Moving, QEs, Language

This week has been insane. It's another moving week. Did I mention I hate moving? Really, I know HOW to do it, I know what I can buy elsewhere, I know what needs to get done, I know (sort of) how to minimize and trash ETC. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be writing QE statements for my PhD exams in early September. It's really difficult to concentrate when you have a million other things happening all at once. And I only finished my last seminar and its accompanying, mediocre, 30 page paper, about a week and a half ago.

In other news, I have decided that my Chinese is currently below sub-par. Pourquoi, oh pourquoi! I knew I should have chosen something more reasonable in the history field. Part of the last week I have spent contacting people in Beijing over the phone and through e-mail, and the last week I have started my self-taught Chinese lessons again. Currently: Reading/Writing: OK to good, thank god; Listening: OK; Speaking: very poor. My tones have gone downhill and I have lost a lot of vocabulary. I catch myself talking around the word until someone gives it to me. Example: today I couldn't remember something fairly obvious -- "you know in the 1930s when the Japanese went into China... uh, entered China because of the war... uh the Chinese didn't like that when they came in or entered China... uh..." my new (Skype!) Chinese teacher "you mean invaded?" me: "yes... when Japan INVADED China... thank you" [mental me: FML]. (The new Skype thing is pretty cool though. Yay for Skype video!)

The question is, will I be able to make my research happen? I am seriously worried.

Research money, living alone, friendship

Next year I'll be in Beijing doing my research and somebody will be paying me to do it. Why am I not happier about this? I started to think while I was out running and it turns out I'm really scared. No, I'm not scared about doing my research (although I should be). I'm scared and nervous because the official award notification came today and there's a clause in there about living in the country for a full 12 months -- without leaving. Vacations and holidays are not allowed. Sure, medical and family emergencies are an exception, but they must be approved and even then you might lose part of your award money. This got me to thinking about the ridiculousness of the way research has been done in my field, and it's probably also a reason why more people don't do it. How can they expect someone to plant themselves in a country for so long without *ever* leaving. Look, I understand that research requires a significant amount of time in the country and my full attention. I plan to spend nearly every waking moment in Beijing on my project. I even look forward to the "deep hanging out" element with other athletes, coaches, professors, students, and even archivists. I have no intentions of using any award money to go on holiday or travel anywhere outside of what my proposal stated. But I also need my sanity. I'm worried because I think back to my lowest, most depressing points when I sat alone in a room in Taipei and cried. In fact, that was pretty much a daily ritual until I acclimated to Taipei (whatever that means). After that it became more of a every-other-day sort of thing, until finally it only occurred weekly (basically, when I started my 8 week countdown to leaving permanently).

The other major thing I'm scared of is living in Beijing without my husband and without the companionship/friendship of someone nearby. (Bear with me here.) I have never been good at keeping friends, and I think a lot of this stems from my childhood. I have no close childhood friends, and I have no one I keep in close contact with from before the last years of high school (and then only 2). I am in semi-regular contact with only one friend from my undergraduate years. Prior to moving to Santa Cruz I had no close friends in the DC area (my parents being the exception). It made moving a lot easier. Furthermore, when something "big" happens to someone I used to be close friends with (e.g. when someone graduates, gets a new job, gets married, has a baby, or even visits where I now live--to name a few major situations over the last few months) I am not usually the first person people contact, and sometimes I am not contacted at all (good thing for facebook?) I have two close friends from high school (the only people I still talk to from high school aside from a teacher). When one got married a few years back, I was in her wedding, but I was far from being the maid of honor. I didn't hear much about her pregnancies and births until after they occurred, although I can probably be blamed for some of that. The other friend still lives in the DC area, but we typically only grab lunch or dinner together when I'm in town. I don't know what I need to do to be better about remaining friends or becoming closer to other people. I feel like when I leave SC everyone will just forget me, just like everywhere else I have ever lived. I never seem to be able to stay steady and contribute to a deep friendship so I guess I shouldn't expect them to do so either. Why am I so terrible at friendship?

Anyways, I think the reason this all bothers me right now is that L is probably one of only people I have even been very close to in my whole life (the other people would be my parents). Luckily, he felt the same way -- and we have been like two peas in a pod since. My other close friends (ok hmm maybe < 5 people) will be or are spread across the globe (literally on 3 different continents). None live in Beijing. In the past this has never been a huge problem, but this time I really don't want to move somewhere without anyone I am close to right there with me.

EDIT: While in the shower, I realized a better title for this post might have been "I run for sanity."

DC, Berlin, Santa Cruz, Beijing

I got my money to go do my research! As excited as I am about this, and as ecstatic as I am that this means I can leave Santa Cruz and not come back for a few years, I am a little nervous about all that must be accomplished in the next few months and even more worried about my hopping around the world. If I follow the schedule exactly, this is what it looks like:

- end of June -> DC (conference in Philly last weekend in June), then off to Berlin! :D

- late June or early July->early September: Berlin, while working on my QEs, perhaps working a part-time online job (for the uni) and 3-4 weeks in July of German classes (e.g. 3 hours/ 4 days per week, at the same time L takes his classes). I'm OK with all this 1) because I will get permanent residency in Germany after I reach A1 level in German and 2) because, most importantly, L and I will be working at the same time during the day and spending all of our leisure time together. In August, we will likely take a trip to Spain to see his parents, but aside from that I'll be work work working for the QEs!

- early September -> return to Santa Cruz and pass QEs (fingers crossed)

- mid September -> return to Berlin, run marathon with L, prepare for Beijing

- late September or early October -> Beijing for a year-ish with the last 6 weeks in Taipei

I'm a little worried because I hate flying and moving around so much. Yeah yeah OK so I used to NOT hate it so much before the last year or two... It's not the adaptation to a new environment that worries me. Hell, I LIKE that part of it--it's like a fun challenge figuring out where to go run or buy my groceries (although finding an apartment would be one of the REALLY NOT FUN parts of this). I'm even excited to get paid for a year to do something I LIKE to do: putz around in research materials and discover new ones leading to new research directions. I just wish L could come along with me to BJ. Luckily I think I'm just going to make trips back and forth occasionally, and I'll get him to come visit me on his break from the uni. I suppose the best part about all this is that I'm receiving a fellowship that provides enough money for a decent place to live (*happy dance*) for the first time in my life. So even if everything else sucks, at least I won't be extremely poor--I'll be able to afford decent housing AND drinks!

Making Connetions

Today I went to couchsurfing weekly Pub meeting trying to meet locals and travelers. As usual, there were a mixed of couchsurfers from mostly Montreal, but they were nice people. I met a writer and basically I told her I cannot write.

It is not too easy to meet people in Montreal though, and for rootless people I guess we have to learn to make friends "fast" since we move around. I think by now I have a formula of how to seek and pinpoint my "friends". Still, it takes times and effort, and sometimes I am just so tired of making more connections like these. However, I should never give up!

Another thing to point out is: It is DAMN HARD to ask girls for a date in Montreal. I am sorry I am not hot but I am not ugly.

Anyway, it takes times to adapt to a new place, and as my friend said, sometimes I am fighting with local culture too so. I will take it easy.

Unmotivated and sad

I miss L. I want to move to Germany. They will offer me subsidized German classes, which I'd rather take instead of writing or revising PhD statements. Sequestering myself in random places to read has begun to take its toll and I feel disconnected with the community here (not sure I have ever been 100% connected?). My immediate colleagues and friends have been supportive by letting me sit in their office(s) and work instead of having to spend hours in libraries and cafes. This helps a bit, although it doesn't make me want to write my statements any faster. Why bother when I still have no funding?

Maybe I should have followed the recommendation of the aptitude test I took in tenth grade and studied to be an interpreter/translator.

Sigh.


P.S. On a brighter note, I bought my colleague and his wife some stuff on Amazon for the baby that's arriving on Wednesday-ish. It's from their registry so hopefully they'll like it. What did people do before registries could be put on the internet--seriously?

April showers bring May flowers?

It's been raining on my parade all month.

1. Apparently, when applying for funding from a U.S. government agency to travel abroad, being a rootless third culture kid screws you. Why? They (seems to be both the U.S. and China) want people to have a unique study abroad experience and share "culture" (whatever the hell that means). They don't want people who have traveled a lot and are likely to instead tell them how much b.s. it is to "share culture" (again, what the hell does that mean).

So, I wasn't entirely denied the money---I was named an "alternate". Based on the anonymous forum (and spreadsheet someone started in GoogleDocs) for aforementioned grant, the people receiving this grant have never spent much time abroad. In fact, most of them are just SO EXCITED! to be OMG LIVING IN CHINA FOR A YEAR!!!

Nevermind that I have thus far paid every @!@@#& trip and year abroad out of my own pocket because my PhD program requires me to be nearly fluent in Chinese before getting to this point in the first place. Argh.

2. I won't be taking my PhD qualifying exams until September. This has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. Namely that while I'll have the whole summer to prepare, I will likely have to spend most of this summer unfunded. Of course, given that the economy is crap, our university seems to be imploding, and the library caught on fire spreading soot all over the fourth floor -- the books I need for QE prep -- I'm OK with eating the cost. Besides, I'll be with L in Germany all summer, then come back for the exam in September and then return to Germany. At that point (although hopefully much earlier) the rest of the funding agencies will have gotten back to me or not, and I'll be deciding whether or not it's worth trying to go to China before another season of proposal writing. If I don't get funding for China for next year, I'm not going. I'll keep applying, but I refuse to fund my own dissertation research. I already ate the cost for this PhD program once (Taiwan) and I'm not doing it again.

Noncoupable and Yen Ching Re-united!!

It was surreal and awesome that I finally re-united with noncoupable after two years, and noncoupable's wedding is the sweetest I have ever been to.

It is funny that my good friends are everywhere, and since a lot of my friends are rootless, we move everywhere too. So I think next time I will meet noncoupable in Europe! What I love about us is that we are not afraid of moving, and we go with the flow. However, recently, Yenching finally felt a little old first time in his life. Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and people around me are either getting married or having kids. I seems to "float" always. I really need to start to fulfill my dream soon!

Wonderful Weekends and Weddings

L is in town (*happy dance*) and last weekend and we (L and noncoupable) got married! Perfect weather: about 68F, sunny and blue skies on the beach. And to top it all off, Yen Ching flew in from Montreal to celebrate! There's nothing more awesome than when we re-unite. I think rootless people like ourselves have the distinct advantage that when we meet up, even if it had been almost two years (June 2008) since we last did any in-person (non-Skype, non-chat, non-phone) hanging out, it was just like old times. :D

Of course, the setting of Central Coast California is much nicer than the rainy and humid Taipei where we last met up...



Official title of this photo: noncoupable and Yen Ching re-unite! (photo taken on the UCSC campus)

Let's not wait another two years for our next reunion...

Grief

I guess this is a side effect of so much moving around I wish I had learned more about before, oh, a few months ago. A lot of time, I deal with or have dealt with grief primarily by:

- weeping and/or obsessive e-mailing or facebooking. Note: e-mailing used to be in the form of letter or diary entries before the interwebs.
- more commonly, I do enough things to keep my mind and day busy. Usually, this screws me in some respect, such as in lack of sleep or lack of focus on one particular thing--I have said many times, and I'll say it again, I am not an expert at anything.

The second thing is a problem. I realize that I have a fear of not doing anything. This then leads to me find activities to fill every minute of the day for the next 300 years. It's not that I can't say "no" because I can and have. Graduate school is a great way to fill every moment of the day, and I look forward to vacations as a limited time period to relax and think. The problem is that sometimes when I think, I get sad or, more recently, very worried and scared. I'm not scared of my future with L, but I'm scared of my future for my research, and my dissertation. I'm scared of the choices I am/will need to make over the direction of my personal life in the next year or few years. I'm getting old, and I want to be done with grad school, but I don't know if I have the willpower to make it through the exams in June, let alone the dissertation process. I don't feel smart enough, I don't feel like I know what I should know to pass them (I'm very serious about this--I have little confidence in my ability to answer the questions coherently). I sit around and constantly wonder if I should go do something else that my puny brain can handle? I wonder if this is just a sign that I'm restless and need to go somewhere else, to another environment, ASAP???

4 more months to go.....

A funny conversation with an old friend on iChat

[the gist - not the exact words, but basically this is what went down]
Him: So how's the snow? We didn't get too much here in Richmond [Virginia]
Me: Snow? I don't know what this "snow" is you speak of... I only see it when I go skiing in Tahoe
Him: Wait, where exactly are you?
Me: Santa Cruz... like I have been since 2006... well except for that year in 2007-2008 when I lived in Taipei. Oh! and I'm moving to Berlin in July, then going to China for research sometime in September most likely.
Him: Don't you ever stay in one place? Research in China, what's that about? Wow
Me: For the dissertation research I need to go to China
Him: Wow... cool. And Berlin?
Me: Oh, my partner and I live in an apartment near the center, great location! You should come visit!
Him: Wait, you already live there? I don't understand
Me: I lived there all last summer with my partner, it's our home. So yeah I live here and I live there... and in China next year

Healthcare comparisons

Taiwan: national healthcare for all citizens/permanent residents is free or cheap; private health care and hospitals are cheap. Better to pay $7-9 to see a private doctor instead of $2 though: you'll see someone more reputable and you only have to wait a few minutes. $2 gets you to a 3 hour line at the general hospital, even when you have broken bones. It works like the DMV: you take a ticket and wait in line. You see the doctor, sometimes with a bunch of other random people in the room, then you get medicine and diagnosis and go home.

One example of cost differences:
Taiwan: Cost to have surgery at the hospital on a fractured right hand, including getting pins put in and several subsequent doctor's visits (without insurance): $450-500 USD - doctor who performed surgery and became my private doctor has degree from US and residency was at UC San Diego


U.S.: Two doctor's visits, first to get the broken hand "inspected" as a new patient, including x-rays of the pins and fracture ($100+$70) and the second visit to get the pins removed, i.e. the doctor took a pair of pliers and numbed my hand, then yanked them out :-( (cost: $70). Total cost: $240 USD
Doctor from U.S. tells me that they "did a good job in Taiwan" but the way I was told to take care of the area around the pins (iodine) is "very outdated, from the 1970s" (oh, gimme a break!)

In the end? I got a $10,000 surgery for the price of $500, and without any major issues so far as I can tell.

And on a somewhat related note, it turns out that once L and I get married and I move to Germany I get added to his healthcare at no extra cost. It's just another checkbox on the form for "family plan."

Scary life of a rootless person...

I have NO idea where I will be in 6 months from now. Isn't that crazy? Here are possibilities for where I could be between July-June 2010-2011:

Berlin, Germany
Harbin, China
Beijing, China
Taipei, Taiwan

And if all else fails (e.g. no funding)... hanging out briefly in Santa Cruz, CA, researching what I can at Berkeley and Stanford, then jetting to Berlin in July or August sometime.

I look forward to the day I am settled somewhere. For a long time.

[EDIT and UPDATE: Looks like I will NOT be in Harbin this summer since they decided to cancel the program! Good or bad? Well, I could go back to China to study for a few weeks or, better, just go back to Berlin and research/write and read some things in Chinese I have been meaning to read for ever, things I never have any time to do while here!]

Up in the Air!

Two weeks ago I went to watch a movie called "Up in the air." It was a bit heavy for me. In the movie George Clooney finally achieved his one-million-mile goal. I calculated my own mileage after the movie. For the past 14 years I flew more than a half million miles. I think a lot of us are reaching this one million goal. We just never really sit down and add them up together.

Airport is a complicated place for me. It is the place you meet your friends for the first time after years and years. It is also the place you say farewell to your best friends. Sometimes when I looked at the airport, I don't know if I should be happy or sad.

However, flying is also the place you get to talk to a complete stranger sitting next to you for few hours, and you don't have to see them again. I remembered I used to sit next to a pair of cheating husband and wife. That was strange, and interesting. They even bought me a drink. I sat next to a solider, a "diamond" dealer, a musician, students, a lot of grandparents and kids, which I really feel annoyed sometimes. I sat next to a girl who was flying to see her mom in Japan after her mom disappeared 10 years.

Airport is a definitely a special, and emotional place for me. I think rootless people can definitely know what I am talking about.

Slightly more rooted?

I found out recently that my father's side of the family is nearly 100% German immigrants (dating to the 18th and early 19th century, respectively), which makes me 50% German (or so). My mother's side is some mix of Polish and Slavic/Hungarian. Anyways, some distant relative of my father's made an entire genealogical chart of my grandmother's family that traces back to an immigrant born in 1722 in Germany named Johannes Reiter. Then the rest of the chart maps dozens of descendants, the majority of whom never left a 20 mile radius of Reading, PA, USA.

As a historian, this leaves with a larger question: Since when (and why?) did everyone get so excited about genealogy that tracing back the roots of a relative was of the utmost importance? (I'll admit, my senior project in high school also involved tracing back my family on both sides, and I was excited to see civil war service records of my great-great-great (?) grandfather, which my father found at the National Archives and Records Administration.) For me, tracing my family roots actually allows me to feel more "rooted" in a time in which people are highly mobile and many people end up moving away from "where they grew up" or, in my case, never had that place to begin with. For other people, it seems to me that they like to trace their roots for personal identity reasons as well, albeit maybe not for exactly the same reasons as me. In either case -- I'd be interested in looking at the changes in collective history / memory that have occurred over the past 50 years, as related to changes in identity, mobility, and other factors, such that so many people are so fascinated with genealogy.

Does anyone else feel...

Like an inordinate amount of their time is spent on Facebook and Skype? Now, many people will claim that this is has caused the current generation to go into a mode where they communicate with people primarily through their phone or online and rarely actually meet up with people in person. Yes, sure, everyone knows you what you had for breakfast because you tweeted or facebook-ed it.

But what about for those of us who don't actually have the opportunity to see people that often? It's so much easier to comment on a status message than it is to send out a lengthy e-mail to an old friend, who's e-mail I probably lost somewhere along the way. Or maybe I don't have much to say to someone, or anything to them, or maybe they're just always so busy I don't want to disrupt? Facebook is so great. I can read what people are up to, what they've been doing, see pictures, etc. All of this is so fantastic for keeping up with my network of friends.

What makes it even better, however, is something I realized tonight, something that I think I should think about for my own research and projects as a PhD student. (I mean this, like, would really help solve my problem of fb'ing at 3AM, too...) I realized that I rarely read newspapers and I never watch TV (especially the news, I hate it). How do I find out about information on what to read? Well, I just go read the FB homepage. I can see what movies, articles, blogposts, books, restaurants, etc people recommend. They're my friends and I trust their judgments way more than (scamming) Yelp! or the Netflix "we have chosen for you" movie algorithm. FB adds that extra human element that is always missing in ANY machine translation, and I'd venture to say that this is what's missing in a lot of Google stuff, too. FB as an application doesn't actually do the important steps I need... it's my own networking, constant commenting, and assembly of really fantastic group of friends (some of whom are also rootless TCKs, endurance runners, or underpaid PhD students like myself) who have, in the space of a few years, basically have transformed the processes by which I interact with the web and people.

So now the big question? What the hell am I going to do when I get back to China and can't blog, facebook, or use Google? Holy. Crap. This gives the "Great Firewall" (GFW) a whole other meaning for someone like me, who basically lives on facebook instead of e-mailing people or calling people on the phone (I hate my cell phone--you tried to call and got my voicemail? Probably not an accident). I text'ed a lot in Taiwan, so I guess that's what I will have to go back to, but that costs money and it's inconvenient. (The speed at which I text is slow.... and frankly it's way lamer than posting a link to another friend's wall, then adding a comment about it in 2 or 3 different languages!) Also, how did people used to organize tons of people for regular events or form social groups? Was it possible to do as quickly as fb now allows??? Is this just a function of American, Taiwan, W European countries that I've been taking for granted? What does that tell us about the current state of nationalism vs globalism?



Oh, I mentioned Skype mostly because it lets me view L for as many hours as I please, for free, and the quality of the connection (audio and video) is quite good actually. (Usually it's me saying "I can't talk right now! I need to read... but please stay online with me so I can finish it... [guiltily] I love you....")

Par un site que j'adore / Tongue Twisters

mes preferees:

Les chemises de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches ou archi-sèches?

Il était une fois, un homme de foi qui vendait du foie dans la ville de Foix. Il dit ma foi, c'est la dernière fois que je vends du foie dans la ville de Foix.

La triste aventure de Coco le concasseur de cacao:
Coco, le concasseur de cacao, courtisait Kiki la cocotte. Kiki la cocotte convoitait un caraco kaki à col de caracul; mais Coco, le concasseur de cacao, ne pouvait offrir à Kiki la cocotte qu'un caraco kaki sans col de caracul. Le jour où Coco, le concasseur de cacao, vit que Kiki la cocotte arborait un caraco kaki à col de caracul il comprit qu'il était cocu.

http://houzekat.blogspot.com/2007/10/cours-de-franais-episode-21.html
et
http://houzekat.blogspot.com/2007/11/cours-de-francais-episode-22.html

German and Spanish!

Looks like I'll be learning two more languages this year, ha! I'm so excited... and I just can't hide it... woo whee :D

P.S. I added the Taipei image on the right because that's where Yen Ching (E) and I first met... via couchsurfing.org, the best website ever!

Language acquisition and having an accent

I was talking to another one of my Taiwan-American friends today. Another one who came here when she was about 11-12 years old. So, that makes four people I know, including the other author on this blog (Yen Ching) who moved to the U.S. around 12-13 years old from Taiwan, who continue to live outside Taiwan (U.S. and Canada). I thought it would be kind of interesting to compare and contrast what each of these people is doing now, and some other minor facts about their lives I find interesting.

Three are female, one is male.

Female #1: moved to Rockville, Maryland (DC area) from Gaoxiong, Taiwan to live with Aunt and Uncle when she was 12 years old, placed directly in an American middle school with an ESL program geared towards native Spanish speakers. (They set her up with a Korean American girl to help her adjust in school? I couldn't believe that when she told me! Well, yes, I could -- the U.S. can be stupid like that.) Anyways, I met her when she was my roommate on the Virginia Tech study abroad to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou. She got a business degree and works in HR in the DC area, her partner is an American guy who does computer video game stuff, she became an American citizen at least 5 years ago and renounced her Taiwan citizenship. When she talks to me, she often calls the DC area "home" and Gaoxiong, Taiwan "home." She is entirely fluent in English, but she still has a slight accent, and most notably she, like me in French, has some slight grammar mistakes she always makes (even though she is otherwise flawless).

Female #2: my colleague in the UCSC Chinese history program. She moved to the U.S. right before middle school (?) but I think she also lived with her family. She also had a rough adjustment in a school without other native Chinese speakers and where she received very little help. She went on to Berkeley and then U of Chicago, and she married an American guy who does computer stuff (weird coincidence with #1? ;-) ). I think she's also a citizen, but I've never officially asked. She just spent 6 months in Japan learning Japanese. I think that, like me, she's never lived anywhere for more than a few years at a time. She admitted today she knows she still has a bit of an accent, even though her English is also flawless.

Female #3: my part-time language instructor on campus who is also from Taiwan and helps me with my translations. I know the least about her, but she has several things in common with #1 and 2: moved to the U.S. right before high school (age 13?), still has a slight accent even though her English is otherwise flawless and she understands all idioms/expressions, lived with family (although probably more native Chinese speakers around her), etc. (Also, all of these people have at one point or another tutored people's kids or other students in Chinese.)

Anyways... so you may have noticed one trend I'm getting at here: they all still have accents. I'm sure there is a linguist out there who could offer some theories about this, but I'm then curious as to why the last person, the one who writes on this blog (Yen Ching, who I shall call "E" :-) ), has virtually no accent? They all speak English flawlessly (no surprise given higher levels of education) but E has no accent. What I mean is that, with the other three people, you could quite easily conclude they moved here before adulthood or as teenagers, but with E you might mistake him for being a second generation Taiwanese or Chinese-American rather than someone who happened to move to the U.S. and learn English nearly from scratch (like the others did). So what were the differences? Was it that he didn't live with family but instead other American students? Was it the location in a fairly remote area of the U.S. that did it? Was it necessary in his case to speak more clearly than others because this more remote area was unfamiliar with non-native English speakers and therefore would not have otherwise understood him?

And finally, does age really have an impact on accent? I've been told that my accent in French almost makes me sound like a native speaker, and I've been mistake for one, until I screw up something grammatically. (Then I'm usually mistaken for a Swiss or Canadian.)

Stressful months ahead, but a glimmer of hope!

I got back last night after three glorious weeks with my partner and my family, and I already miss both. I did not enjoy being in the east coast weather for so long and I was constantly cold, but it was nice to be "at home" with the people I love. Now I am back "at home" and getting ready for the next few months ahead of me which, if I'm lucky (really really lucky) means I can pass my PhD exams and move again! Ha ha. The life as a rootless person never ends, does it? But anyways, this time it will be for my partner, and I'm OK with that. The ironic part is that he had a job interview for a place near where I live now and the funniest part is we might actually have to decide where we want to live: central coast California or Berlin? It's a tough decision. The weather here is great, lots of outdoor activities and some friends, but we both want to be in Europe eventually... so maybe staying in Berlin is the right thing to do? Since we can't make a decision (well, I know I can't!) we hope this doesn't pose a lot of stress and anxiety while I'm trying to pass my exams.

The further ironic part is that I would "move" but I'd still be required to go off and do some research in East Asia at some point (likely in China again, bleh) or back to Lausanne, Switzerland for a while (no complaing there!) so the "move" would really mean I move my stuff and then have to bounce around the world some more on research trips. I'm currently contemplating how I'm going to get out of living anywhere longer than several weeks at a time without seeing him, because frankly I'm sick of this moving around rootlessness and I just want to stay in one place and be HOME for once (home = him).

And on a note for which not many can fully understand, yesterday I ran outside in 3 layers of clothing in 28F with windchill of like 3F, and today I went running in 18C (68F?) in shorts and a t-shirt. The first run was with my partner and the second alone, but warm and beautiful through the redwoods. Can't wait til the day I combine both of these together...