absence makes my blog grow fonder

here are some facts. since last i blogged i have driven to and from the stl airport at least 5 times (in large 15 passenger vans on a couple of occassions), i have eaten sea cucumber, i have gone up into the arch twice and i have gone on a float trip with 21 asians. i suppose there are other noteworthy things, but i've been two busy really to take the time to file away the details.

so i've been working at the asian affairs center on the mizzou campus. they were pretty great to me when i got back from korea and didn't want to work at the pizza place. when i first went and explained my trials and tribulations, they didn't sound very optimistic that they would be able to provide any work for me. but now it's a few months later and i'm working full time, getting the largest paychecks i've ever had in the united states. that's a pretty cool situation, it's also why the only things of note that have happened to me lately involve asians (and their cucumbers. heh heh). in the past couple of weeks i've met vietnamese students, korean students, chinese doctors, lawyers, professionals (i'm a language partner for the mayor of a small city in china), and thai professors. and for most of these people i am the first impression they get of the united states (or at least of columbia, mo). that feels pretty good.

when the thai professors got here on monday, julie and i got to be their tour guides of st. louis, which is sort of funny since i don't really know too much about how to get around st. louis, especially in a large van bursting with thai people and their luggage. but we did manage to get to the arch and go up it. it wasn't windy or anything, so i'd call it another let down. once you've been up there it doesn't really seem any different each time. next time i go i'll try to coincide with some precipitation or go at night. one of the gentlemen we were with was extremely afraid of heights. i've always heard of people being afraid of heights, but haven't really been in any situations where said phobics had to confront their fear. but he was sweating profusely and would only look at the floor while he held onto the ceiling. the rest of us had to escort him back to the exit tram. anyhoo, the thai professors were only here for 3 days, but julie and i were the main people who hung out with them on a regular basis. it's just bizarre for me as a totally normal, relative insignificant to be assigned the task of hobnobbing with really important people, on behalf of the asian affairs center of the university. i guess i have learned how to initiate really good small talk in broken english since i went to korea, so perhaps that's my qualifying factor. if only i could communicate this well with people who aren't foreign. when the thai people left, they gave julie and i various gifts including really bright yellow golf shirts that said something about the queen. i now have a drawer full of gifts received from visiting asians.

now comes the topic of the sea cucumber. i'm pretty pleased that i don't know anyone else who has eaten a sea cucumber (besides julie and the chinese dudes who cooked for us). there is an epac group (english proficiency and culture)--comprised of peeps from the city of chongqing and the shandong province of china--that will be in columbia for 6 months. julie and i volunteered to be cultural ambassadors of sorts, so we've done lots of field trips, grocery trips and have just been hanging out with them. in return, they wanted to cook dinner for us. so last friday, we went to the apartment of some of the epac members (all dudes). immediately we were given lots of beer, fruit and mao tai (sp? no need to know how to spell it, just know that it's a narsty chinese liquor that could probably be used to strip paint or kill large game. super narsty). it was quite funny to see this really serious looking chinese man (who actually looked like kim jong il) don an apron and dangle a cigarette out of his mouth while he cooked. all the food was delicious, but when i went to the refrigerator, i saw a very strange thing. there was a big pot full of brown wiggly things. i immediately associated the creatures with octopus and squid that i saw in korea. there are some things that simply look too foreign to eat. we continued to drink and chip away at the many plates of food before us, but then came the presentation of these tubular spiky things. i didn't want to be rude. the men wouldn't tell jules and i what we were eating until we had eaten it. so i ate it, and it wasn't terrible. sort of tasted like a sea mushroom. or like eating an ear that had been marinating in salt water. and they made sure to tell us that sea cucumber was very expensive. so i ate it all. it was a good night, but i don't think i need to eat a sea cucumber ever again.

there is a woman sitting 2 feet away from me screaming russian into her phone. i hope she's okay. she just laughed so that's probably a good sign.

thursday and friday (yesterday) julie and i were given the privilege of teaching the shandong esl class. we thought it would be good to get them out and about, so on thursday we decided to talk about theatre and then take them on a tour of the missouri theatre. so six dudes show up who can barely understand a word we say. jules and i were very excited to get to teach the class, but we had no idea that their level of speaking/understanding was so low. we were used to the college aged korean kids who understood pretty much everything. so thursday was like pulling teeth, poor english speaking teeth. they were pretty ambivalent about the tour of the theatre, so on friday we thought we could talk about pets and then take them to the humane society. but on the way to the humane society we took them to rock bridge state park. it just so happens that on the way to rock bridge (if you keep going down rock quarry) there is a family that owns a camel and a zebra as pets. so we parked the van and took pictures with the camel. it was initially about 50 yards away, but when the chinese men started yelling at it, it actually came over to the fence and didn't spit all over us. so some peeps took pictures and some were actually frightened by it. the zebra didn't want anything to do with us.

so we had just shown them a camel and a zebra and were feeling pretty good, but then we got to the humane society and they just didn't care. i don't know if it was because they don't like animals or they couldn't understand the tour guide or maybe it was a combination of both. they like hanging out with me and jules, but they don't necessarily want to listen to us. fair enough.

last topic for now, the epi float trip on the current river. there were a lot of asians. i happened to be stuck in a canoe with the two smallest girls who were afraid of the water and didn't wear swimsuits. so i made sure to tip us over within 15 minutes of departure. i also was the only person who drank while we floated. it seems sort of sacreligious not to drink when you're in a canoe. after we'd been on the river for a while, i saw some white trash people (in a canoe? really?) with a beer bong. they invited me to "party barge it up!" and i accepted their invitation. i'm quite sure that will be the only time the two girls i was with will ever see a beer bong.

the day after the float trip we spent 3 hours outlet mall shopping at the lake of ozark. it was whilst sitting half asleep in a cold stone creamery that one of the korean students asked me the profound question "don't you ever get lonely?" they all think there's something wrong with me because i'm 27 and single. both of my sisters are married, so there must be something wrong with me. the emotional and physical pain of not being married! woe is me.

other than asians, not too much going on. last summer i called myself "the party." "the party" did lots of stupid things involving alcohol, swimming and bicycles (the best events happening when all three drunkenly collided). this summer i have been productive and haven't really gone out too much. dear god i hope i'm not growing up.