Big day ahead! And by big I mean long....oh, so very long

Well, this is it! At 5:20 PM today, Dec. 22, my plane takes off at Beijing Airport.....and lands in O'Hare Airport in Chicago, 4:30-ish....Dec. 22. So basically, it's kinda like taking twelve hours or so to travel back in time, so in a way it's like I'm taking a trip on the most horrifically inefficient time machine ever. 

Here's to hoping that I land back on my native soil in one peace, and hopefully have little or no troubles making the switch in Chicago. Keep me in your prayers, please!

It's Almost Over?

To tell you the truth, I'm still having trouble fathoming the fact that within a few days, I'll be sitting aboard a plane and heading back home to the US. Alas, I cannot deny the fact that all my final papers have been handed in, my finals are all finished, classes are done, we had our final banquet last night....the list goes on and on. It's been several months since I first arrived in Beijing, yet sometimes it feels that it was only yesterday that I stepped off the plane, nearly overwhelmed by a combination of excitement and anxiety. 

As the old saying goes, however, nothing last forever. Thus, I think it's time for me to head back home and take care of a few things (my degree, the unfortunate little fact that I still have no license, etc.) That, and it's been too long since I've seen everyone back home. 

However, my departure should by no means be a time for mourning. For me, this isn't an end as much as its hopefully just the beginning of my involvement with China. I definitely plan on returning to this country; how exactly, I don't know, but I will be back somehow, I can tell you that much. 

With all that in mind, I now simply look forward to the moment when I'm reunited with my family in LaGuardia airport....and pray fervently that all goes well with my flight from Beijing, my transfer in Chicago, and the last leg of the trip from Chicago to NYC. I gotta be honest, I'm just a tad anxious about the flight trasnfer, to say the very least, what with it being O'Hare Airport....just a few days before Christmas....in wintertime......yikes. 

My Respiratory System Hurts

Yecch! Particularly smoggy day today, and unfortunately, it never got any better. In fact, just the opposite occurred. You see, the smog is heaviest in the morning, because throughout the day the UV rays from the sun help break apart the smog, and so by the end of the day, usually, the sky is somewhat clearer....with heavy, heavy emphasis on usually here.  

For some reason, today started out extremely foggy...and only got more so as the day progressed. Why did the laws of nature as they were taught to me in Earth Environment randomly reverse themselves this particular Tuesday? I wish I could tell you. All I know is that by the time today wrapped up, the smog had gotten so thick, I could practically feel it with every breath that I took. 

To my family - I have a new item to add to my Christmas wish-list. This year, I'd like a chisel - to chip away the layer of filth that will have built up in my lungs by the time I return home. 

An Identity Crisis and a Catch-22

For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of an ethnic mutt - I'm a quarter Polish, a quarter German, a quarter German, and the rest is mix of French, Spanish and Scottish. Thus, needless to say, it's a bit difficult for people to guess what I am on first sight. Thus, while here in Beijing, people have guessed that I am of Portuguese, Italian, and in one instance, Arab descent.  

However, several people have made one peculiar guess about my ethnic background that I've found the most surprising by far. Several TBC-ers have told me that they sincerely thought that I was of all things, Jewish.

...When that started becoming a specific ethnic group, I have no idea at all. But that's what I've been told, several times over, and thus several times over I've had to display my little cross necklace to show them that their guess was just a teensy bit off. What's even more peculiar is that this isn't a misunderstanding that I was able to clear up right at the start of the semester; the most incident occurred only a few days ago. I honestly never would expected this to happen even once, much less several times, but it did, for apparently, several characteristics of mine really throw some people off, including:

-My beard 

-My last name

-My nose (according to one person)

-My hair, which curls slightly when I let it grow too long

That's all, really; just a curious little thing that I've been experiencing throughout the semester. Besides that, not much of interest, save finals. Well, I have been having a rather....er, interesting little problem. You see, earlier on in the semester, I purchased a cheap little cell phone for use here in China. The way it works though is rather than purchasing a plan for these phones, you simply purchase minutes for them, and about two weeks ago, my phone ran out. However, after buying a phone card for 50 yuan worth of minutes, I tried to dial the number on the card to recharge the phone, and was promptly told by an automated voice in both Chinese and English, "I'm sorry, your phone is out of minutes." 

Thus was my dilemma for several days. I needed to recharge the amount of minutes on my phone, yet couldn't do so because I was out of minutes. Now though, I'm making some progress....kinda. Actually, as it turns out, I had to dial another number before I dialed the PIN number on the card I bought. These days, instead of getting an automated message, now I get a single ring before the call just inexplicably ends with a hang-up. 

China Mobile, what in the world did I ever do to YOU?

Smog, Snow, and a little bit of Narrating Work

Thanks to all the effort poured into trying to cleanse the skies of Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, we've enjoyed quite a surprisingly large amount of gorgeous days like this, with skies so unexpectedly clear they barely even have any clouds. 

Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever, and this total lack of air pollution was in no way an exception to the rule, as you can take a look for yourself at the photo I took just this morning. 

Not much of a pretty sight, huh? Such has been the condition of the skies here for the past few days, on account of the colder weather we've been having. As temperatures have dropped, city residents are using their furnaces more often. Mind you, most of the furnaces here in Beijing run on unrefined  coal, and thus the lower the temperature dips, the more gray the skies become. This morning was particularly bad; as I walked to Chinese class, I almost couldn't tell if I was looking at my own breath or just more smog. 

I really guess I shouldn't gripe about this, though. Actually, I should probably be counting my blessings instead, and be thankful for all the wonderfully clear days I've enjoyed here. After all, according to several sources, the skies above Beijing haven't been so clear in literally years. According to a friend I chatted with this morning, until recently, some kids in Beijing only knew what the true color of the sky was from pictures. Also, when compared to some of China's industrial cities, the sky in Beijing is as clear as crystal, for supposedly, in some cities the smog is so terrible, one can't even see the other side of the street. 

Fortunately, an impossible-to-ignore increase pollution isn't all we've had around here. Just yesterday morning, we were all blessed with a wonderful wintertime surprise. 

SNOW! Ha ha ha! Ha ha.....uh....heh....er, sorta. I'll admit, you can't see it in the above photo at all. That's because it was more of a very, very, very light flurry that we had. But it was still snowing, nonetheless! Don't tell me that you can possibly deny my photographic proof below!

Granted, it wasn't enough for snowballs, building a fort, making a snow man, sledding, or any type of wintertime merriment. Still, at least it was enough to get me all jazzed up into a holiday mood and start blasting Christmas tunes.

Also, I got my first gig as a professional narrator....kinda. Emillio, the Italian Jesuit who I've been proofreading papers for, had to do a powerpoint presentation for one of the TBC classes he was taking, Arts of China. However, rather than have me proof-read his presentation, he wanted my to actually narrate it instead. And so, last Saturday, I met him at about 8:15 AM, went to his apartment on campus, sat in front of his MacBook, and he recorded me reading every single one of his slides out loud (after I had to check them over and make some revisions....it's hard to read something out load when a bunch of the sentences just don't make grammatical sense.)

After he gave his sincere thanks, I went my way, happy to have helped a friend. However, shortly afterwards I forgot the whole matter entirely until Tuesday afternoon, when I got out of my Modern Chinese Fiction class. Before I knew it, I was suddenly being showered with compliments from various friends coming out of the class next door, much to my confusion until I learned that it was Arts of China which had just gotten out. Apparently, my debut as a narrator had actually gone over quite well, to my surprise. 

Don't expect this first-time performance to lead to anything special, though. In my opinion, my older brother Stephen and his comedy skills are still the best chance the Staysniaks have to win an Academy Award  (unless the brothers Staysniak finally get our Christmas album off the ground....then maybe we have a couple Grammys in our future.)

How do you say "dull" in Chinese?

Not much of anything special is going on here as of now.....still. I'm currently just doing last touches on my final papers and beginning to prepare myself for my two-part Chinese final. So...uh, yeah, that's it, I guess, unless anyone actually finds it amazing that I discovered I could crush up Oreos and mix them into the strawberry yogurt from the nearby on-campus convenience store. 

Well...at least I thought the end result was quite glorious.

Er....let's see what else is happening here.....uh....hey, y'know what? How about for a change of pace, you tell me what you're all up to? Please? Pretty please, with starfish-on-a-stick on top? Seriously, it can't be any less exciting than what I'm doing. Honest, I got nothing here, just coursework and some new Christmas songs from iTunes to try and put myself in the holiday mood. 

Alas, I have no winter weather to complement my holiday tunes, because as it turns out, things get pretty dry here in Beijing come wintertime. It's actually been weeks since we've had so much as a rain shower, or even so much as a light drizzle. Though we have had our fair share of smog.....oh Lordy, so much smog. I've actually heard from several sources that yesterday was actually  one of the smoggiest days Beijing has seen in over sixth months.

Smog, blech! It's like someone's forced me to take up smoking. Trade you some smog for a little bit of winter wonderland? Please? I'll admit the smog can get fairly thick...though not thick enough to make a snowball or a fort out of...at least, not yet. 

Actually....let's hope it doesn't come to that, because I don't think that would be as fun as much as it would be downright fatal. 

Wutai Si

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated the blog....and even longer since I've actually put up a remotely interesting blog entry, come to think of it. However, for the moment I've gotten my coursework under control long enough for me to take some time out here in the TBC library to relate to you all about the little trip I took last Friday afternoon - a little known place known as Wutai Si (also known as Five Pagoda Temple).

So as usual, I got as close to my intended destination as I could via the subway, as usual. Then, I hoofed it the rest of the way, and passed by the convention center in the process (a sight I've already seen before.) There's really not much to it, to be honest, save the over-the-top Stalinist, Soviet architecture that makes it look like a background out of a James Bond movie.

Anyhow, after about twenty minutes or so of trekking along, I traversed down a small street and finally found Five Pagoda Temple, tucked away within the Beijing Stone Carving Museum where it literally stands at the center of attention amongst everything else. 

Besides the temple itself, this being the stone carving museum and all, there was a variety of steles and statues scattered all about the premises. 

However, while I was expecting to see various statues and the tiny temple itself, here's something I wasn't expecting to stumble upon at all - 

What became of the actually bodies of these Jesuits, I honestly have no idea, but here there grave markers all were, grouped together and each one decorated with a fascinating east-meets-west motif, with everything from crucifixes intermingling with dragons to Latin and Chinese inscriptions engraved side by side.   

Of course I saw other sights at the little museum, but I'm pretty sure that the bulk of my time was taken up with the Jesuit tombstones, as they were all such a fantastically unexpected sight.

Finally, after about an hour there, I decided I had better get going back to UIBE, or at least back to the closest subway station before the sun set, thus making it much more difficult for me to find my way back. However, along the way, I did take about half an hour to explore a park whose true name I cannot confirm - whereas my map called it Purple Bamboo Park, the English sign out front proudly advertised "Black Bamboo Park", so....um, apparently, this plot of land is suffering from a bit of an identity crisis, I guess. 
There wasn't really to much to see there, besides the usually assortment of trees, bamboo, rock formations, and little lakes, though I did find some feathery little friends to occupy me for a good ten minutes. 




As we all know, it's not a successful day out for a Staysniak unless there's ducks involved.