Hurry up and wait

In some ways I have had a very productive couple of days, and in other ways I feel as if I have done a lot of sitting around waiting. I know it's hard to believe that within this little blog of mine, you would hear me say I was waiting for someone or something. It's just unheard of.

The productive part was getting most of the things I need to help make my apartment feel more like a home. I now have a beautiful tradional Chinese dinner set, some chopsticks, cups, glasses and other stuff.

Yesterday Claire came by my apartment to show me around the school and then she took me to a store in town that sells all the things I needed. Towels was on the top of my list. The night before last I did manage to find some little hand towel, but not bath towels. Let's see, what else did I have on my list to buy, coathangers, pillow, mozzie coils, plates - oh, hang on, did I already tell you this? This is all sounding familiar, I think I have already told you some of this, so let's skip ahead.

I also bought stuff to clean the place with, this place was pretty - let's call it dust - dusty, I had a broom and a mop, but I had no cleaning cloths or cleaning products. So this morning I gave the place a good scrub, then Clair called to ask if I wanted anything else at the shops. You betcha! So we went back to the shops and I bought my dinner set and other stuff I needed. I have washed all the new things I bought - oh, that reminds me; Sylvia what I call a kitchen bench is what you might call a kitchen counter. It's the actual bench/counter top in the kitchen, the sink is on one side and the stove on the other. They are very low. Today when I was washing my new dinner set, I knelt down to do it and my back felt much better, although my knees did not like it very much. :) I also learnt that the thing I thought was a cool little dishwasher is not a dishwasher. Claire explained what it was for, but I had never heard of it before, so I don't think I should try to explain it to you.

So, anyway... I have done a little bit of rearranging and I feel things make a little more sense to me now. When I moved in, the water filter that dispenses hot and cold water was in the corner of the lounge room and to get to it I had to walk past the TV, coffee table and lounge suite, so I moved it near the fridge (which is in the dining room rather than the kitchen, but I can live with that). I still want to rearrange the lounge room furniture, but I have to think about how I want it first.

I fixed the tap in the bathroom that nearly took out Fiona's eye the other day when I first arrived. Well, it wasn't the actual tap that nearly took out the eye, but the water shooting out of the tap at a funny angle. Poor Fiona ended up covered in water, and all I could do was laugh (it was more the hysterical kind again, I was thinking, "Is there anything else!?")

I sat around all afternoon waiting for a man to bring me a new bottle of water for the water filter, he was late. Then I had one of the computer technicians in the school come and try to hook my computer up to the internet, but he was unable to do it. I think he said it had something to do with my computer being 'Vista' and the school program running on... is it XP? Anyway, Claire will arrange for someone else to come and take care of it another day.

Now that I have the nice little Chinese dinner set I want to put Chinese food in it. So on my way home from dinner tonight I stopped in to see Matt and asked him if he is interested in taking a cooking course with me one weekend in Chengdu. He said he'd love to. So look out folks, if you come to visit I will cook you some Sichuan food. Yum yum!

Speaking of Sichuan food. I didn't eat much today and by the time I was ready to head out for dinner I was pretty hungry, I just walked into a restaurant and pointed at something on the menu and said, "I'll have that." Not that they understood what I said, but they got the pointing part. I also managed to indicate I would like some rice with it. Well, holy moley! Whatever I chose nearly did blow the top of my head off. It was really delicious but Oh My God! It was hot! I was so hungry though, I couldn't stop eating and I all but shovelled it down. I was walking home thinking, "I have a feeling I am going to regret that." So I bought another ice-cream to cool my mouth down and I feel much better now.

I have been listening to some music I have not listened to in ages. Billy Joel, now I am listening to John Lennon, before I played my favourite George Michael CD. I feel so much better today than I did yesterday. I think this culture shock thing might be coming in waves. So I fully expect one or two more bad days to come, but as long as I can remember that without the bad days, the good days would not feel quite so good.

Oh, I got my phone connected and I have my Chinese mobile, so I sent them to dad to let him know he can bother me now if he wants. :)

...

Inspiration just hit, and I have been rearranging my furniture. I have deciced to switch two pieces of furniture around. One of the pieces is in my bedroom and I am going to bring that into the lounge room and put the TV on it, and the piece that has the TV on it now, I will move into my bedroom. However, the piece with the TV weighs a tonne and I may need Matt's help lifting it. I could drag it but it's a bit late in the evening to be dragging furniture around the place. So I think it will have to wait. I have moved a couple of the little side tables but the bigger pieces will have to wait.

There are only two Lennon songs left on this album, and they happen to be two of my favourites, Happy Christmas (War Is Over) and Give Peace A Chance.

Claire showed me a wonderful fresh vegetable market today. Finding all those fresh vegies made me want to cook again, and then I found the loveliest dinner set. I really love it. Can you tell? Claire was impressed, I saw it and thought it had too much for what I needed. But, I kept going back to it. Then I showed it to Claire and she really liked it too. So I thought, what the heck. Now I want to cook.

Well folks, it's late and I am tired now. So I'm going to hit the hay; let's see what tomorrow brings.