Yesterday, I decided it would be a great idea to donate some blood.  I think it was a commercial that prompted me to do it.  I’ve never given blood before because people can’t find my veins. They are so very small that you can’t see them through my skin.  In the past, when I have had to have blood drawn, they’ve had to stick me multiple times. I’m not afraid of needles or anything, but it hurts! And the bruises I get afterward are horrible.  The bruises I get look like someone beat me.  But despite all that,  I still thought it would be a good idea.

I slightly remembered someone telling me that I couldn’t sell plasma for a while because I had been out of the country, so I decided to check out the information on the Red Cross site.  I thought it might be a year or something, that seemed fair.  Would you believe I have to wait a full 3 years before I can give blood?  It’s because China hasn’t gotten rid of Malaria yet. I totally get it, I do, but three years?

I remember Malaria was one of my top concerns when I went over. Phil and I even considered taking some pills to stay immune, but in the end we decided against it.  When we got there, we asked several people about Malaria, and no one knew what we were talking about.  I thought that was strange.

Well, I guess i have to wait another 2 years before I can give back to the world.  And if I do some more traveling before then(which I probably will), I’ll possibly have to wait even longer to give blood.  It really depends on where I go. Hopefully, my blood doesn’t hold some secret cure or something.  🙂

Finally, a little vacation. I haven’t been anywhere really since I got back from China.

As long as the weather gods are nice to us, Phil and I should enjoy a lovely weekend.  First we are going to take in a long over due Atlanta Braves game.  I haven’t been to one since Mother’s Day 2005.  At least, I think that was the last time I was able to go.  Since the game is on July 4th, we will get treated to fireworks after the game.  I know it won’t even hold a flame to the fireworks I saw in Hangzhou, but I’m sure they will be pretty nonetheless.  You can click here if you want to see what I am talking about.  Even that video doesn’t do the display justice.  I wish those buildings hadn’t been in the way, though.

I really hope the Braves can pull off a win for me. They haven’t had the best season so far, so I am not going to hold my breath or anything.  There is still a chance that they could go on an impressive winning streak and take back their division.  That would be nice. Perhaps my presence will spark a season turn around or something.  🙂

On Saturday, we are going to head over to Stone Mountain.  We are going to get the Adventure Pass for $25 bucks.  It will allow us to do just about everything that the park offers. I’ve been to Stone Mountain several times, but the only thing I can remember doing is taking the tram, climbing the mountain, and watching the laser light show. There is a lot more to do now, inculding this thing called Sky Hike.  It looks like a lot of fun.

On Sunday, we are going to China Town.  There are a lot of China shops in Columbia, but not like there is in Atlanta.  We’ll stock up on all the goodies we haven’t had in a long time, and then come back home.  I’m really excited.  This weekend should be fun.

I was looking through some of the videos of my past visits to Turner Field, and I found this one.  90 feet is a lot longer than it looks like on TV.  And yes, I was the only one over 10 participating.  🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdMqkKaLdp8[/youtube]

I’ve written about the paper making village I visited while I lived in Fuyang, China, before, but I never put up the videos. You can see those posts about the village here, here, and here(but the slide show died – sorry).

Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0mrD80MelA[/youtube]

Here we have step one.  My voice over should cover all the bases.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goD2PdHFlBo[/youtube]

Here we have part two. They take the smashed bits of paper and throw it into the water to be filtered out one sheet at a time. I wonder how much those guys get paid.  Surely, not enough.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEKbDIa3Bk[/youtube]

Here we have part three.  After they have made the sheets, they have to dry them.  They put them up on a very hot surface and “iron” them until they are dry.  Later, they cut it and then either paint on it or turn it into books. Pretty interesting process.

I was invited to my school to judge an English competition on my birthday. At the end several students and teachers sang songs. They asked me to sing, too. I don’t know any songs by heart, especially with out the music, so I sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Laugh if you will, I was just having some fun.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTdQCchyIk[/youtube]

Another week, another set of postcards from around the world.

At work, when I start thinking about how long it is until I can go home, I start thinking about the possibilities awaiting me in my mailbox. Will there be a postcard from a country I haven’t gotten one from yet? Will there be a thank you card from someone? Will it be written in a foreign language? What will be on the card? A fuzzy animal? Ancient scrolls from long ago? Colorful rocks? Or something self-made? Opening my mailbox is like opening a gift on my birthday. I never know what to expect.

Can anyone read Finnish? I’d like to know what that says.

I guess Pia didn’t have a lot to say.

When I first saw the front of this postcard, I thought it was from China, but no, it was sent from France. This is the first postcard that I have received from France. Postcrossing really is a learning experience. Almost every card I receive teaches me something I didn’t know before. I think that’s pretty cool.

Hopefully, my obsession of checking the mailbox won’t become debilitating. I’d hate to have to go to the doctor to get meds because I like getting mail – a lot.

I used to collect rocks when I was younger. I still have many of them sitting on a shelf somewhere.

This is my 4th postcard from Germany.

What a very interesting photograph. I really like how it is in black and white, and how she left the space on the left to write something. The frayed edge effect is really neat. This is the third hand-made card that I’ve received, and I can’t figure out why many postcrossers don’t want them. I really like them.

This one was actually sent to me in an envelope because it wasn’t affixed to a thick backing. I don’t think it would have made it all the way from Russia in one piece had it been sent by itself. I heard once that someone sent a banana through the mail. I wonder what in the world it looked like when it got to where it was going.

I’ve been going through all of my Chinese videos and pictures, trying to find some interesting things to blog about. I’m mad at myself for not taking more videos, and better pictures while I was there, but oh well, I’ll just have to deal with what I have. The next time I go somewhere, even if it is to a Braves game, I’m going to use my camera a lot more.

The video I picked out for today isn’t amazing or anything. It’s just the students at the primary school running their daily laps with my strange voice over, but I thought someone out there would enjoy it. I’m talking so slow in the video because I had just finished teaching. Talking slow is basically a requirement for teaching English in China, especially if your students don’t understand most of what you say. It took me awhile to teach myself to talk like that. I sound very robotic. Every time I hear it, it makes me laugh. As the video progresses, my speed picks up. It’s only in the very beginning that you can tell.

The students both at my school and the primary school did exercises just about everyday, unless it was raining excessively hard or something. I’ve got a video of my students exercising somewhere. I’ll try getting that up soon, but for now you can see a picture of them – here. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os4vzKHBM-4[/youtube]

Here are six more postcards that I received through Postcrossing this past week. As soon as I save up some money and some vacation time, I’m going to have to start traveling again. Maybe to help me decide where to go first, I’ll put all of the postcards I’ve received in a big basket, close my eyes, and pluck one out. That would make traveling pretty interesting. Hrm, I can so see that being a premise of a Discovery or Travel Channel show. I’d watch it. 🙂

I felt pretty special to get this one from Hong Kong. There are only 68 users there, and I’m sure they are all not active. I loved the architecture of the buildings in China, especially in Hong Kong.

If someone could please translate this for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I was only able to recognize a few of the characters.

I really want to visit Germany at least once before I die. My ancestors came over on a boat in 1854.

I’m convinced that all Germans write their 1’s like little upside down V’s. How wicked. Not wicked in a bad way, wicked in an interesting way.

This is the first panoramic postcard that I’ve received. I really like the colors in it.

If I ever need to be inspired one day, I’ll just pull this postcard out and give it a read.

This is the first postcard that I’ve received from Lithuania. Seems like an interesting place.

It sure took a lot of stamps to send the postcard to me. I wonder how hard it would be to learn Lithuanian. It doesn’t look particularly easy.

Never been to New Hampshire, but I would like to travel north one day – only in the summer though. I can’t stand cold weather. I’d rather be hot and melting than cold and frozen.

I sent Audrey a postcard, and she was nice enough to send me one in return. I find it funny that the Post Office let it be sent with the 26 cent stamp, instead of the new 27 cent one.

This one is from Wisconsin, another state I’ve never been able to visit . . . yet.

My first postcard was from a 9 year old boy in Finland. It’s nice to see young people participating in Postcrossing.

I’ve been meaning to put this up forever, but finally managed to allot myself some time last night in order to get it uploaded to youtube. It is not a fantastic video or anything, but I thought that the lotus candle was really cool. I wish we had candles like this here. (Perhaps we do, but I’ve never seen one.) They would make birthdays even more exciting.

First, the story. Then the video clip.

When I went to the cake store to buy Phil and Maya’s birthday cake, I ran into Mr. Zhou, the Foreign Affairs Director. He didn’t waste half a second to offer to purchase the cake for me when he found it why I was buying it. He pulled out several crumbled bills out of his pocket and handed it to the lady at the cash register. Talk about perfect timing. He saved me about 100 yuan. Actually, it was probably less than that, but I can’t remember exactly.

I thought that I would have to call to have the cake made in advance, like we do in here, but all I had to was point at a picture and wait 15 minutes. They already had the cake made, all they had to do was decorate it. I got to look through the window and watch as they made it, which was pretty cool. The woman who made the cake did it very quickly, like she had done a half a billion before this one. If I have to decorate a cake all fancy, it takes me hours, not minutes.

When she was all done, she handed me the cake in a box, a few plates, some folding forks, and a bag with a candle in it. And off to the party I went. It was probably one of the easiest most painless things I had ever done in China.

Of the 11 laowais living in Fuyang during my 5 months stint, we celebrated at least 9 birthdays. Toward late December, I didn’t want anymore cake. I think everyone was starting to get sick of cake. I still think it is amazing that we had a birthday to celebrate almost every two weeks.

I’ve got more stories to tell about the candle, but I will save that for a later post this week. Until then, enjoy my retarded little video. If you can see any of the room, it is our living room. Pretty big huh?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxThxm-oOs[/youtube]

Yesterday, I wore a skirt to work. It’s not something I do very often. To give you an idea of how often I get all girly, yesterday was the second time since February 13th that I’ve worn something other than pants. So, you can imagine the surprise my boss had when she saw me in one for the first time. (She had been out the last time I wore one). She came into my office to say good morning, but before she could even say that, her eyes got all big, and she said, “You are wearing a skirt?! You mean you have legs?!”

It’s probably silly to you, but it made me laugh.

I had a similar thing happen to me when I walked into my school’s office(WECL) one day wearing a purple dress. The entire staff said, “Wwwoooowwww”, like I had just had a head to two make-over or something. They had never seen my white little legs before either.

Also, yesterday, my mother was nice and gave the three Dennis the Menaces living next door to us each a bag of M&M’s. She did this because they are constantly coming over and asking if we have any snacks or candy. The kids are sweet, they just don’t have any manners. And they most certainly do not understand personal space. We can’t even pull up in our driveway some days without having them swarm our car like vultures. Some days we take bets on whether or not they are going to run over to us when we get home. My brother has started smoking out back so as to avoid them, but because we don’t have a high fence, they can see him back there, too. When they catch a glimpse of him, they hang on the fence and ask him what he is doing or what my cat, Morgan Rose Ireland Yvette DeWitter is doing. They don’t call her that of course. They call her Black Cat.

“Hello, Black Cat! Can we pet your Black Cat? Is your Black Cat mean? Will Black Cat bite us? Is your Black Cat tired? Why is your Black Cat laying down?” The questions never end.

Well, I told my mother that by giving them candy that she was just encouraging them and that it would probably just make them worse. She said she wouldn’t do it very often, but I told her the damage was already done. When we got back from the store a little while later, all three of them came running over to our car.

“Do you have any more M&M’s?”

I looked over at my mother. “I told you so.”

“No, I don’t have any more M&M’s. Sorry,” my mom replied.

My mom and I got out of the car and started walking to our front door. The three of them followed behind us like lost, lonely puppies.

What I heard next both shocked me and made me laugh.

“I wish I was your son,” the little boy said. Like I said, I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I laughed. I laughed very loud.

I don’t know who he was talking, me or my mother. I’m guessing my mother, since she was the one to give them the M&M’s in the first place.

“Well, that is very sweet of you,” my mother said.

The two girls then chimed in. “I wish I was your daughter!”

Whether or not they meant it, I don’t know. Perhaps they were trying to pull at my mother’s heart strings in hopes that they would get more candy. When they say that they weren’t getting any, and that we were going inside for the evening, they decided to run back to their house.

Today I did something that I’ve never done before.

After discovering the six Hershey candy bars that my brother had just purchased from Kroger were missing, I hoped in my car and drove back to the store. I wanted to see if I could find the bag that we had somehow left in the buggy. I went back to where I had left the cart, but it had already been moved. I knew that I had to go inside to see if any kind soul had returned them, but I was hesitant. Why? Well, I was wearing my pajamas.

I stared at the store for a minute and then said, “What the hell, I’ll just pretend I’m back in China and that wearing my pajamas around town is totally normal. It will only take a second, right?”

Wrong.

I ended up spending a good 10 to 15 minutes standing in front of the store in my Joe Boxers, Freddy VS Jason t-shirt, and an old pair of sandals. Hey, at least I wasn’t wearing my gigantic Cookie Monster slippers.

People looked at me strangley as they checked out. I expected it, but you would have thought I was dressed like a hooker instead based on their wide eyed expressions. I’m just glad I don’t embarrass that easy.

Finally, the manager showed up and asked what I needed. I explained how my candy bars had flown the coupe and how sad I was. She was very nice and let me get six more even though it was all probably my fault. I really don’t remember leaving anything in the buggy, though. I doubt Wal-Mart would have done the same. Wal-Mart has horrible customer service.

With my candy bars in hand, I walked back out through the parking lot, and drove back home.