invincibility

After all these bad horrible days, things are finally starting to turn. I almost feel like its so coincidental that someone must be watching out for me! Like a guardian angel or something. I can't believe it's already Saturday! There is so much to talk about!

On Wednesday I had a meeting with Richard Howard of the ILO, who is the director of their HIV/AIDS workplace project. Basically, the ILO does a lot of pilot projects in certain areas of China implementing AIDS education projects in workplaces with lots of migrant workers. This is exactly what my research is about, evaluating these programs. I needed him for two things: 1) to send this letter to the IRB so that they will approve my research saying that my research was ethical, and 2) I wanted him to help me connect with the people at those workplaces so I could survey them.

I'm leaving Sunday for Yunnan, to visit my mom's family. Originally, I had planned to stay in Yunnan for one week, take a vacation, and come back to continue my research. However, when I was having dinner with Theresa the other day, I found out that she is going to Yunnan as well to write case studies about those programs, around the same time that I am going! This is such coincidence, not only is my friend the intern at the ILO HIV project, but also she is going to Yunnan at the same time! Wow.

So I asked Richard if I could join their team to go to Yunnan - I can offer help with Theresa's case studies (since she knows little Chinese), and in return, I can use the participants for my survey. He agreed - and not only that, but when I asked how many people there were, he said there were about 1000! That is more than enough for my research!

Then, he put me in contact with the Global Business Coalition, who told me that they also have 3 pilot projects I could survey, and that they would put me in contact. WOW! I got so much work done within like 3 hours on that day. I am soo happy! But now, I have so much work to do before I go!

So after that I felt invincible! I felt like nothing could get me down! And I had never felt so confident in my life! For one, I actually started to LIKE my haircut, even though people say I look old. While I was walking from the ILO to the bus stop listening to my Ipod, I felt like one of those people in the ipod commercials who walk down the street really confidently. After all these days of my research going no where, suddenly I had a plan for the summer.

I also bought a new cell phone! I got to pick my cell phone number, insnt that interesting? The more "lucky" numbers were more expensive, so I just picked the cheapest one..136 8174 1645

Well after getting to work, Kevin is like I'm having dinner with Stanford kids - wanna come? I had just gotten to work at 3, it takes me one hour each way, and he wanted me to leave at 6 for dinner? no way! But I gave in..because I had gotten so much work done that morning..so after English tutoring I left. We went to Hou Hai and ate at No Name Yunana Restaurant, and they frikkin said they would charge us for water! So I left and bought some drinks outside, and brought them back, but they didnt let me drink it (which although is normal in US, is not normal in China). So I had to sneak in little gulps here and there. The food was ok - their fungus was soooo good! The fried banana dessert thing and the cheese sticks were ok... So after that we walked around Hou Hai, which is a lake surrounded by bars. People always accost you so aggressively to try to get you to enter their bar. We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a hutong neighborhood, which are the older buildings from old beijing. Well - by the time we got out of there, it was past 11 - and no buses to my house run after 10. The only bus that still runs at 11 doesnt go directly to

On Thursday, I woke up late and decided to take the day off. The problem is that it takes me so freaking long to get to work. So I went with my friend Kevin to lunch, we decided to go to this restaurant we found good reviews for online - because we were craving italian food. I called the place, and the number was empty, which I thought was weird. But after taking a cab to the place, we found out that it had closed down. We took a cab to the restaurant's other location, but it wasnt there. After walking around everywhere looking for a internet bar, we finally called all the various locations and decided that the entire chain had gone out of business. Sigh. So we finally took a cab to Annie's, another italian restaurant. By the time we got there, we had spent 3 hours searching for food, and were SO hungry! Too bad the food wasnt that delicious... (reminder to self: you don't like creamy pastas and pizza).

Then we took a cab to Xidan, a shopping place - which is on the West side of the city (we were on the east side) - during rush hour - which was a HUGE mistake. Note to self - remember that Beijing has a good subway system! The cab's air conditioning was broken and we were melting! not only that, but the driver had no idea where the place I wanted to go to was, so he dropped us off somewhere and we had to ask directions on our own and get there by foot (15 minutes away).

At least I got a lot of good shopping done! I really want to buy these sunglasses that Kanye wears in his stronger music video, but they are so freaking expensive! (35 yuan) I bought really cute overalls, shirt, skirt, shoes, and earrings!

Then we went to the Huge Olympic Flagship Store in Wangfujing (by subway this time - learned our lesson) - dang, olympic souverniers are soo expensive! How can anyone afford this stuff? But recently, I've been so nauseous all the time, I'm not sure why. When we finally got to eat (around 10) I told kevin i was too nauseous and that he should order for me. Well you see, Kevin is vegetarian, so whenever I eat with him its kinda hard to order food. He ordered a meat dumpling for me. After he already ordered it i said, I hope you didnt order any meat, because it would make me throw up right now. And so we ate the skin around the dumplings and left all the meat on the table...

Yesterday was Friday - and I don't know why but I always wake up late! I can't get to work earlier than lunchtime. But I stayed at work until 12:30am, so it was ok. I got so much freaking work done yesterday, mostly finishing my survey. I stayed with some other Beida folks who live only 5 minutes away, I had been thinking about moving in with them after my dad left bc its so close but after last night, no way. The apartment is so small, two bedrooms for 7 people, one tiny bathroom. No air conditioning. It was sooo hot. I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, so I just listened to the traffic outside the window. Unfortunately, I woke up at 12:30 again today, and didn't feel like waiting for the bathroom, so I took all my stuff to work, walked over in my pajamas, and washed up in the bathroom here.

I printed out my business card today! (90 copies). but I made a mistake which I only realized after printing it..gr... the layout of the Chinese and the English side aren't exactly parallel. Oh well...

I wanted to test out my survey on some migrant workers here, so I walked around and asked, but no one wanted to. One said that he couldn't read, which reminds me that I have to practice reading this survey in case there are illiterate people. I even offered to pay them... Sigh... Hopefully this will be easier in Yunnan.