pre-new year jitters

It's half funny, half annoying that tonight/this morning my husband, I think, had a similar panic attack that I went through last night. He eventually got out of bed, left the room, and finished one of his job applications, to submit pending my editing.

I myself got up at 4:40am, a record best this week for the longest I could bear to stay in bed after waking up and unable to fall back asleep. Our son is currently still doing splendidly, going to bed at 8:30pm after going essentially berserk in his fatigue-induced haze and sleeping through the usual jet lag-induced insomnia party that had usually lasted from midnight to 3am these past couple of nights. I am so, so thankful. It makes having to nurse him for basically four hours consecutively worth it.

So now I'm starting to fill out my own job application for a Seattle position while waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. I'm actually really excited about all the things to do today, this very last day of the year 2011. I haven't felt such anticipation in facing the new day since, well, a long long time ago.

We/I must:

1. Grocery shop before Daniel's grandfather returns home from being hospitalized for two days.

2. Re-organize our luggage so we can travel yet lighter in about 10 days.

3. Submit our respective job applications.

4. Start keeping regular "appointments" with God. This has been missing since I got food poisoned and then Declan got sick in Shanghai, and both my husband and I feel the lack.

5. Buy a new laptop (and possibly sweatpants) for moi. So as to complete #3 better. (Right now we're hogging Daniel's mom's computer and it won't be around for long.)

I hope we get all these balls rolling before everything shuts down for the next two days. Happy new year!

too many little birds flying through my head

Current status on jet lag: Forced Declan to wake up with us at 10:30 this morning, then attended a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and got him to stay awake a bit longer with the help of the flashing lights. I went to bed with him at 8:30pm while Daniel, his sister, and his mom took Daniel's grandfather to the E.R. (We had found him lying on his bedroom floor; undisclosed details for his privacy, but suffice to say, after realizing he came to and remained in this state 20+ hours ago, it was alarming) Then Declan woke up with Daniel's return around midnight. We watched a WWII documentary until Declan started wailing and kicking his feet in fatigue, and I finally got him back to sleep around 2:30am.

Then I lied in bed next to my husband and my son, listening to them breathe and stir for the next 2.5 hours. I quietly talked with God to pass the boredom, wishing I know where I had packed my iPod nano and headphones. I mentioned Daniel's grandfather, who's currently on IV drip in the hospital, awaiting blood test results and a possible CT scan. I mentioned both Daniel's and my upcoming job search in Seattle, and how we've scrapped the original travel itinerary of Boston-> Pittsburgh -> Taiwan next. I'm going to miss visiting my friends in Pittsburgh, and seeing family in Taiwan, but our hope is that something would turn up for us before next semester starts. Oh God, please let there be time and suitable work. I mentioned about just traveling with a baby and the details that could go wrong. I mentioned a lot, a lot, a lot of my worries for my little family's future. And my own future. How I would ever realize my own dreams.

So, yeah, I guess it's natural that with so much chirping running through my mind, it's damn near impossible to get any shuteye.

Oddly enough, there is a measure of peace underlying all of this. God has proven himself to be faithful time and time again; I trust he will take care of us. Onward with *sigh* applications and moving, yet again.

our last day as permanent residents in china

Tomorrow we fly. This past week has been: me in a fetal position, burning hot to the touch, trying to induce vomit, etc to feel just a smidge of relief from the most intense bout of food poisoning I've ever had. Most intense as in I've had longer bouts of food poisoning before, but never one so painful, to the point where I couldn't even lie down and there was no relief. Daniel valiantly stepped up to man childcare duties, as Declan insisted on my holding him even as I was bent over on the porcelain god. It started at 2am in Hangzhou, and then we needed to bring everything we owned in China with us on a three hour van ride to Shanghai at 11am the next day. Daniel joked that the hotel we checked into in Shanghai probably thought we're here for my heroin detox. As soon as we arrived, I collapsed on the bed, roiling in my own personal hell while Daniel had to baby proof the room i.e. tell them to remove all the liquor bottles and glass containers that were at Declan's height.

Two days later, I felt better, but as I was reclining in bed, weak from a diet of water and gatorade for 48 hours, Declan suddenly woke up from his nap with a geyser of vomit. Everything he ate at breakfast came pouring out, and more, as he dry-heaved.

The vomiting went on for two days. Everything I tried to get into him came back up five, 10 minutes later. We were besides ourselves. He had ceased to pee, was starting to look pale and listless, was exhausted. Finally, we took him to a hospital 10 minutes away and added another chapter to our China experience: going through the (emergency) health care system here.

There are a lot of things I am truly thankful for right now. I am thankful that we made the decision to quit the job and leave. Life here with a baby is just too hard for us. The standards really are different. No I.V. drip for a baby with a fever, no pee since more than a day ago, and severe diarrhea? I'm not a doctor, but that sounds a bit screwy. I am thankful that I was still almost exclusively breastfeeding Declan, so that without being able to find Pedialite or make my own ORS (can't find baking soda)--I'm still able to help Declan stay nourished and get hydrated. He's finally stopped throwing up. I don't know if it had anything to do with the enema the hospital told us to give him. I am thankful that his illness happened just as I was rallying from mine; otherwise, there was no way I could have battled the queuing and shoving for our personal spaces at the hospital the way we needed. As it was, I felt faint a few times, started crying at one point, and was graced to skip ahead of a saintly couple of grandparents whose grandson was also in line at the emergency.

So now two days after that, Declan's still pooping awful things, but not vomiting or with fever, and is napping calmly. I am feeling stronger and actually ate two small but solid meals yesterday (shrimp fried rice for lunch; braised beef stew over rice for dinner). And tomorrow we fly.

Hallelujah, merry Christmas!

seattle

It's so strange, how this city keeps coming up again and again. Talking with a high school friend a few weeks ago, she mentioned how she plans to move there to study her MBA in two or three years. Several of other high school friends have also relocated there and bought houses, so it appears they'd be there for at least a while. I emailed a college friend to catch up a few days ago, and she replied that she's moving from Singapore to Seattle the very next day!

With so many of my best of friends there (the only other American city with more friends would be Pittsburgh), I wish that's the next place we can go. Daniel's applied for a faculty position at one of the universities there, but the chance of him actually getting the position in this dismal job market is bleak. I can't help but feel a little resentful by how I'm no longer as mobile or free to make my own decisions about what to do or where to go. Ideally, I would live in either Taiwan or somewhere on the West Coast. But my husband's a more Midwestern or East Coast kind of guy. One of the things I asked him about when he asked me to marry him was whether or not we could one day live in Taiwan, because it's where I feel like I most belong. He said yes. And on that count, I had agreed to marry him. And then it seemed like, once he "got" me, my life has become a series of giving up things that matter a great deal to me...all for the sake of pleasing him.

Of course it makes me sad. Sometimes, marriage feels like one big shackle.

moving out

So it's getting pretty official. Daniel handed in his resignation letter on the first day of this week, and was given a last "scavenger hunt" to accomplish a.k.a. going to more than 10 offices to secure stamps, signatures, returning my mac book (aaaaaa)...so he can be approved for release. One of the paper squares waiting to be stamped is for the housing office, which means that we are packing and getting ready to move to and stay at a hotel for a few days before we leave Hangzhou forever. We've spent the last three weeks visiting bank branches to convert RMB to USD and discovering the draconian laws surrounding that, getting denied, getting in heated "discussions", and finally having a mainland citizen/friend help us wire most of our converted money to Pittsburgh. It was...a real education.

I'm most sad about leaving the friends we've made here. The expat moms I just started hanging out with, who seem to keep forgetting that I'm going to be gone for good. The locals here--security guards, cleaning folks, fellow academics, church friends--that I wonder if we'll ever see again. It makes me reflect, once again, on the people I really want to keep in my life, for the rest of our lives. I've come upon a lot of people through the years from vastly different backgrounds because of my own diverse interests and, also, moving nearly every single year and immigrating, and although Facebook and Google+ give a false sense of staying in touch with everyone, there's only so much time one can really devote to nurturing existing relationships.

It's time to prune accordingly and really go deep with true friends. For example, I've only shared with a handful of people our news about leaving China, and surprisingly the people who are most glad about our deciding to leave have been (1) most wary of our decision to come here but then (2) the ones who've kept in the best touch and been the most supportive during our time here. And, ironically, most of the people who had expressed happiness for our initial decision...were never heard from again after we left the U.S.

This short stint in China has opened my eyes to so many things. I am not sorry we came. And, after learning all that I have, I am ready to leave for a freer place where this knowledge gained could be put to use instead of stifled. T minus 10 days.

take that, procrastination (ha!)

After literally weeks and weeks of pulling up the second documents M. requested that I translate for her father's factory, I finally finally finally got it done tonight and emailed my draft back to her. Booyah! In retrospect, it didn't take all that long. Just a little over a week of working after Declan goes to bed, and I even got to sleep before 11:30pm most nights myself. What seemed so very daunting ended up being...fun! I picked up some knowledge of electrical engineering terms along the way, and new strategies for researching and double-checking the best translations. The work just got progressively easier and faster to do.

This is really encouraging for my high hopes of what I dream will take place for my family in the next seven years. Big events that look daunting, even just written down on paper. I can see the challenges, the fatigue, the need for perseverance. Wondering over and over again when things are hard now, whether I--we--could handle that.

Dealing with this document, the second time around after having submitted an earlier document and thinking mistakenly that I was done, I had felt a similar strain (admittedly smaller in scope but still similar) of dread and can-I-possibly-really-get-this-done doubt. Completing it is a tiny, flickering taste of thankful giddiness that I could do it. Just don't fear, don't procrastinate, don't keep ignoring it and hoping that would make it go away.

I could have been done a lot sooner.

Now onto the script I somehow got roped in to write for a Christmas program. I will not be able to see it enacted as I will be flying out from Shanghai at that time. Big big grin.

n'oublions jamais

The fact that we couldn't even convert our money, even by very restrictive amounts, with pages and pages of authenticated documents, after being interrogated about why we are moving our money this way, and within a limited timespan. Without the bank being afraid of drawing the attention and questions of the central government. And then when I say, I don't mind being audited since I'm not doing anything illegal, to commence the whispering of personnels and security, and finally outright (polite, embarrassed) refusal to do what we as their clients need them to do. That is, do with our own money what we will.

Wow. Just wow. I'm glad we found out now and have a month to deal with the situation. I have never been held hostage before by my own money. Oh yes. Let us not forget.