one year since china (by abraheme)

从abraheme的facebook上转过来的



2 months of Solitude,10 months of Nostalgia(One year since China)

Today at 1:37am

One year ago, June 10 2007 at 3 a.m., I received a call. In themiddle of the night I wondered, "Who the hell could that be?" Iremember not sleeping well that night, it was my first flight overseasand I haven't been to Florida or Rhode Island yet, and here I am flyingto China. My father got up and stomped to the telephone. His gallopingapproached my direction. He handed me the phone with his eyes closed.
"It's China." he says mumbling in Arabic.
"What!!??" I said with one eye open. I grabbed the phone next to my sweaty ear
"Hello? Is this Ring?"
"No, it's Kari, hi, when are you getting here? It's so rural here"
"Kari?? Oh..hi hi! Rural? …What do you mean?
"Make sure you get some mosquito sprays, I've been bitten a lot already"
"Oh, ok,,,what do you mean by rural? Isn't Wuhan a city not countryside? I chuckled nervously.
"Yea, it is a city. Did you get Anthony's number?
"Yeah, I got it from Ring, my flight leaves at 6:30 today, and I'msupposed to be in Shanghai by 1. And I might be in Wuhan by 4 to 6."
"Ok, well, we're waiting for you here, have a safe trip, see you then"
A heart-warming voice with a cold and sharp tone. "She was something" Isaid to myself. Her voice chilled me enough to make me oblivious to mysweat for a while.

Fast forward to the flight.

One year ago, I discovered you all in the Wonderful World ofWuchang, Wuhan. My first time overseas and getting on a plane full ofWong's, Liu's and Xiang's was the biggest chocolate factory Willy Wonkacould give me. There was a five hour delay for my 6:30 departure, andthe pilot decided to keep his mouthful of noodles and told us about thedelay at around 10 o'clock,
"There seems to be traffic on the runway, we will be moving shortly,looks like we got a bad fortune cookie!" He never said the fortunecookie joke, but I laughed and imagined it going well at that moment.The guy on my right, let's call him Han for convenience sake, slept assoon as he laid his ass on the seat at 6. He woke up; stretched andprobably said to himself, "I'm one third of the way to Zhong Guo." Thenhe noticed the same smoggy JFK sky outside the window. This thenentitled him to give me this look--beyond translation. One of thegorgeous flight attendants with her red and white served by and thattook my mind off of everything. Seventeen hours with these people willbe, in the words of Ben, "AMAZING." And soon, the elderly white coupleon my left broke their croissants and my nose hairs were filled withbuttery bliss. The old woman looked like a cross between Maria Espositoand Julia Childs, she probably baked them herself I thought.

I have pages and pages more of this, but I'll just stick to thepoint. If you want the full story, I'll email it to ya, or put it up onfacebook.
Anthony, you were the biggest relief my ass could have after being on 3Chinese flights for 22 hours. After talking with you on the phone atShanghai then contacting you at Wuhan to pick me up, your damn goodEnglish was a God-send. I will always remember standing near theentrance in the polluted Wuhan acid rain waiting for an "Anthony."After our ride through the slums between Wuhan airport and Hankou, Iwas shitting on myself, "Did Kari mean what she really meant?"
And so, on my first car ride through ZhongShan Road, and never havingseen so much pollution in my life, I was hungry and damn ecstatic to beled through Wuhan by an Anthony in a tanktop.

Nina! You were the first American face I saw in Wuchang, at LuXiangPlaza. And trust me, I wanted to hug you so hard and say "I'm alive!...Now feed me!" But our handshake was ok. Later on, I remember meetingother people from AIESEC, but I'm don't remember who.

And in another taxi we went, and short ride from LuXiang Plaza, waswhat Robert Pauley would say, HOONNNGGG FU JIA YUAN!! And getting onthat elevator one floor up to the second floor to our apartment, I wasgreeted by the most scrumptious and shimmering faces and smiles I'veseen for the past 2 days, Kari and Olga. But to my surprise, they weredrinking hot ass tea in that hot ass day, or I think Kari was drinkingcoffee, "What's the matter with these women? Am I gonna live with themfor 2 months?"

And so, after not sleeping and starving for 22 hours, Nina, Olga andKari took me out through a deserted HuaZhong KeJi Daxue the same nightI got to the apartment. The sights, the smells, the sorrow, and allthat good stuff invaded my senses and I was half conscious to talkabout myself whenever they asked me about anything.


And so I slept safely that night, but I got sick. Why? Because myroommate, decided to blast the A.C. on my face. And so, in my firstChinese morning, the first sight I saw was my white-ass roommate Ethan,across the room, in his blue boxers. And Z.O.Z. came to the rescue andgave me the funkiest Chinese medicine and food I've ever had.

I just want to say, those two months were as cheesy as it sounds, adream come true. Everybody in our apartment was perfectly handpicked byGod himself. The laughs, the worries, the starvation, the sweat, thedancing (crazy times at Queens), the singing( 36 hour marathon with NewOriental), the climbing(LuShan with Matt and Angie), the running, theskipping, the biking(Anthony, Rachel, Ben, Tim), and all thatpsychedelic Chinese goodness(Kari and Ben in GuiLin and Yingshuo) thatonly our crew(especially my apartment) had together, ( until added onby everybody else who came a week later, Rachel, both Roberts, Tim,Kelsey, Erin, Angie, Matt, Charlie, Jaclyn) Everything was priceless, Iwould say, the only, ONLY, "bad thing" about it all was me starving andyou all eating my food, especially Ben!

And AIESEC Wuhan, you guys took care of us despite having a mean andtender loving caring mother like Olga to handle things for us interns.Anthony, Z.O.Z., Ring, Sunny, Maggie, thank you all! I know it was abit hectic, but since it was your first exchange program, you took itpretty well.
And Doria, those 3 days that you stayed over were one of my last goodmemories of Wuhan, I'm glad we had them together when we snuck in theneighboring apartment buildings to get on their rooftops.
I know I wont have the same experience with you guys, but I hope to seeyou guys again in July and sometime soon afterwards. And if God wills,to see you all in China again.

I love you all!

g过后的生活

   
    考G的前几天一直在纠结要不要cancel的事情。主要是觉得自己准备太挫了，红宝也没好好啃，结果类反一大坨一大坨不认识的单词。怕考出来的成绩太丢人，也怕影响到下学期的申请。纠结来纠结去，最后还是不cancel了——特别是杨毅哥哥说我现在已经没有权利去cancel了，要不然对不起自己的付出。

    怕睡眠质量又不好，于是6号晚上睡前喝了点酒，结果一晚上外面刮风下雨打雷的，还是没睡好。。。7号早上在考场外碰到了周KR，他说：“我已经报好了10G了。今天就是为了来cancel的。cancel那两个空格我一定一笔一划地涂满。”后来遇到阿珂同学还拿着GRE的Practice book问我怎么cancel  旁边有一小撮人又在大声地讨论10G如何如何。唉～真佩服我自己，厚脸皮顶着这么大的压力坚持没cancel。

   考得不好，别的也不想多说了。唯一遗憾的是觉得自己没有尽全力好好准备。
   不管结果如何，都认了。you gotta pay for what u've done! 昨天把托福单词从柜子里翻出来，跟红宝一比，还真是灰常薄啊！
   要好好开始准备7T和10G了！MONICA, DON'T BE LAZY ANYMORE!

   这两天都在玩，顺便把paper的事情搞定了。不过投的人太多了，编辑说我那篇要排到10月上旬了。。。
  

   昨天浓妆艳抹地跟着一票人去vox看Hust摇滚节演出。因为是高考期间，表演9点半就提前结束了，还是很遗憾啊！特别是somewhere帅气的小鼓手只表演了一曲。还有Michal人真的好好啊！他被punish的时候也很大方，哈哈～果然很aiesec！不过在点点教我们玩“海带啊海带”的时候，他的确很纠结。。。

   从明天开始——继续背单词！










 

  

   
   

gre倒数4天。。。

    就像我现在的QQ签名：日子像抽水马桶的水哗哗哗。。。

    转眼间GRE就只剩下4天了，转眼间回国就5个月了，快要6个月了——又是一个半年。每个人在回忆自己过往的时候，总是带着些许感慨和些许落寞。成长的苦涩是生命中永不褪色的底片，而有些东西只有在远去时才会执着地想念。原来在Kris家里的时候，他给我展示他的treasure box——有照片、贺卡、演唱会的门票，还有很多我叫不出名字的东西，但是每件treasure后面都藏着他所珍重的人和故事。从那以后，我开心小心翼翼地积攒起自己的treasure,现在已经满满一盒了。Treasure box里面都藏着我所珍重的人和故事，每次打开盒子翻开记忆碎片，还是会情不自禁地扬起嘴角。

    看着@新一批的EPs兴奋地准备签证，就不由自主想到了去年夏天的那个我。那些熟悉的情节、似曾相识的感受，荡漾起心头悄然蔓生的淡淡感伤，如缕不绝。在完成了EP preparation package forPoland之后，我的@生活也可以暂时告一段落了。

    上周一终于把明信片寄出去了。在这后来的某天突然意识到，他收到的日期差不多就是我考GRE的那天。一切如此自然。

    昨天晚上梦到自己被恶狗咬了，然后早上起来的时候发现左手被自己压在身体下面，很酸很痛。有时候觉得自己会对某些事情满不在乎，想不到却还是有压力的吧！最近的思绪很乱，犹如MP3里面的歌，从pop到rock，clubbing music再到钢琴曲；最近也很少写那些个酸酸的文字了。文思如泉涌的时候总是在自习室，回到宿舍坐到电脑前面却总是不知道该写点什么。不知道是不是背单词背傻了——虽然我这个cuo人也没实质性地记住多少。

    一直怨念着去凤凰，希望G结束以后可以顺利地跟点点他们一起去吧。这是第一次也大概是最后一次跟大家一起出游。他们毕业的日子一天天临近，而我仍将在这个聒噪的校园里度过前途未卜的一年。突然想到村上春树的一句话，大概的意思是这样子的：正确的决定会导致错误的结果，错误的决定也有可能带来正确的结果。既然这样，为什么不过得随性一点？！又想到了点点这个强大的女人。居然真的可以为了爱情而放下所有。曾经我以为我可以为某人这样，后来才发现，我还是少了勇气。

   呵呵～祝点点幸福，祝所有人幸福。