day of relief.

I recently discovered that my visa is 14 days from expiration. without a new ticket somewhere I would get deported and not be able to come back EVER, let alone next year for work. It seems that everyone else in the world, or certainly Shanghai is also trying to get out because there are NO flights... no available seats on the many flights that leave daily, unless I wanted to leave tomorrow... um... no.
So my evenings ant late evenings have been spent on the phone to United Airlines in the states. I have tried every possible option to leave the country before June 9th without spending $2000. Last night, that too was resolved. thanks to a wonderful woman named MaryRose I have rescheduled a flight to leave June 8th with only minor changes. All I have to do is get myself to Beijing. I think that much is possible. (I HOPE)

Which brings me to my next point...
I AM COMING HOME
and that is such a strange thought, because when I left San Francisco ... and the USA I didnt think of it as home. I just left. Now that I have been gone for three months it feels more distinctly like home. So the point being, I am coming back to San Francisco for a while and then hope to spend most of the summer in Vermont...

Then I will come back to Shanghai and teach for a year... live the life... the dream... the fantasy that feels distinctly like real life and then... in seven months I will choose another place to live... and move again in a year.

For the first time in a long time I feel excited. I have a job, and a plan and a goal... and a hole lot to do. but more than that i feel relaxed.


I can't begin to explain how much better I feel. It was immediate... relief... excitement.. joy and energy. It is like I had descended into a version of myself I didn't know (or have chosen to forget)... and all at once the person that I love came back.

So welcome back happiness. Welcome back smiles. I will bring these things with me back to the US when i come in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS>

Difficult decisions put into perspective.

In case you thought you were having a bad day, or that your life was hard, think again. (I have spent the last few weeks and increasingly so in the last 10 days agonizing over a decision, and now what has turned into several decisions all tangled together. I had a particularly hard time of it yesterday as the clock is ticking and the final countdown begins... I had just lost a match of the spirit... to a potentially future principle. He schooled me, as I suppose, principles are oft to do. But this was my first time feeling completely reduced to nothing after leaving the principles office. I also imagine that is because as a child I didn’t get into nearly enough trouble, so it leaves me as an adult with an usually low tolerance for criticism. The point being I was in the dumps and felt consumed by my circumstances. Until this.)

Please take a moment to watch something if at all inclined. Having just come from this town and having three of the five Colombians I know attending this school it is particularly moving and important to me, and may not be to you... also I imagine that this may not be reaching everyone through the mainstream media, although it was recorded by CNN. This has been going on for several months. Classes have been suspended and the entire academic semester is about to be thrown out- rendering students without any credits for this term.

If you are thinking that your life is desperate and difficult this might put things in perspective. It certainly put me in my place. I immediately recovered from my foolishness. That is not to say that 24 hours later I am still at peace with the decisions still yet to be made (by tomorrow morning), but I certainly have had to reconsider my place in the world... and my perception of it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FLsqR0fJ3w

Don't look down!

That IS me. and it was the scariest moment of my entire life. captured for all eternity in digital form. but i did it and survived as did all my students. yea for us.

Hanging off the edge of a cliff I experienced real terror for the first time in my life. but after the first step it wasn't that bad.

"do I have dirt on my face?"

a riddle

what is loud, moves quickly over bumpy roads, gets soar easily and has 32 wheels? The answer is in the question.

Kids in heaven.

Guilin is even more beautiful the second time...
I had the good fortune to be a chaperon on this trip meaning all expenses paid, wild adventures, and handsome and interesting guides. On top of all of that the students were wonderful and a pleasure to be with. I got to see one of the most incredible parts of the world, try new activities, meet great people and get paid all at once. it was a week in heaven. It makes going back to the city life and the work week almost too much to bare.
I fear that I am turning into a city girl. i want to be the sweaty rock-climber girl that i was this past week. can i be both?

Just a little group of friends

I am in this picture too, so a prize to the person who thinks they have found me. it may be easy. it may be impossible, but we had fun getting there and trying to hold on to the rock and not fall off. I found a new version of myself. another one. i like her. i want to find her again.

I am the speck

Facing fear hurts. but it is best when you just do and don't think. the facing part... just face it... and then ... when you fall then you can cry. but hold on for dear life all the way through.

Do yourself a favor...

maybe you have seen this... or heard this. if so give it another listen. if not. do yourself a favor. listen to this. it is my new mantra... and it makes me cry. I am getting comfortable with being soft... and crying over and over again listening to the same lyrics.
but listen.
Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ&mode=related&search=

Guilin: Yangshuo

The second time is even better. how the world and you can change in three years.

Hello hello goodbye.

Good bye love.
Good bye fiction.

Hello trial Hello error.
Hello fear.
Hello bravery.

Hello hello goodbye.

*lay it down*

5.3.07
i time bomb



The pieces lay around me. The clock ticks away the seconds. Lights pass on the street sending shadows darting across the walls. An open book, a note page and scratched lists and columns: pros and cons. This or that. Now or later? Now or never. No or …. no… or, well no. crumpled Kleenex and a clear plastic wrapper. Were there tears or was it more practical?

Papers here. Papers there. Piles of future things. Ideas and not quite yets. Keys to a place that is not mine. Next to a key ring yet to unlock anything of mine. and no prospects of doing so. My I.D. so I am not confused with whom? An envelope marked “confidential” in beautiful feminine script, but not mine… my handwriting is more like a bastard born of both my parents’ … like me I guess. Is there irony in that. ? . And a dirty bowl. Remnants of a meal long ago eaten, savored… and even longer ago concocted.

A book of correspondence. Between two passionately connected characters, but the validity, the existence of one is always in question and the sanity of the other is dubious. Yet there are glimpses into my reality that through into sharp contrast the letters I have written, not sent or otherwise, received, and longed for.

“like Ariadne holding the string for Perseus while he enters the Minotaur’s labyrinth, your words might keep me from going astray.”

Wallet open, sadly no money worth mentioning resides within. Only records of money already spend, dreams already spent. The darkness creeps. And the truth is it hasn’t changed that much since I moved in, but I have. The pieces lay around me.

Do you think it is possible to measure a life… weigh a life? Are the relics of a life half lived enough to do that calculation?.. If not then what else is there to evaluate? A half made bed still warm, half drawn curtains. Half made decisions. Half light, half loved, half sure. Half-time and great desire for refreshments. Ice cream and popcorn all around… or just to feel refreshed… to feel fresh and not like Perseus in a maze, without the string. Without Ariadne. The pieces lay around me. Had I not seen them before. Had I seen and ignored. Are they even there now, as I lie amongst them? Am I the potentially nonexistent character in some book of correspondence? Am I the other equally questionable fellow with questionable sanity?

The last part is certain. For I lie amongst relics of something dead. Or dying. Or even worse something that may never have been at all.

How is any of that measured.

It is not.

Not by me.
Not by anyone. Not now not never… not-ever.
but the pieces lay beside me.

*they lay themselves down, as if of their own volition and no active will of my own. They lay themselves down.