playing my chinese card

Not gonna lie, 2016 really sucks from the get-go*. On new year's day, I hurried back to Hsinchu to catch the bus the next day to Taipei to see my grandmother in the hospital. Since then, there's been handling family bickering, witnessing my grandmother die, witnessing my grandfather's diminishment, husband losing our really necessary and expensive stroller after the first visit to the crematorium, trying to track down said stroller by running all over Taipei and requesting surveillance footage from odd personnels, getting the flu and losing my voice for two weeks, hating myself for delaying on fulfilling my grandmother's last request, parenting solo for two weeks as husband goes to New Zealand, having the toilet break down and scrambling for a plumber any plumber, getting plowed down while on a bike with son in the back by a car backing up, dealing with a student who first used all sorts of emotional tactics via email to get me to change his grade and then actually recruiting another professor to plead his case, being notified that the textbook I've ordered and written the complete syllabi and assignment plans for is actually out of stock this term so I need to scramble before everything shuts down next week to order a new textbook and rewrite everything...

So I'm playing my "being Chinese" card and declaring a do-over on this new year. The reason why everything is shut down next week is because this coming Sunday is Chinese new year's eve, and then everyone will be eating/drinking/hanging out with family/watching lots of TV as it rains outside (the winter weather this year, it appears). It will be my family's first Chinese new year visiting my grandparents' place without my grandmother present. I still can't fully believe she's gone.

But I hope this do-over will harken a better new year. Please God please.

*As my readers finish reading this ungrateful diatribe of not-really-that-horrible compared to friends battling cancer or refugees drowning or people getting stabbed and/or killed, I just want to note that I do still see how blessed I am. I'm basically complaining that things are a little harder than the usual pile of fluffy pillows.