As of late (pardon the depressing tone and cheesiness)

I haven't found much to do in Dalian anymore. I truly resent hurting my foot because I had to rebook a trip to Guilin, that ultimately was cancelled by the airline. My traveling partner has since decided to go there by himself. If I ever do see Guilin, it will be in a few years' time at the very least.

The weather has gotten extremely cold. Luckily I'm off the cast and off the crutches, for the most part. I have a limp though, and use a crutch every couple days or so to ease the pressure on my foot. China's extremely crutch-unfriendly though, so I try not to use it too often.

I had a coat, a dress, and two skirts tailor made at Erqi Square for 640 kuai (little over 90 USD). The skirts and winter jacket turned out quite well; the little black dress not so much. I didn't really give it much of a chance though; perhaps if I had let them refit it a little it wouldn't look that bad actually. It was just so different from what I had in mind for New Year's...not really fair to the dress now is it? The quality of everything in general though is fantastic, and fits perfectly to me. I'm still debating having a suit made, and a blouse to go with it.

As of the last week, I've become very intent on a project I've been working on. I have a lot of free time and if I didn't have this to focus on; I'd go mad. I'm alone now a lot. In the past week, I've gone from absolutely dreading going home to --> not wanting to come home but knowing I need to, to --> actually starting to get excited about coming home. I actually resent the events of late a little, because I don't want to be excited- it's such a drastic change in attitude in ten days- but it's better to be excited than still miserable, right?

I've actually started a list of Things I Will Miss and Things I Won't Miss about China. Some of it's quite amusing! I may post it after New Year's.

I'm a big believer in everything happens for a reason; I try to regret as little as possible.
That being said, I've finally seen who my real friends are, and gotten the chance to hang out with my good friends that I'd been neglecting quite a lot for the Aston teacher group.

The next two weeks won't fly by, but I have enough plans that they won't drag like the past week has. I'm going to Harbin on Monday night, spending a day there, and coming back Wed morning by sleeper train. I'll try to find a church service for Christmas Eve or Christmas morning...but I will be waking up alone on Christmas, with no family, no tree, and no presents. [It's not really a terrible issue though because Dalian has not been terribly Christmas-y, I mean it IS China, and my attempts at blasting Christmas music feel cheap and American.] Sigma is finally coming to visit Dalian on the 29th, to celebrate New Year's with me, and I return to Shanghai the 3rd or 4th.

The in-between days are really all I worry about, since every day for the past week I have been waking up every day at 7 am, regardless of when I go to bed. The days therefore are really long and sometimes difficult to face.

Overall, I know I will be okay. I still don't regret much of anything I've done here, including my decision to stay another semester. I know it's not just the ups, but the downs as well, that are part of the growing experience that has been this year, of being 19 and abroad...nothing could really ruin the memory of the life-changing year that has been 2008. I'm coming out of this a stronger and better person; and after all, the greatest gift of the Christmas season is the prevalence of Hope, and I am brimming full of it for my future.

Again, apologies for the cheese....sometimes you need idealism to get you by.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, Chinese style, involved all the expats getting together at the Swissotel for the all-you-can-eat 180 rmb Thanksgiving Buffet (26 USD). It was expensive, yes, but absolutely tasty. Tom turkeys, lamb chops, giant hams, cheese, breads, fresh seafood, authentic sushi, dessert table, chocolate fountain...the only thing missing was pumpkin pie. On top of it all, I had nearly all my friends with me. Though mostly American this term, we of course brought the Irish, Brits, South Africans, etc. They loved it- though, who wouldn't love all that food?
It was a bit difficult to maneuver at first because I fractured a bone in my foot three weeks ago playing gaelic football and have been on crutches ever since. However, everyone helped me get food and because of the crutching about, I never got too full and kept eating plate after plate. After a while, people would leave the table when I sat down with more food because they couldn't stand the sight of more Thanksgiving dinner.

Afterwards, we decided to do the really American thing and go bowling at the 24 hour, three floors underground bowling alley. Obviously since I can't bowl on one foot, I played pool on my one foot instead. The games also became only 10 kuai ($1.50) after midnight, so we all killed time playing doubles pool until midnight. Fran came extremely close to bowling a 200, and for his fourth or fifth time bowling (apparently it's not big in Ireland) we were quite impressed. About one am we went home and slept off everything we ate, without the hassle of Black Friday the next morning. Though it was a great Thanksgiving on my own, living abroad, my only complaint would be that I do kind of miss the holiday buzz.

"It's only a flesh wound"

So I'm a relatively "safe" person; I've never broken any bones, had my first surgery when I was 17 and usually luck out in terms of being healthy. (Except for that one time I woke up at 3 in the morning with a huge purple swollen eye and had to go to the hospital to discover I'm allergic to soy.)

So wouldn't it figure that the one time I actually need to go to a hospital, I happen to be in China?

I was playing gaelic football last night at Olympic Square; they meet once a week so I had been looking forward to it all day. We start warming up with the ball, and someone kicks it to my left. I chase after it, only the turf goes into a depression where the seats are at the edge of the field. I completely trip over that depression and hear a crack and had to grab a taxi home after being there all of like 15 minutes. (Not to mention paying a 10 kuai field fee.)

So when I woke up it wasn't any better so I called up my director, who took me to the Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University. They have this really nice foreigner wing and examined me the minute I walked through the door, which is better than the US hospitals.

They took me to get an x-ray in this really outdated-looking room where the machine kept making a weird whirring noise and the positioning posters on the wall were black and white and looked like they were produced in the 80s.

So 20 minutes later the x-rays were developed and even though my ankle was ridiculously swollen, they said there was no break and just prescribed a boatload of drugs.

Overall, the bill came came to 6 yuan for the consultation -that's like 86 cents, kids-, 16 for the "western medicine" (ibuprofen that I already have a stockpile of in my room), 110 for the x-ray, 16 for them to put this black paste and gauze on my ankle, and....126 for "Chinese medicine."

Which turns out to be four boxes of this anti-inflammatory pill I'm supposed to take three times a day, three pills each time, and some weird gauzy things. 18 USD for that? Ridiculous. At least I have money; the Chinese hospital system is pay-as-you-go so if you don't have money, you're SOL. So much for communism.

Anyway, so now I'm on crutches... and I live on the fifth floor of my building, which is on a HILL, which has only squatting toilets, and has showers only in the basement.

But the weather's really getting nicer! :)