Test, test, is this thing on?

Hi Everyone,

So this has been the weirdest week I could have ever imagined.

Sunday-Decided to come home to take care of this liver thing, I think I mentioned it before.
Monday-Was on a plane home.
Monday (California time)-Doctor's visits galore.
Tuesday-Thursday-On the phone with the doctors office.
Friday-TBD

Hopefully I can get in with the Liver specialist tomorrow, considering all the time we spent complaining on the customer service line. Best case scenario they will tell me that I am fine, and that I can just resume business as usual. That outcome seems almost anticlimactic, given the circumstances, but I would certainly be most happy with that, of course. This is still too surreal to like, reflect properly on though, so I will just leave it to your imagination.

Besides that, being on the airplane not even 12 hours after my tickets were booked was crazy. It was like I might as well have take a ride in a spaceship or a time machine or something. Suddenly I was worlds away from where I was just a few hours ago. I packed light, got my passport stamped, and got on my way. Shayn took me to the airport bus, which was such a good way to start my journey. Overall things went well, and are going well, but I just want to get back to my program. I feel like I just suddenly had to leave all of my work and all of my friends behind on no notice at all. I am sad. To say the very least. Being home and seeing my family is wonderful, but such    bad    timing. I'm just trying to trust in what the universe brings, that these are all good things that are happening. It's hard on me. But what can I do? Just relax, stay calm, enjoy, work hard, keep moving forward... I'm trying my best here. Wish me luck people.

Thanksgiving in China, or Life is a Crisp Apple

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Wishing so bad that I was back in the states eating turkey and stuffing with everyone right now. Boy, I do love Thanksgiving. Usually, at some point during the meal, I get to mention what I am thankful for, but since I have no turkey dinner, I will just mention it here! But before I do that, let me tell you a funny story.

On Thanksgiving day, China time, I went to class, and took a test, and then came back starving, and like wolfed down a whole bowl of hot clay bowl mixed rice in like five minutes flat. I didn't even think about it being Thanksgiving for like even a second while I ate dinner! Later while talking to a friend, she asked me what I was going to do for Thanksgiving dinner, and it dawned on me that I have just zoomed right on through it! It was so odd, do think that I had actually forgotten to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Anyways, despite the fact that I am a horrible person for forgetting thanksgiving, I was able to talk to my whole family that morning, which was such a treat. They called me on Skype, and I got to say hi to my mom and dad, sister, uncle, grandpa, and great-aunt. Very cool.

And now, I'd like to take a second to share all the things that I am thankful for. So many things, where do I start?

My family! How lucky I am am to have such an amazing group of people that I get to share my life with! How lucky I am that my parents love and support me enough to put me through school and let me go halfway around the world, and who help me navigate all sorts of stupid problems that I get myself into. Check bounces in a foreign country--call Dad. How to make pie dough--call Mom. Feeling tired and/or confused, don't know what to do, and need a pep talk--call my parents. For times to marvel in wonder at the universe--call my sister. Haha, it makes me sound like a baby, but I just really love my family, and I feel so blessed by them.

I feel grateful for the getting the opportunity to study and get an education, especially here in Nanjing. This experience has been absolutely 100% positive, empowering, eye-opening, fun, and challenging. I feel like my Chinese is improving, I am making wonderful friends and connections, and that I am getting to know a part of myself. Its as if this world is my home, and I am simply getting to know areas of my home that I have had yet to explore. I cannot express how important a role education has played in shaping me as a person, and is such a gift.

I am grateful for my healthy body. I wake up in the morning happy, pain free, fully abled. My body lets me walk to the bus station, lets me read and write papers far later into the night than is reasonable, lets me stay up late and have fun, and still doesn't keel over. I did recently discover that I have a cyst in my liver which I am being urged to handle as swiftly as possible, but oddly enough, these days I feel better than ever, and I feel like this cyst thing is just unimportant in light of all the good things that I have going for me. Maybe not the most practical though, but hey, I'm just saying.

I am thankful for my sweetest, nicest boyfriend, Will, who is working his butt off in SF, doing all manner of jobs, and films, and acting companies. I just couldn't be any happier for you baby. I am grateful that you are doing so well. I am grateful you haven't keeled over yet from all of your 18hr work days!

In short, I am grateful to be alive, to feel the cold air on my face in the morning, to get tongue-tied speaking bad Chinese, to dance Zumba class with all the onlookers looking-on, to drag my ass out of bed every morning and to the office, to eat delicious delicious chinese breakfast burrito that may or may not be cooked all the way. This life just couldn't be any more delicious, like biting into a cool crisp apple and crunching it all up with juice running down your fingers. I say, so what if it's getting a little sticky, to hell with it all, because this apple is just so delicious! And this apple is my life. So thanks Mom and Dad for having me, thanks SF State for teaching me, thanks to China for taking me in, thanks to my friends for loving me, and thanks to the universe for letting me exist here, right now.

Love, Rachel.

Saying goodbye is tough

It is that time again when I have to leave one place for another. We all have to do it. And it always feels the same. When I first moved away from home; and then when I moved back out of the college dorms; and then when I moved out of my first apartment. But also the other times. All of those summer trips I have been so fortunate to take around the US and abroad.

Leaving really hits me hard. When you leave a place behind, you also leave behind a time and once you have left it, you won't get to go back again. Space and time swirl up together as one, and so I know that each time I shift my place in this world, I also shift to a new time in my life. A photograph, a scent in the air, a melody plunge you into the feeling of an old time for just a split second, but you are always in the present. 

Talking with a friend the other day, we decided that some people are particularly transient, and they just move around more. It has just always been this way for me, and I have more or less gotten used to it. I still mourn a little and cry when I say goodbye, because crying is all you can do in the face of the ticking of a clock. And it continues to tick, sadness fades, suddenly there you are in another city, another state, another country... Change occurs as a system, and one alteration brings change to all aspects of your life, but eventually its outward ripples will subside. That thought keeps me calm when it becomes time again for me to pack up and head out.  

When I had just moved to college and was having trouble, I remember my dad quoted one of his favorite movies and just said, "No matter where you go, there you are."And though it was a little off kilter, I always remembered that. I like to think of that quote and imagine the planet with me and all of the people I love on it, just being right where we are. If we are far away, it makes us seem closer. And then it makes me remember that I am exactly where I am: right here, right now. 

I move out of my apartment on Friday, and its coming up real quick. It really hit me today, prompting me to write this post. Saying goodbye to this place, to this time, is hard, but I know in my heart that good things are on the way. I am so blessed by my family and loved ones for all of the support I have. Sending love to everyone!! 

Thanks for reading~~

 

 

Travel Physical, pt. 2 or, Things Get Testy: One Quick Trip

I messed it up!! I thought I wasn't going home until Friday, but here it is on Tuesday, and I am sitting on the MegaBus heading towards Sacramento.

It all started yesterday when I was (still) working on getting my visa packet together. It dawned on me that it was due this coming Friday, only a few days from now.  So I was going through my things, seeing what else I had to do, and there it was: PHYSICAL EXAMINATION RECORD FOR FOREIGNER. Remember all of those forms I told you about in my last post, Travel Physical, pt. 1? The giant one that the doc refused to take? That is the one that is due in the visa packet. I about had a heart attack when I realized it. 

The good news though? By some stroke of luck, it just happened that the day I scheduled my health exam for was the same day that it is due in Washington D. C. Mia said it would *most likely* be okay if I just FedEx them over on the same day. 

So why am I going to Rocklin today, Tuesday? Well the forms include some lab tests, like blood work and an X-ray, and if I were to take those lab tests on Friday, I wouldn't be able to have the results ready to be recorded and FedExed. SO. Here I am on the way to Rocklin. Only to head back to SF tonight. 

Now that you are up to speed with all of that, let me just tell you that I am not feeling my best. Lab work comes with fasting, no eating for ten hours prior to the tests, which wouldn't be so bad. Except for... COFFEE. I don't do so well without any coffee. My head feels like there is a clamp on it, and my eyelids have need drooping since I got up this morning.  I got up pretty early so I'm a little low in sleep too. 

But that's enough whining for now, plenty of good things await in Rocklin. My dad is going to pick me up from the bus station where it will be nice and warm, so I am looking forward to that. My mom has the day off too so we will also be able to hang out. And of course Wolfie my mom's dog will be there to play with. So it's not all bad. 

Should be making it home in just a few hours!! Hopefully this trip goes smoothly. What if I go into the office and my doctor goes "I ain't doing it!!" Lol. We shall see.