Last minute preparations

NaNo checklist:

1. A supply of snacks stocked. Check.
2. Rewards for reaching word count goals purchased and stashed. Check.
3. Calendars with word count time lines mapped out. Check.
4. Character outlines, world/culture building notes, plot structure, languages, religious practices, maps worked out and ready to use. Check. (well, Devin and Merlin each get a check, anyway).
5. Good writing music transferred to the mp3 player. Check.
6. Computer repaired (the giant dust bunny was evicted). Check.
7. (Pre-)NaNo cold caught and out of the way so we don't have to deal with it in November. Check.
8. External hard-drive ready for backups. Check.
9. Time zones correctly set on the NaNo site so we can write according to our local time rather than always keeping an eye on Oakland time. Check.
10. Stories summarized for easy explanation. Check.
11. A teaser to get you to come back and check for our next NaNo related post. Check.

And no, we're not staying up until midnight just to get a head start. We'll be at it bright and early tomorrow morning, though. The housework will have to wait.

last of the October updates

Devin and Merlin have a few things they've been meaning to post, delayed for no good reason other than that it takes some coordination to get kids, computer, and digital photos in the same place at the same time with a corresponding interest on the said kids' parts to actually sit down and write something. So, I'm not sure if we'll get any other posts up today, but hopefully we can wrap up posts of October's activities in the next few days.

In the meantime, I'll just throw on a few random pictures, just for fun and general audience edification.

Here's Merlin, working on some Chinese calligraphy, with Dan in the background. This was taken during Dan's students' cultural activity. In the future we may join them for papercutting, stone stamp carving and other language/art activities.We're welcoming Julie (obviously her English name, as most of you wouldn't be able to pronounce her Chinese name) as our new Chinese language instructor. She's a grad student at CUN, is also a tutor for Dan's students, and has become the best thing about living in Beijing. She's tons of fun and really good at getting us all to speak Chinese (her English is good too, so she can provide translation when we're stuck on a word). You'll be seeing her picture more often because we like to go on field trips with her. This semester's students have instituted a new tradition every time we eat out together: ku gua, or bitter melon, is the one dish that HAS to show up on the table, regardless of what kind of ethnic cuisine we're focusing on. Ku gua lives up to its name - it's phenomenally bitter, but oddly satisfying. A little bit goes a long way.
Sometimes there are fantastic things here, like a clop clopping coming up behind you, through the traffic,
and a new-found gustatory treasure: Jian bing - roughly a Chinese crepe, though it's a very wild cousin to the familiar French style. Here's one version, but just watch the video and you'll get a good idea of what's involved: batter, egg, cilantro, green onion, a jiang (a sauce, probably made of fermented soybeans and salt and other things, like a chunky miso), za cai (a salted/pickled vegetable), lettuce, a crispy fried sheet of something (tofu maybe, as per the website linked to above, though it looks like some vendors make it with youtiao, a type of fried dough/cruller thing), and then it's all wrapped up and delivered hot. I think this is the first time I've eaten a food created with a putty knife.



(hmm, maybe the video doesn't work? I'll keep trying...)

excuses, excuses!

Well, I have excuses, though not really very good ones...

A whole bunch of folks (TwilightLover, ClayJar & Creaturespirit) have left comments lately and I've hardly replied, I'm about two and half weeks (or more) behind in answering email (Tuyu, Sensei, Ruth, Tia)...

The first excuse is that my poor irreplaceable computer was having cooling fan trouble (you would too if you'd sucked that much dust up your nose!) and was badly in need of help. Thankfully, help was granted yesterday and its running a lot cooler now and I don't have to cringe when I turn the thing on, expecting flames to come blasting out.

The second excuse is that NaNoWriMo has had us all enthralled and our rationed online time has been pretty nearly consumed by that. We've been good, though, and haven't wasted our time on the forums (for the most part), though it was noted that there's an appropriately named thread on the forums called "NaNoWriMo ate my soul" - with help for those folks whose lives have been subsumed by novel plots and word count goals. Mostly we've just been planning and plotting and coming up with character sketches and maps of lands where wild adventures are going to occur come November. Wish me luck with keeping in touch in November, too...

The third excuse is simply a reason to ask for forgiveness from everyone - I go through phases where my introvert tendencies run strong and I go into a strange hibernation mode... with nary an email peep or a phone call from me. It doesn't mean I've forgotten you or am unhappy or anything other than overly caught in my own mind, assuming everyone knows that I'm thinking of them.

So, if you're expecting a reply, please keep expecting because eventually, knowing that you're expecting something will cause me to feel the pressure and I'll snap out it and send you a note or post something interesting up here.

But truly, I am thinking of you all!

Scenes from the antique market

good company... and the food was pretty good too

Dan's oldest sister came to visit for a week this month. Dan was travelling and so we had her all to ourselves. We just mostly hung out, did our studies and projects and enjoyed her phenomenal cooking. That week also went a long way toward lessening the 'American Bubble' problem as Da GuMa (as the kids refer to her) doesn't speak English. I saw a big improvement in everyone's ease of conversation, the general fluency, even if our vocabularies are still lacking.

We got to enjoy great dishes like bai jiao and doufu gan - I haven't any idea what bai jiao is in English, the dictionary says it's "wild rice shoots" but that doesn't make sense, plus it's a large piece of plant compared to what I'd expect a rice shoot to look like. Doufu gan is tofu, pressed and seasoned.

More tofu, this time little tofu-puffs with bok choy (bai cai or qing cai in Mandarin).
Yummy soups, with dong gua (winter melon) or daikon radish, tomatoes, sometimes meatballs...
...and just a generally fabulous spread. I tend to cook extremely simply - the most you'll ever get out of me is probably 4 dishes since I don't multitask well in the kitchen (I can only oversee one cooking thing at a time unless things are supposed to be burnt).
We were all reluctant to let her return to Hangzhou. Perhaps we'll be able to visit all the family over the Chinese New Year holiday next year.

Last of the Summer T-shirts

Seen on T-shirts, before the weather turned cooler and everyone put on jackets:

Stupid

I'd trade my boyfriend for a Miller

A Bathing Ape

flip flop like a tot

c'est un idiot

Anti-riot and Explore the Truth

passion... keep a long time music

Pull a Stranger as Leg

Beauty 'tis melody

shave your style

twisty table jeans

it lives my own way

Back Sky Clear

Ere Sports

Fashion Liberty Spout

Don't Lose Double Dazzle

Hang Thinking

Smart Young Fashion

Cheerful Trio: Uno Dos Tres: Fly me to the Heaven

A88 Spirit A Devaitation

Juicy American Princess

You've Been Very Naughty, Go Straight to My Room

No Crying

Central Wonderland

Inspire Truth

person with a cool head

Surfer Dreams is Wet

Salt Urea

Enjoy my Game

Bug is Over

We Will Find Something

Sexy Diamond Taipei Up the Stakes

Feed the Smiling Cat

Fashion and Yishion

Sorry if I look Interested I'm Not

Re Lax Get Juicy

Rear Your Fair

Don't Touch Head

Fly Eagle

Kingston Pretty

Spark Yite Girl

Stone Hot Pot

Ollywood, I'm Gonna Hollywood

High Speed Money

Drink. Barn Life.

Feel 101 to be

I am cat person

Mare who?

Movie ready then silver

Groove Food

******
posted by all of us

Yay! A violin!

Yay! I just got my new violin (and hi Tanya - my violin teacher in Davis). I've been really hoping to get a violin for I don't know how long. My dad had been so busy (and my mom didn't know where to get one), but we finally did it!

So when we bought a violin in China it wasn't like we just went to one ginormous music store, we actually went to many tiny stores about the size of half of Davis' Baskin Robbins. We went to a bunch of stores and they were jam-packed with instruments. Down at the bottom is a gourd flute (something they have in China) and up at the top is something that might be a Chinese zither.

Right here I'm learning how to put in fine tuners and how to restring the A string. This is the shop owner he actually gives lessons and taught me a few things for free!

My mom and sister are watching also, there's my mom, with my bow.

While I was watching the shop owner put in fine-tuners, my sister was with the shop owner's friend learning how to play an erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.
Here he is playing it for Merlin and talking at the same time or looking somewhere else.
We are just about ready to leave, only waiting for the extra strings and a few touches of the new violin that only cost half as much as it would've in America.
*********
By Devin

Autumn

Finally! Autumn at last! These last few days we've been waiting for autumn and it hasn't been here because autumn starts early um I mean we haven't see the actual happenings of autumn until today, so what I mean is that it doesn't give the trees a chance to start mmmm... lets say becoming pretty? No not that, yes that's it! Leaves falling to the ground and begging to be picked up because they're soo colourful. I think I got it right! It seems like it's only the spiky leafed trees, the yellow err... golden colored ones with a hint of red and orange.

It's a nice day actually. The sky matches the leaves, a nice baby blue with golden leaves against it I like it! Oh yeah just to add a nice touch a grey bluish building (just the tip anyways) in the back left corner, I think it's our apartment from the outside.

Merlin holding a nice leaf infront of the the new camera, a nice touch with the background, some dappled cement (the sunlight that shone through the bush in the back).
Just got home, thought it be nice to take this picture of a messy but... stylish or um... fake version of a you know one of those cheesy pictures that goes on the front of a journal.
Merlin just insists that we walk through the leaves on the corner sidewalks once more, but I mean who can blame her, it's her first experience of Autumn in Beijing, so my mom and I had to agree after a minute of hesitation. Oh! I just wanted to include my final sentence, that this day was a very windy one, as you can see Merlins hair blowing across her face.

*******
by Devin

crazy people

Today we saw two crazy people. One kept on throwing her arms out and in then she would kind of cough into her elbow and throw her arms out again and then she would shrug. She was laughing her head off. Then she went into the post office.

The other guy kind of looked like one of my dad's students. He was holding an ipod and playing air guitar while kicking and jiggling. He was also singing, though we couldn't tell what language he was singing in.

I don't know what it was about today that made the students crazy.

***********
by Merlin

Our Street

Sometimes I realize I've gotten used to things which would be considered kind of abnormal back in the U.S.

For example, take the sidewalk on our street. Ok, I admit, I still complain about it so that means I'm not really used to it, but it's just a regular thing here - the fact that both trees and poles take up most of the room on the sidewalk and though it's not apparent in this picture, a majority of pedestrians actually walk in the street. If you are walking with another person, you can't actually walk abreast on our sidewalk, someone always has to be dodging obstacles. Also, be sure to watch out for the two inch bolts sticking out of the sidewalk (they're anchors that used to go with other poles that have since been removed), the missing bricks, or the open manhole.

Oh and the wires, look out for those, too.

I like the honesty of this sign: Caution, pedestrians running for their lives!

?

And the randomness of signs here. I don't think it has anything to do with the Chinese given here.
Ok, I take it back, I haven't gotten used to it all - I still find it as boggling and humorous as ever.

touristing 1.4

Welcome to installment four of September's travels, complete with official self-portrait.

Yep, that's where we're headed on this climb up part of the Great Wall. We drove about an hour out of Beijing to find a less crowded section of the wall.


Merlin's ready to climb (and Devin's taken off already)...







For those who need official certification, it's available here



Devin went much higher than Merlin and I did, and got there fast. Merlin and I made it to the tower on the left, and Devin and the other students went 2 or 3 towers beyond the one on the right.
Of all of our sightseeing trips we all liked this visit to Great Wall the best. I stopped climbing every once in a while and leaned out over the wall - amazing, I could smell plants! That smell made my day. I'd forgotten what they smell like - Beijing being what it is, we're so separated from everything that isn't human centered (except the weather, I guess). The air was hazy here, but it still felt good to inhale deeply.