day 11

So it has been a very busy few days.
2 days ago we went to Luis’s friend Jason’s home. There we learned how to make dumplings. I will explain more on that in a separate post. That was a lot of fun however.
I learned I am not very good at it but have the basics down and can easily reproduce it but it will take some time to master the skill of.
We ate the dumplings with a good bit of drinking. Well I had maybe 3 beers. We played drinking games, the first being I’ve never. But being in the company of Chinese virgins the game did not take its normal dirty course as it does in America. But it very likely could have been a language barrier. Afterward we played dunk dice. A simple dice game which we had a lot of fun with as it is VERY fast and comical to watch someone have to take 5 shots in a row (beer).
Afterward we played poker and on the computer. The poker was like any other, except we played with peanuts. They all took to the game far too well and I was left with basically nothing several times… I’m not very good at poker, my best hand the whole night was a three of a kind. I am not what people would label as lucky.


The big event was that night. I for some reason here have the bladder of a two year old. Almost every night I have to pee. Well in the middle of the night I get up, put on a coat and make my way through the house. I remembered the stairs, the doors and where the bathroom is. What I did not remember was they have a HUGE ass dog. I was halfway across the courtyard before I heard the scrape of claws on concrete and felt the sting of teeth sinking into my leg.
Now being the brave young lad I am I froze screamed and tried to cover my face and head. I got another bite on my arm before the mother was out there beating back the dog. Luckily I was not hurt bad. Just one tooth sinks into my leg and penetrated skin. It was a clean hit, about the size of a Q-tip and only a few mm deep.
She cleaned me up and I was off to bed rather shaken up and well petrified. The next morning was a long discussion about what to do. I thought I would just need some antibiotics as well the dog (to my understanding) wasn’t rabid and was a home pet. I didn’t need stitches and didn’t really hurt. IT was not infected just a bit swollen.
So we head to the internet bar where I consult mom on what she would advise. Afterward we head to the local doctor which had a room apparently specifically for dog bites. If they are this common you think someone would establish a pound to start exterminating the wild dogs… they are everywhere…
They had me clean the wound with soap in a rather dirty shower; I’m still more worried about staph than infections… The doctor, a man in a blazer (no “doctor” coats, clothes or indication he had any real training. Really he looked just like the dude who owned the place than a doctor. I don’t know if he had any credentials or not, I like to assume he did and just feel no need to portray his training by dawning any traditional wear to publicly announce his position). He gave me the first of 5 rabies vaccinations. No antibiotics, not even a bandage or Band-Aid. I tried to ask for one but he said no need. I understand its no gashing wound but a Band-Aid to keep it clean??
Later that day we went to the public showers. That was an experience. I never had to do a public bath before. In my high school or middle school I was never required to shower. No one ever did. So to be honest I was a little nervous. I mean you always think the first time that everyone will stare but you tell yourself no one cares and no one looks. Yea try that when you are the only white person in a small town in china where white people are as common as honesty in the white house. I was looked at and I could feel many eyes taking more than an uncaring unnoticing glance. Yea that whole thing went out the window. Well it was easier than I thought to just not care. I guess being on display in this fashion wasn’t that different than walking down the street and noticing the heads turn at the white boy…
That evening I attempted to apply to my old resident assistant job at the university only to run into profound problems. The application was in a PDF which in china is unheard of and was difficult to download only to find it was not “set up” in such a way that could be digitally filled out. It required it to be printed and filled out by hand which in turn would require to be turned in by hand. Well as I am in china turning in a paper to the office is a little difficult. I could mail it but as that would take anywhere from 7-14 days and it also requires the addition of letters of recommendation it would be difficult to coordinate how to get many papers to come together all from a remote location.
So that is still an issue and I hope to get it sorted out. In the meantime I have downloaded some audio books from podiobooks.com which is an amazing website. Download audio books for free. No fancy popular books but they are good books none the less. Right now I'm working through two, Darwin or design a series of interviews about the ID movement. I personally don’t buy into ID in the current form and somewhat annoyed the interviews on the ID side have very little “data” in them and are more fluff talk. But as a biology major I want to hear about the protein structure in specific and why the amino acids cant be randomly selected for and how a flagellum is not as complex as once thought and the homology is started to be traced and discovered which from evidence thus far does not support ID.
The second is the spirit of education. An interesting book about a teacher and his thoughts of how the education system in America needs to be rethought. Not how new reform to the same system but question if the system itself is correct and what we need. Although it is good there is in my opinion way too much “spiritual” talk in it. Talk about the acorn of each individual as the potential to become the grand tree the universe has created. He uses tarot cards as imagery, the teacher being the wizard that dictates to students. While his imagery makes sense, I just want to hear his story and ideas; I could care less for the imagery heavy allegorical hippie talk.