Don't Worry Mum! Everything is Okay.

The person in my building (not my floor, I think) who practices piano after 9 is nice. I like that. It isn’t too loud, its just there. And occasionally some other person gets on and they play so beautifully.

Just got home. So tired my clothes feel heavy, but at least today is over. There is no cause to go anywhere for the next 10 hours. I am going to brush my teeth and then sleep so well tonight. God I hope so.

I am so tired. Just exhausted. That feeling when you have shot clear through tired and can’t shut your eyes anymore. Moving makes your head swim and standing up is enough to bring you to tears. Thinking about chewing anything is too much to handle and the thought of having to washchopcook at all makes you nauseous.

I skipped class this morning. It had to be done. Considering that I have had to backspace and correct typing mistakes on every third word, this was probably a good idea. I would have done the same thing I have been doing for the last 2 hours, which is stare blankly at a page and try to will away the headache sitting behind my eyes.

I dread missing class. It is something I really hate. A class was cancelled on Monday, but I was so worried that there was a mistake that I stayed at school through the 20 minute break sitting in the classroom just in case the professor showed up after all. Turns out it was cancelled, but if I had left it would have weighed on my mind.

I can think about things and understand that missing a class isn’t going to ruin my life, but there is that tricky little voice saying you still shouldn’t miss it I feel awful well that’s your own problem now isn’t it I will still do all the work but your teachers will think you’re lazy irresponsible and not serious that isn’t true are you sure? Doesn’t look like you are in class I’m trying trying isn’t good enough and you aren’t trying hard enough

I am too hard on myself. I know that, everyone tells me that. But if I am not, if I let things slide, they can only get worse.

I am not getting 100 on every assignment, I am not doing things perfectly. Realistically I am not going to get 100 on every assignment, but for stupid vocabulary tests and quizzes on the homework that is entirely doable. I study almost all the time. But maybe I am not being efficient? I need to figure this out and work harder or I will up like all the Americans who text me at 10 PM asking if we have homework for the next morning because they know it “doesn’t really matter”.

I am not being productive right now so I am going to turn off my internet and force myself to nap for a few hours before I go to class and work.

July July July beautiful July. Just over 6 weeks and I have nothing to worry about but work and Summer reading while I wait for my sister to get here.

I helped her finish a crossword puzzle over skype.

I didn’t arrange to have flowers sent, I didn’t mail anything, or even have my sister get anything. Obviously I am a huge letdown and a jerk daughter. I WANT to have done these things, really really want to. Financial situation at the moment is a bit ~ish, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. I feel like my mum goes unappreciated for so many things and I want her to know I am thinking about her and just do something nice for her. I know she understands, but I will not be satisfied with myself until I stable and responsible enough to do things like this without turning it into such a point of stress that I block it out of my mind and pummel it down into a corner to get some sleep.

My mum is the strongest person I know and I admire her so much. What to do for a person you owe almost everything to? (including  a face that turns tomato-red if I even THINK about going for a run, thanks for that too).

Started that portrait I have been putting off for… years this morning. It is not my favorite angle, and no matter what you say my nose does look funny from that side and it didn’t before the Tree Incident.

Mother’s Day. One of these years I will get it right.

Which is a really lucky thing, because I would be feeling some major frustration.

We were given shirts to wear in the boat. They ordered 5 each of M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL for us and the Chinese members in charge of steering/coxswain-ing. Over half of the 20 paddlers would be M, about a third L, the rest XL and maybe one XXL? Who knows why that happened, maybe it was cheaper.

Our teams for the upcoming (World University Dragon Boat Racing Championship/ICDBF) race are… less than professional. The 欧美 boat is still one person short and the coach is mad because we have 5 girls. Suck it up princess, the new girl wants to be there, and she has rowed before. At least she can swim. We have had a total of 3 on-water practices. Next week we are not on water at all, leaving us with something like 6 practices in a boat before the competition in June. Meanwhile, other teams have been practicing for upwards of a year.

Consequently we have been signed up for the 2000 meter race. Why? you ask. Why not the 200 meter? Why not the 500 meter? The logic of our PE department is that although we will lose, the pool of entrants for the 2000 race is smaller, so we come closer to placing by default. 

…

Yeah, sure, but instead of losing by like, 80 or 150 meters, we can now lose by a whole kilometer, which is a noticeable distance. I think the longest we have gone in one shot is less than 500 meters, and some people were already giving up and resting for a couple strokes.

Oh well, it will be a good time anyway. We will be going to Shanxi 山西province for a week, as the competition is in Taiyuan 太原市 (just throwing this out there, but if anyone falls in the Fen river, they are coming out with webbed fingers and possibly some sort of gills.), and the school pays for everything. I am really happy to be back in a boat of some kind again (although I prefer rowing to dragon boat paddling), and the team is fun.

Being on a school team means I don’t lose attendance marks, right??

Kinda. More along the lines of day-after-볶음밥 when I have eaten all the 김치 out of it and added half a cucumber.

And they always go for the eyes! Last year my screen broke in Harbin and I got so many mosquito bites on my eyelids that my eyes were swollen shut for hours and hours. I looked like the Disney version of Quasimodo, except both eyes and I couldn’t get them open even when I raised my eyebrows.

I just woke up to some lovely new bites next to my eye, one on my arm and one on my leg. HOW DID THEY GET IN HERE?!

Obviously I can’t sleep. I’m not safe until they’re dead, they’ll come stalking me at night, something something sacrifice something monstrous appetite. I must be more tired than I thought, I have forgotten the words to a Disney song.

I am going to have little spots of baking soda paste all over me tomorrow. Lovely.

Possibly mixed with bassoon?

I can’t tell where it’s coming from, it is equally loud out the window at the back of the building and on the staircase at the front.

Really quite pervasive, but also soothing…

Being quite surprised I said, “Wow, I haven’t seen her in a while.”

My tutor decides to educate me on more than just modern Chinese politics: “She is very popular. This is a new song.”

… Actually, tutor-o-mine, this song is pretty old. I was in middle school when it came out. Don’t “new song” me, this song was written when it was still un-ironically cool to use 8 as a letter and use i’s as y’s. Old song. 2003 at the ver latest.

He refused to believe me. Soo we looked it up. 2002. Take that Mr. I-know-pop-music. Obviously you weren’t going to many North American school dances a decade ago. I would ask who the cool one is now, but we both just got told off by the security guard for having no life and being inside studying when it is the last gorgeous day of holiday. Shhh security man, shhh.

This is not it.

But it works!

Oh wow, just realized it looks like I am watching some sort of adult themed film. It is actually Mamma Mia, I just have questionable shutter-pushing timing. 

I really hope you can smell this soup I have simmering, and the farls that I plan to dunk in it when it cools. I hope your imagination is conjuring up the cucumbers I have marinating and the 11-chocolate-chips-mixed-in yogurt that is at this moment turning into the best frozen dessert to be found for less than 3 kuai.

Seriously. If you guys aren’t sniffing the air and thinking “wow I want me some of that,” I will be so surprised, because when I was out in the hall it smelled like your are making 西红柿炒鸡蛋，which is nowhere close on the delicious scale.

Ngahaha I can make awesome things too~.