Jay vs Chinese International Post - Round 3

I have been away for over four months and have had no success in getting any physical materials into or out of the country via the postal system.  Not a big deal, except for the fact that I have business to attend back home that requires documents to be sent about.  Plus, I would like some pop-tarts and the power adapter for my electric razor.  And my Xbox 360.  And my cat.

Anyway, I will try once again to bend the postal system here in China to my will, and hopefully the world can have some non-digital proof that I am yet alive.  Not that I'm sure I want the world to have it...

In other news, I have recently completed a move to a new apartment, a mere one floor below my previous place.  It is largely an empty shell, but it is tremendously spacious.  I have one room that I use entirely for drying clothes and I've still got more raw space than I really need.  As much as it seems odd for one person to have so much room, it is my most sincere wish that the school doesn't try to squeeze another teacher in here.  Bathroom-sharing here would displease me.

In the next post, expect some woes, but not too many woes.

Culture Stress

The experience of living in abroad has it's own little version of the stages of grief, made up of the following : Honeymoon, Frustration, Understanding, and Acclimation.  Much like the stages of grief, the stages shift around quite a bit, and you don't necessarily always progress through them linearly.

More and more, the Honeymoon stage seems long gone.  No surprise and no distress about it, but the "everything is fun because it's new" part of the experience has just kind of faded away.  Most days I spend shifting between Frustration and Understanding.

Today, however, seems to be solidly Frustrating.  I've said it before, but ultimately everything here is more difficult.  First, because of the obvious issue of the massive language barrier, and second because everything is just naturally more difficult in one of the poorest parts of a developing country.  After awhile, there's a lot of stress involved in doing seemingly simple tasks and that stress can get to be a little much.  

I think the only thing that can possibly make me feel better is if I go out and find a hamburger.  Fortunately, I know a place.