Ah the pain! Almost everyday without fail, my laptop decides to give me a heart attack. Just a little one albeit, but enough to paralyse me for a moment or two. Today's weapon of choice is the keyboard malfunction. Every so often, BOOM, the keyboard stops working. In fact as I type this I'm hoping and praying that I'm not due another heart attack within the next few minutes. They're just so unpleasant. The problem is, I need a laptop to plan all of my English lessons because we use a smartboard at school, so each lesson has to have a presentation behind it. I've asked my mum to send me a laptop I left her in England, so hopefully my troubles can be dissipated soon.
In other news, yesterday I tried out a Muay Thai kickboxing class. I want to get involved in more activities so that I think less about myself and my life, and hence stop driving myself INSANE. An English teacher who works at the same school as me, and has been living in Jinan for a year now took me along to the Muay Thai centre.
I was the only girl and in total I'd say there were 20 boys there training. Many of them didn't look like they had an ounce of fat about them. The kind man behind the reception desk gave me a pair of shorts (for free), and I got changed then started running around the ring.
I got a stitch pretty soon because I had just eaten a huge meal at the Sofitel. The foreign teachers all gathered at the 4-star hotel after our first foreign teacher's meeting. Because it was Teacher's Day the day before, the Sofitel had a half price buffet for all teachers. It was a little slice of luxury that interspersed my otherwise very unluxurious life. I made sure to eat enough fish to feed a small village - this was the first time I'd eaten fish in a very long time! - and I sampled all of their tiny cakes and desserts.
So back to the training session. After the warm-up, the coach taught me how to punch. I would keep forgetting to keep my guard up after each punch and after about 10 minutes my upper arms were on fire. Pow pow, pow pow. I kept practising and practising. I soon got into the swing of it. After about an hour, I turned to look at two people fighting in the ring. A wave of nostalgia hit me and I felt like crying. I remembered the martial arts I did when I was younger, and I remembered how my mum would be waiting for me at home or waiting to pick me up. But now I was on my own.
Earlier in the day I looked for a yoga place that I found online. I walked into the wrong street and tried to gesture to some security guards where I could find yoga. They had no idea. I tried calling the centre and thankfully someone picked up - and he spoke some English! Eventually I found it on the fifth floor of an enormous appartment block.
The staff inside were very friendly - one even spoke a little English! The teacher was a bit worried that I wouldn't understand the class, so she decided to explain some basic ideas to me - in Chinese? I think they assume that eventhough I may not be able to string a sentence, I must surely be able to understand their sentences. Anyway, we got rather friendly very quickly when she placed my hand on her butt, I think to illustrate to me that I needed to keep my butt tense whilst doing the poses.
So now I have to choose - yoga or muay thai? Muay Thai or yoga? What I like about Muay Thai was how fast-paced it was, how I could use what I learn in self-defence and how it reminded me of the days when I used to train hard (water never tastes as good as when you are training hard). I also liked that fact that I was not able to entertain my negative thoughts for long during muay thai because I had to hink about the next punch that I was going to throw.
Yoga however is a lot more slow-paced and find it more difficult to stop my mind from wandering into the murky waters of negativity. BUT I think I can improve my Chinese at yoga because I'll be able to hear what the teacher is saying. In muay thai they play really loud music, which means I can't hear the coach. Also I'm pretty sure I'd eventually get a serious injury from Muay Thai, if not from someone else's punch but from the technique I think they wanted me to follow, which involved twisting my knee in an awkward position.
The verdict? I think I'll go for yoga - I can still get fit, I can learn some Chinese and there's a much lower chance of injury. Plus the class times are much more flexible.
**********************************************************************************
I went to the Olympic Swimming pool here in Jinan today. It was a strange day for me, because I woke up feeling very groggy. I looked up the Jinan air quality index and it didn't look good - 244, I think the safe level is below 50. The sky was a solid block of grey, the smog very dense.
I looked at the map my school had given me and decided I should get on bus 116 so get to the pool. I thought everything was going well until the bus turned the opposite direction from what I'd hoped it would and I found myself stranded on a motorway besides a mining site that was making me choke from all the dust particles flying off it.
After a mad dash across the motorway I saw a taxi waiting by the side of the road. I ran up to it but a woman was already in it. I was about to turn away when she motioned for me to join her. I was so pleased when she spoke a few words of English. She told the driver where I wanted to go and they took me right to the door of the pool. When I asked how much it was she said it was on her. A very nice lady, as are most of the people I've met so far here in China.
I didn't feel like swimming at all, I still felt groggy and disorientated, but I went in anyway. I was disappointed by how small the 'Olympic' pool was but a lifeguard fervently pointed me towards the actual Olympic pool. It turned out I had come out onto the warm-up pool. Another wave of nostalgia hit me. I remembered all those years of swim training and all those adrenalin-coursed competitions, and of course my mum encouraging me all the way. What happened to my life? I thought. I used to be involved in so much. I used to excel in so many things but now life seems to be taking another path. I realised how although I feel that I'm on the right path I need a goal to work towards. I keep umming and ahhing about whether I should take learning Chinese seriously, but that's because I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'd been saying to myself recently that goals were unnecessary, that I could go with the flow and I'd be alright. But I'm now realising that I need goals as sources of motivation, as branches in the stream to hold onto when the current gets strong and threatens to push me off course.
I didn't do any swimming at the pool. I just floated. The pool was incredibly cold, not conducive to floating. I got out and sat crossed legged at the end of the 50m pool, watching people swim. I wouldn't have thought much was different from this scene and any other pool scene that I have come across except for one thing. The spitting. Every few seconds I'd hear that rough sound of someone clearing their nasal passage, then 'peeu' they'd spit. Granted they didn't spit into the water, they spat into the grates that catch the water, or into (what I think are) designated spitting boxes next to each start block.
I think I've put my finger on a core tenet of Chinese philosophy which is, 'Better out than in'. Spitting, burping, probably farting (though I've yet to witness someone proudly farting). I still have to get used to the slurping eating as well, something I never permitted my family to do around me. That was one of the things that 'turned me', as my family describe it, 'turned' into a mad woman really.
I've decided to lay off eating outside for a while, I want to cook/eat at home. It's just that I haven't been feeling too good after eating out all the time and besides I don't know how much MSG and salt they pile into the food, and I'd rather not have that stuff running through my body. My body has enough to deal with, with the pollution and all.
In other news, yesterday I tried out a Muay Thai kickboxing class. I want to get involved in more activities so that I think less about myself and my life, and hence stop driving myself INSANE. An English teacher who works at the same school as me, and has been living in Jinan for a year now took me along to the Muay Thai centre.
I was the only girl and in total I'd say there were 20 boys there training. Many of them didn't look like they had an ounce of fat about them. The kind man behind the reception desk gave me a pair of shorts (for free), and I got changed then started running around the ring.
I got a stitch pretty soon because I had just eaten a huge meal at the Sofitel. The foreign teachers all gathered at the 4-star hotel after our first foreign teacher's meeting. Because it was Teacher's Day the day before, the Sofitel had a half price buffet for all teachers. It was a little slice of luxury that interspersed my otherwise very unluxurious life. I made sure to eat enough fish to feed a small village - this was the first time I'd eaten fish in a very long time! - and I sampled all of their tiny cakes and desserts.
So back to the training session. After the warm-up, the coach taught me how to punch. I would keep forgetting to keep my guard up after each punch and after about 10 minutes my upper arms were on fire. Pow pow, pow pow. I kept practising and practising. I soon got into the swing of it. After about an hour, I turned to look at two people fighting in the ring. A wave of nostalgia hit me and I felt like crying. I remembered the martial arts I did when I was younger, and I remembered how my mum would be waiting for me at home or waiting to pick me up. But now I was on my own.
Earlier in the day I looked for a yoga place that I found online. I walked into the wrong street and tried to gesture to some security guards where I could find yoga. They had no idea. I tried calling the centre and thankfully someone picked up - and he spoke some English! Eventually I found it on the fifth floor of an enormous appartment block.
The staff inside were very friendly - one even spoke a little English! The teacher was a bit worried that I wouldn't understand the class, so she decided to explain some basic ideas to me - in Chinese? I think they assume that eventhough I may not be able to string a sentence, I must surely be able to understand their sentences. Anyway, we got rather friendly very quickly when she placed my hand on her butt, I think to illustrate to me that I needed to keep my butt tense whilst doing the poses.
So now I have to choose - yoga or muay thai? Muay Thai or yoga? What I like about Muay Thai was how fast-paced it was, how I could use what I learn in self-defence and how it reminded me of the days when I used to train hard (water never tastes as good as when you are training hard). I also liked that fact that I was not able to entertain my negative thoughts for long during muay thai because I had to hink about the next punch that I was going to throw.
Yoga however is a lot more slow-paced and find it more difficult to stop my mind from wandering into the murky waters of negativity. BUT I think I can improve my Chinese at yoga because I'll be able to hear what the teacher is saying. In muay thai they play really loud music, which means I can't hear the coach. Also I'm pretty sure I'd eventually get a serious injury from Muay Thai, if not from someone else's punch but from the technique I think they wanted me to follow, which involved twisting my knee in an awkward position.
The verdict? I think I'll go for yoga - I can still get fit, I can learn some Chinese and there's a much lower chance of injury. Plus the class times are much more flexible.
**********************************************************************************
I went to the Olympic Swimming pool here in Jinan today. It was a strange day for me, because I woke up feeling very groggy. I looked up the Jinan air quality index and it didn't look good - 244, I think the safe level is below 50. The sky was a solid block of grey, the smog very dense.
I looked at the map my school had given me and decided I should get on bus 116 so get to the pool. I thought everything was going well until the bus turned the opposite direction from what I'd hoped it would and I found myself stranded on a motorway besides a mining site that was making me choke from all the dust particles flying off it.
After a mad dash across the motorway I saw a taxi waiting by the side of the road. I ran up to it but a woman was already in it. I was about to turn away when she motioned for me to join her. I was so pleased when she spoke a few words of English. She told the driver where I wanted to go and they took me right to the door of the pool. When I asked how much it was she said it was on her. A very nice lady, as are most of the people I've met so far here in China.
I didn't feel like swimming at all, I still felt groggy and disorientated, but I went in anyway. I was disappointed by how small the 'Olympic' pool was but a lifeguard fervently pointed me towards the actual Olympic pool. It turned out I had come out onto the warm-up pool. Another wave of nostalgia hit me. I remembered all those years of swim training and all those adrenalin-coursed competitions, and of course my mum encouraging me all the way. What happened to my life? I thought. I used to be involved in so much. I used to excel in so many things but now life seems to be taking another path. I realised how although I feel that I'm on the right path I need a goal to work towards. I keep umming and ahhing about whether I should take learning Chinese seriously, but that's because I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'd been saying to myself recently that goals were unnecessary, that I could go with the flow and I'd be alright. But I'm now realising that I need goals as sources of motivation, as branches in the stream to hold onto when the current gets strong and threatens to push me off course.
I didn't do any swimming at the pool. I just floated. The pool was incredibly cold, not conducive to floating. I got out and sat crossed legged at the end of the 50m pool, watching people swim. I wouldn't have thought much was different from this scene and any other pool scene that I have come across except for one thing. The spitting. Every few seconds I'd hear that rough sound of someone clearing their nasal passage, then 'peeu' they'd spit. Granted they didn't spit into the water, they spat into the grates that catch the water, or into (what I think are) designated spitting boxes next to each start block.
I think I've put my finger on a core tenet of Chinese philosophy which is, 'Better out than in'. Spitting, burping, probably farting (though I've yet to witness someone proudly farting). I still have to get used to the slurping eating as well, something I never permitted my family to do around me. That was one of the things that 'turned me', as my family describe it, 'turned' into a mad woman really.
I've decided to lay off eating outside for a while, I want to cook/eat at home. It's just that I haven't been feeling too good after eating out all the time and besides I don't know how much MSG and salt they pile into the food, and I'd rather not have that stuff running through my body. My body has enough to deal with, with the pollution and all.
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