I am not there yet, but this job just getting better and better.

This week is May Holiday in China. It is a labor day holiday when everyone in china is supposed to take the week off. It is the biggest travel season and tourist attractions all over the country get even more crazy than usual.

My school is only taking a short week. So I have Monday and Tuesday off, which is fine with me, because to have a week off after only a week of working seems counter productive and since I get paid by the hour, the more hours the better. So i head back to work tomorrow morning after a luxurious long weekend.

It will be back to the grind for three whole days. and then... as I say this job just keeps getting better and better the following week I will be whisked off with the entire eighth grade class to a dream destination: Guilin- Yangshuo. (see picture above). I have been there before and absolutely loved it. In fact it was where I had hoped to go in case I did not get this job. And Surprise! I get to go there anyway... and the school pays for it.

For 5 days we will partake in many activities: kayaking, rock climbing, biking, swimming, repelling, zip-lining, etc. There will be so much to do and see... and so many wiggling eighth graders to keep us all on our toes. I am looking forward to it... and pleased to get paid to travel. I think I have found heaven...

After we return from that mini adventure... there will be only four weeks (20 days) of school left. and then I will be free again to travel and wander and make my own way. It will be interesting to see which paths I choose and which choose me.

Shanghai American School: SAS for short.

So the rumors are true. I have a job. and it couldn't be more different than my previous teaching experience: Large school, huge staff, older staff, private well-funded, married staff, experienced teachers, international population, more white students at SAS than at my school in San Francisco... huge modern buildings, extensive library, limitless resources.
Every day it feels like going to the United States... and I live in a community that makes it hard to believe that I am even in China at all. So I have gotten a job... an been transported to the United States or a version of it. All of this is to say that I am adjusting, pleased to be working, fortunate to be in such an incredible school, and lucky to know such people.

After teaching for less than a week I have interviewed for a job for next year at the other campus. this school is so big that it has 2 campuses. The high school is looking to hire me for a position starting in August. I got sick at the end of this past week, but went to the interview anyway and managed to make quite an impression and had a really good time.

Over the past few days I have really struggled with the idea of working in August, staying here in Shanghai, working in such an American community and so on. There have been so many issues to consider on both sides of the issue. I have been nearly driving myself crazy. which is a little premature if you ask me because they haven't even called me back for a second interview, let alone offered me the position so to get so wrapped up in a decision I may never need to make is silly, but I have done that any way. I think, in the long run, it will be a good use of time, although crying in that restaurant the other night at 1:30 in the morning was embarrassing for all involved. I have really struggled with the choice and like the tide oscillated every 12 hours. I think I have ebbed for the final time, but even that I don't know for sure.

I have made a life for myself here in this community and in a school. It is a sizable accomplishment for just over a week. I am happy. and sometimes even that surprises me.

If you want to know any of the specific details about the school check out their website. www.saschina.org/

First Day on the Job

By the time you wake up in the morning, Friday morning, I will have finished my first day at school, my first day at work. I got the job. I took the job.

Today was my first day...
There are so few days until the end of the year... I am already feeling the squeeze...
or maybe it is just that I have been wearing shoes all day that certainly don't quite fit... I searched for two days to find work appropriate shoes... and did... but not really in my size. so no doubt the search will go on...
I have been observing, collaborating and running from place o place today.
I have made it to one of my temporary homes and reel the sudden relief. my feet are free.
I feel the pain of Chinese foot binding. it is a modern version. and it is designed with the same purpose in mind, to make women more attractive. these shoes, I have to admit are very cure and I am happy to own them... however I am much less happy to wear them, but for the moment, I have chosen the pain and discomfort of style and beauty over the functionality of appropriately sized clod hoppers. I have recently resolved to only wear women’s clothes and women’s shoes, seeing as I am a woman, I think it is about time I come to that. But really it is so much more difficult... especially in China with my hobbit feet.
But I am well.

I like the school. there has already been a lot of talk about "next year" it seems they are salivating to hire me for something in the fall... \
I am pleased to be such a hot commodity in this competitive market. I know that I have made the right decision by accepting this position. I have already achieved the goals that I approached the job with: I have learned valuable teaching strategies and I have built bridges for future jobs in the International School circuit. Yea for me. Now all I have to do is show up for work 30 more times... really that is it. Amazing really. The hiring process has taken almost that long already. But I am glad to be here and part of the school. It is such a contrast to my previous teaching experience.

I am in the search for a place to live. Once I have the job and the shoes that fit, then I can move on to lesser, but constant concerns like, "where am I going to sleep tonight?" I have a few days guaranteed with my family friend and adoptive mother, who is also responsible for supplying the introduction to the job and talking me up in the halls, Patty Winpenny. And I will be there a week in May while she is on a school trip to Mongolia, but there are still then a few weeks that will require another form of residence, but I think I have decided not to attempt renting or subletting a place. There is not enough time to make it work the effort. So I plan to freeload around the school community and among the friends I have made in Shanghai. Hopefully that plan works. And since the salary I have accepted from the school is on the low end of low, I will greatly appreciate the financial relief of human kindness and generosity.

I am on my way...
to where is not clear, certainly not clear after June 9th.
I have ideas... but no plans.
I am on my way.
maybe I will see you there.

is it back to the grind for me?

Upon my return to Shanghai, in fact the impetus for that trip has yielded positive results. I have been offered a job. And just the kind that I like. Short-term. At the latest I would be finished on the 9th of June. That is almost so soon it seems silly to even start, but they want me anyway. So I may be back in the working world for a moment. I say "may" because it has not been solidified, ABSOLUTELY. There is of course some hassle. It is this hassle that allows me a few ore days to sleep in, stay up late, wander the streets of shanghai and buy cheap DVDs and indulge my imagination. I am living on the edge of a self-imposed boredom while I wait for the final word about the job. But meanwhile, I sit around looking fabulous, or alone in my loft... where my computer can't even see me... and I wait.

with each day that passes I think that there is a day I could have learned something, earned something or done something. yet in the last three days I have done none of those things. and I, of course, am the only one to blame for that. all I want now is some resolution to the matter. The outcome is become less important. I just want to know and start moving in one direction, moving in any direction. and until that phone rings again, I am not moving at all. paralysis.

I am to remember this:
"Though no money, we're among the richer folk for we are rich with love in fives."

A China Doll Breaks

4.8.07
A China Doll Breaks
I have always thought it would be fun. But with anything I always think… I am often wrong… or at least disappointed. Yesterday was no different. I let half of the women in China dress me up like a china doll… which is bizarre… Chinese dressing up an American to look like a Chinese dressed as an American. If you followed that… then you are ahead of me. I agreed, and well honestly wanted to have my picture taken Chinese-style. Which as I have come to know, means six hours of hair, make-up and costumes; contortionist postures and livid smiles showing all of my gleaming white teeth, including the ones in the back; and an emotional rollercoaster that would match the world’s fair.
The morning started in confusion as many mornings do. Then a scurry to the studio as to not be late for an appointment we do not have, accompanied by always, one too many people. We get there and as a result of our hurry we have to wait. I am behind a blushing (yet miserable looking) bride, whose make-up will take even longer than mine. God help her. So long that we have to come back in the afternoon.
So we do, after enough noodles to feed an army, a nap to wake the dead and an ice cream. Accompanied my a legion of women, aging Chinese women with not a word of English among them, we walk the bock and a half to the studio where I begin my transformation immediately. First, the complexion. Then the hair and the colors, the eyes, the cheeks, the lips and the… well anything hey can find to put makeup in they will. And then they set in on the hair with a furry of curling irons and hairspray.
I emerge with a mask of whiteness that even I can’t recognize, eyes to seduce a maharaja …….and a helmet of curls I could go into battle with. I do. I go into battle. I lose. I fight. The battle is fought for me. I give up and then I win. A battle of heart. A battle of spirit and a battle of image are fought and one… in a studio. The image that is sold is far from what the eye sees. Both mine and that of the beholder. I am the product and the consumer… I am the consumer of the product that is me.
Half way there I lost my nerve the battle of beauty had bested me and I was ready to through in the towel and all the tattered dresses that were too small for me with it. I was ready to call it a day… a valiant effort… and not much lost in the process except pride and self-worth. All in all it could have been worse, maybe if the third world war started… in this particular village in China. But at that point I would not have noticed even bombs falling around me, unless they could destroy the feeling… inside. The total loss of faith. In self. The loss of faith in self… and the way that I see me. Maybe I gave up long ago, before I walked in. before I grew up before I grew old… maybe I gave up long ago. But I felt like the battle was lost in that moment. A battle that has laid dormant. Dormant for years. A battle I could not even see or care to know before this very day. A battle that was lost somewhere between birth and adolescence. It was a battle of self. Of womanhood and of image. Of beauty and of perception. A battle lost and fought a million times by every living creature throughout history and time. A battle fought by ourselves, amongst ourselves, with ourselves. But it wasn’t until this battle with this self on this day that I noticed.
I had hit bottom… and again slowly climb back from there for where else is there to go from there? Somewhere in the wreckage and the desolation. The despair and the numbness of pain was the start of something… the sprout of something. It was the birth of another beauty, another image another battle.. Yet to be had, yet to be envisioned, but destined all the same. But what is it worth… this life, if there is not a battle raging somewhere over something? If it is not being fought for then is it worth anything at all?
So in a ball gown I began again. The beauty routine. Pinned in all the right places, makeup touched up and hair teased into compliance. I battled the fear of self and the fear of fear. With a Chinese fan in one hand and an umbrella in the other I went to war. Parasol and fan. The weapons of the ages. The weapons of the sexes. Maybe even the weapons of sex. Being a woman I am surely not looking comfortable when I wasn’t and being happy when I wasn’t sure that I was. That was the battle… more with myself than with anything or anyone else. But a battle all the same. Sometimes I think I am the only worthy adversary.
And before I had even noticed there was something else happening. I had an idea. I turned to my friend in a swarm of people. Hoping that they knew as little English as they let on. And I asked her to keep my secret. “ I want you to ask that man to have dinner with me tomorrow night.” I said. But keep it a secret. “No one can know.” I don’t know why I thought there was any sense of modesty or privacy left in my life, but old habits die hard I suppose. And so she had my secret. Within a moment I knew there was no such thing as a secret in China. She returned to my side. “ I have told my mother,” she said. “She will ask him for you, my dear.” although it is not exactly how I imagined it. This was much more like ancient China than middle school and I guess that is a step in the right direction. Without knowing the answer for several hours I wandered through the routine of dresses, makeup and hair. Pose. Smile. Tilt your head this way. Look that way. Hold it. Again. Smile. Very good. Smile. Smile. Smile.
With my keen wit and much patience I gathered that my offer had been accepted and that the news had spread like wildfire through the studio and probably the town. There is no such thing as a secret in China… certainly not in a beauty parlor. I should have known better. I can her gossip a mile away even in Chinese. It sounds exactly the same.
…
Who knew a day could be such a ride… and that at the end of such misery… I would have a date and maybe even a crush. For 80 RBM, about $12 I had an afternoon that would go previously unmatched. Hopefully next time I spend $12 it will not be so exhausting.

returning to the roots: Shijiazhuang