Where I question just how much wrapping paper I really need...

Happy Halloween everyone! Ok, so it's more like the day after halloween and I not only didn't go out partying on the town or over at the Marine house, I slaved until 1AM at home trying to unpack my....(drumroll please)...HHE! Yes, the many boxes that house my life, majority of which I had not seen since April, has arrived! Hip hip hurrah!

The force is weak in this one, Obi Wan.

I was able to receive my dip card last week, which also means I will no longer have to carry around my diplomatic passport as a form of identification within China anymore (I will probably still bring it on flights because it houses my visa). Customs cleared my giant wooden crates that were shipped here by some lucky container ship as well as the wooden box my UAB was packed into in DC. It was a tough situation for the movers because the moving truck had to park a good 3 minute walk from the elevators for my unit, so they had to push only a few boxes at a time. They did manage to unpack most of the stuff and at the very least leave it in the correct rooms for me now to slowly go through ad clear out. My only major disappointment was that my vanity's chair is missing, probably buried and unlabeled in some box sitting still in Maryland storage. But I switched out the bed that my housing here gave me (a giant but rather hard king sized) for my plush Aireloom queen. I havn't decided what to do with the extra space in my bedroom, but I'm sure there's...oh, a good 2 years to figure that out. Hopefully my place will resemble something inhabitable soon once I've managed to clear all the random piles of everything out.

Yes, having a dinosaur on my wall DOES make it feel more like home.

You know what's really scary? How dirty my air filter is when I had to change it today.

Work gave some admin time for me to get home and deal with receiving the HHE which was nice, although I still had to go in the day after on Friday. We had a Crisis Management excercise, which was run much as ConGen had- scenarios, people playing callers...we even had our phone tree activated at 6AM, which is always fun. (Like pina colada and getting caught in the rain on the way to work because once again you have left your umbrella in your apartment a long elevator ride up.) We did have a team building practice as well this Friday, which did not involve trust falls, I'm happy to report. It did involve guessing people's baby pictures and discussing our time schedules at work (how we're supposed to remember this, I don't know) and how being conscious of "other people's best times."

My outreach trip to Zhejiang was good and I had an educational time learning how to do visa talks, hospital and foreign affair visits, as well as getting a feel for how to do meet and greets with local officials. There's things A-100 just doesn't prepare you for, like how to offer "jing jio" or thanks during a meal, what is the order in which to introduce yourselves, what to do when you're handing official gifts (do you open it? do you refuse it?), etc. The good news is the colleague with me was a pro and I attached myself like a little leech to him in hopes of sucking out all that is good, wise, and useful. I wasn't PNGed, I sacrificed my liver for my country, and I got to dress up in surgical garb and take publicity photos in an operating room (which I'm sure will make my mother weep at the path not taken)- all in all, a good trip.

This village is filled with local art students who come here to work on their assignments. 

These are swordsmiths making practice blades for martial artists. Pretty neat. 

The local speciality of Celadon. Yes, there is a tiny fake turtle in there. 

Hehehe...

This is a couple hundred year old tree that was split by lightening and still survived. Kinda like my bags of potato chips after being shipped across the big blue wet thing 

This week was also my first language class with a local program called CET. Our post language program is pretty great and I'm currently scheduled for 8 hours of class a month with a teacher. They don't mess around either and I felt a bit mentally worn out after some intense practice. I have homework, some things to read, and someone that will judge me with a disapproving look, which, let's be honest, is one of the primary reasons having a real teacher is so much more motivating than self-study. Looking disapprovingly at yourself in the mirror just doesn't have the same effect.

I am sorry to report that I have also been rather under the weather this weekend, which is another reason this update is so late in coming. I'm not sure if it's the flu shot I got at work Wednesday or just something I picked up on the metro but I've been exhausted and nauseaous and altogether feeling pretty lousy. You also know it's a big deal when I get tired from chewing food. Chewing! Ridiculous, I know (especially for me.)  I did manage to drag my saggy behind out to an education expo, the only officially sanctioned one by the Chinese government for study abroad programs. Held at the world expo and convention center, a few of us took shifts to help out Education USA answer visa and consular related questions (well, they helped, I just faked sounding knowledgable). Some real and funny questions I got:

1. How much money do I have to show is in my account to get a visa and how long does it have to have be in my bank account?
2. Is it true you won't give student visas to old single women because you think we're all intending immigrants?
3. If my son studied law in China but wants to be an accountant, can he work on his visa?
4. Are the interviews hard? Can we interview with someone Chinese instead of American?
5. Can you give my daughter a discount on her visa fee because we are talking to you?
5. I'm 100% sure my daughter will be accepted by Harvard medical school because she is amazing. Does she still have to interview for a visa?

Well, back to bed which I have proably only left for about 7 hours this entire weekend. Being sick has not made me very productive, so here's some photos of the things I ate last week and I wish I was eating instead of expensive and mediocre soup delivered by Mealbay.

I don't know, I have a thing for a tiny row of chairs.

But hey, at least the new Avengers trailer is out! Maybe I'll be able to fly back to the states next year and actually watch the movie. Can you believe Guardians of the Galaxy is only just now showing here in the land of steamed dumplings and pork buns?