Annie’s blog

About 4 or 5 years ago, I formed a habit of searching myself on the Internet periodically. Normally I type in my full Chinese name or its English spellings in one word in Google or Baidu, then I go "search" to see what's come up.

4 or 5 years ago, when I did that, I have only one page of search result about myself on Google, but now I have about 3 pages. Most of them are the articles or translation work that I have done over the past 6 years and published in different sorts of Chinese magazines. Lucky that there seems no second person who's got exactly the same Chinese name as mine, so all these 3 pages are all really about me.

By googling yourself, you are kind of being open to expect something unexpected. For example, yesterday I happened to notice that Haidian District HR (Personnel) Centre, where my personal file is being kept since I came to Australia, just announced a new list, which released a number of persons' names who hasn't contacted the centre for a long time or paid the money up to date for keeping their files. They said after 30 days of this announcement, our files would be ceased being kept in place. (Well, I think I have to let them do so as I don't see any point to pay for it any more). I actually found another name in the same list that I felt it could be one of my mother's acquaintances.

You know what else I have been noticing in the past 5 years? I have so many articles that had been re-published in other medium sources, such as other newspapers, online magazines, websites, forums...... but I have never been contacted by any of them for my permission to use them. Getting paid for that? don't even think about it! Those websites don't even have courtesy to mention the magazines that initially had published my articles and paid my work :-( That's where they got them at the first place.

So this is something I found about myself, from Googling myself :-) You might think I am being a total narcissist, but it's not all about it. There will be a lot of interesting things you would find about yourself if you do it. It's more like a way to find out what's happening in this world about the part of yourself that you don't know :-)

By the way, you can also google other persons' names to find out where they are up to. Maybe you can find some old Friends from your primary schools. Who knows?

I think... I could have bursted into tears for this one. It took so much effort to get it:-) Now, it's a new passport which hasn't travelled to anywhere but already has a cancelled visa, stamped with large prints "CANCELLED" on it. Back to old good days, erh?!

Technically speaking, I stopped knitting since the Drops Design Jacket was done. I thought with the time getting close to my holiday, I wouldn't be able to manage to finish any new project within only 2 weeks.

So I put down the knitting needles and devoted myself on other things after work. Funnily I had noticed that I had felt a bit emptyness in my heart lately. My hands wanted to be used and my heart is itchy to knit something new.

But what to knit NOW? What project is attrative and small enough to be finished quickly or done mindlessly? And also can be carried in a small handbag to take onto plane to knit on the way to China?

Then I found this one, a lacy pattern tote knitted with cotton yarn. I like the idea of free-of-plastic market bags a lot since the first time I saw one. And this one seems really nice and simple. I happen to have some left over orange cotton yarn in my stash, so I will try it.

Back to 30 years ago, I remember we all used "Wang Dou' in China when we shopped for groceries or in a veggie market. They are very small and handy but could be streched to expand to an incredible size to hold almost everything.I just don't know since when we all went for plastic bags thinking they are the better deal.

However, THEY ARE NOT!!! A Wang Dou actually lasts much longer than a plastic bag and has no harm to our environment at all. It's just an easy decision to make. As it's said, "we would choose this dainty and durable tote over a plastic bag any day!"

Now, I don't know if I should smile or cry :-( I have good news and bad news. Good news is we have the Chinese Visas now. The bad news is, this visa only allows us to stay in China for no more than 30 days.

What the hell?%^&**$#@

As we will go with team, Visa Officers in Chinese Embassy must have taken it for granted thinking that we only need a business category visa, like the one that the rest of team members need. And normally they would only give 30 days for this sort of visa.

But I need to go home, and I have also ticked other reasons as in "Tourism" and "Visiting" in the application form, and given my flight booking sheet with the returning date clearly stated on it saying I will be back 6 weeks later after the entering day. Apparently they didn't look and read. But whom can you blame?

Now it's getting so close to the departure date. I don't know if we can do anything to fix the problem in here, otherwise:

• I have to try Chinese Embassy in Beijing, or
• we have to come back in 30 days or
• I joked about me staying in China illegally for another 2 weeks :-) Then maybe it will cost me dearly to pay for the fine, or me being thrown into a Chinese prison, or I will have trouble with applying for a Chinese visa in the future.

Which option would you vote? Oh by the way, a little background knowledge about the third option: my brother-in-law, is the head of a Detention Centre in Beijing, so I don't have to worry about food supply or other issues if I was imprisoned :-)

I don't know when I can finally pull everything together for this trip, but I believe that I am slowly getting close to it.

To be honest, I already feel exhausted just by listening to all the news inputs everyday from the club and reading the information pack for China Trip. I would rather going alone straight away back to Beijing than travelling with the whole team from one city to another. I can't imagine how much fun it would be to spend at least 3 nights sleeping on the train, only wearing one or two polo uniform in that sort of humid weather for 10 days. I am going to stink….

• Packing: I don't mind it if I only pack for myself or one more person, but I hate packing in so many things that we are certainly going to drop off at some stage in trip. I only have a very small pile of things for myself like a few summer clothes and a toiletries bag, which would be no more than 3 kgs and that's all I need before I get back home. It's the rest of stuff got me worried.
• Shopping: We've been doing this in the last 3 consecutive weeks. I am so over it. Unfortunately I still don't know what to look and buy. So, don't get me started.
• Documents: The most brilliant part of the trip preparation….hehe….NOT! We can publish a book about what we have gone through if someone is interested to know more about it. There has been changes since the initial arrangement was made. People pulled out due to injury or other reasons. I think my husband has become very numb about what he is doing and what he was asked to do now. I won't say a word. I'm just hoping we will get visa from Chinese Embassy tomorrow, then I will be just fine, even if I am not going to use it :-)
• Medical arrangement: I have re-scheduled my appointment with hospital and clinic twice. The chance to get checked-up before we take off is very slim now. But I am not worried about it at all. We have purchased flight socks for my husband, but I need to get one more lot of warfarin prescription before we leave. There will be at least two INR tests to be done in China. We will have to see where and when to get them.
• So far it's the easiest part of my life. There had been something got me anxious a little while ago, but now it's all finalised. I don't see any drama would come up before I get back to Australia in July.

Dr. Jones is back. It's said that this new film is quite good.

Due to our home DVD collection actually increasing, it's been quite a while since the last time we physically went to the cinema to watch anything. However, this time I am not going to wait till a DVD version of this movie is released as we normally do. I think I have to go to see it.

So we went up to Manuka Greater Union tonight for 8:30pm one. It was great to know that the ticket price is so reasonable up there. I was told by my husband long time ago, but I just couldn't believe it until I found out myself today.

Harrison Ford's still got it. I just can't imagine if anyone else can do this equally well as he did. He is almost irreplaceable. Marion, his old lover and the newly explored mother of his son, was not a surprisingly funny character to me. Which woman could get along with Dr. Jones if she wasn't special enough? Their motorcyclist son, in black leather jacket, was supposed to inherit his Mom & Dad's madness and apparently, he started to show the sign that he was their boy. Would you hold on a big long snake as in a rope? Now who is madder? Dr. Henry Jones Junior or Junior Junior Jones?

Generally speaking, it is a good movie and very watchable. The pace was great and the twists were enough to entertain the audience. Although there is nothing new about the story, I still like the idea, as it's actually some sort of topic that would attract my intesrest anyway. I would recomment it.

The recent water session training for China Trip from IDs club seemed having gone crazy, which was not hard to tell as I can see from my husband's increasing pain of his body.

Then it's the time for him to have his whinge, as well as asking me a favour to give him some sort of unprofessional massage to relief the tension on muscles.

To be honest, I suppose that Massage Therapist probably is the last vocation that I'd like to choose. First, generally I don't feel comfortable to be touched by other people's hands and vice versa; Second, I found it extremely hard to manage to make differences with my two small and bony hands on a chunk of human flesh. It's the one of the most exhausting job that I've ever known.

But I have my shortcut. When the sore back meets the tired hands, this little wooden 3 legs smiley face massager, is particularly useful and saves your time and energy :-) I would highly recommend it for your "lazy days" home massage therapy. It rocks!!

Gee, these are one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen.

Before having explored Poetry in Stitches, I have never thought that the Fair Isle could be done like this. While after I seen them, I don't see any point of knitting a Fair Isle design other than thses things :-) They are just beautiful and abosultely stunning!

Oleana's designer Solveig Hisdal is a textile design genius. She totally takes my breath way and leaves me speechless. If I could ever find the book (it's said the book is out of print and no longer available), I would totally buy it, even it would cost me dearly.

Today the Chinese Embassy finally took our visa applications, yeah!!!!! That happened after my husband's countless phone calls made to China, but the way how he did it, is only known to me and himself. Committee members in IDs club launched the news today in the internal correspondence and appreciated his effort that had made in helping club members to get their visa applications through. They said "without him, they won't even be close to today's stage".

However, we know that it's not only about the effort he made, it's far more than that. You have to have the understanding about culture. Language and public relation skills are also essential to success of this matter. Now as far as I know, he even got Embassy people all interested in dragon boating and today when coach and club president was there for visa application, they even talked about organising an event for all Embassy staff to try out dragon boating on the lake. Goodness me, what did you tell them, hubby?

Me, as a family member of one of paddlers, given an official title of "Manager", is going to go with the ID team. Apart from giving some help on breaking through language barriers and other little chaos, the head of this manager is full of completely irrelevant ideas, such as how to get my hair cut in China :-)

With only 2 weeks time left, the excitement gets bigger and bigger. I am surpringly not up to the stage of starting packing this time, but I will get on to it very soon, probably this weekend. And this time we will have live-in friend helps to look after the place, so I don't have to worry about eating up all the food in refridgerator or other things.

I realised that I have been counting the weeks since we decided to go back, but from now on, I think I have to begin to count the days :-) Just can't wait~~~ Photo is Chinese Embassy in Canberra.

Maherpret was one of my roommates and classmates in the uni. The time tracked back to 16 years ago, she was one of my favourite persons, and I have no doubt that she still is. Thinking of the time that we had, she is always a beautiful Uyghur girl who has such a gentle and kind soul. That mental picture about her had been implanted in my mind from the first moment I saw and never changed even a bit over these years.

Sometimes I felt I was amazed by her and all sorts of things around her. From the amazing eyebrow powder out off that little mysterious cooper bottle, to the delicious dried apricots and beautiful calligraphy written by her brother, the exploration about Xinjiang and Islamic culture had never stopped at a boring finding. They always surprised me and took my breath away.

I think I have a connection with Maherpret. We went to shopping near Beijing Zoo; Every time I saw pretty earrings, I thought of her as I can't think of anyone else would be more suitable to have those earrings; I listened to her telling me all the stories she had, the way how Xinjiang minority people look at Han people and the way they dance, sing and live. I got to know the difficulties to have a Han-Islam marriage in Xinjiang, and I couldn't imagine how she managed to spend 3 days on train and 4 days on bus to get back to Kashi from Beijing, and it's just one way in 1992-1996. I tasted her cooking in the Summer school holiday time when she stayed in uni and DIY her own Nan (a kind of flour made bread), and I secretly throw out the cookie made with goat milk that she gave to me (That's the only thing that I actually hate the eat:-). I love Xinjiang food, the roasted lamb leg, Nans, big platter of chicken stirfry, noodle beef, lamb skewers and rice to eat with hands. The last time I saw Maherpret was in Xiyu Shi Fu (Western Territory Food Palace) where we met her future husband.

It took me almost 6 years to find her. I knew she was somewhere in Xinjiang, and highly possible in Urumqi, but I just couldn't have any contact means working properly to talk or write to her. Now I got her email, saw her photo with her husband and her 5 years old girl, and know she is doing PhD in BNU again.

On that night, I was too excited to fall asleep. When will I see her again?