Beijing without work.

After a long and hard journey back to Beijing, with a throwing up/crying 5 year old on an airplane by myself, I made it. I AM FINALLY BACK! One month of taking care of this kid by myself was just too much and sent me a little bit overboard I must admit. But here I am back with my friends and my own bed :) A very odd thing occurred the morning after we got home, sad actually. I walk out into the living room to see Feini and Jerry sitting on the couch. Feini was supposed to be at work early that day so I was very confused. This is the conversation:

Feini: Lucy, can you please take out the dog? I'm afraid that he will pee in the house.
Me: Of course!
Feini: Oh, and can you hurry? My mother died.
Me: uh ummm oh uhhh ya okay.
Me: *runs out door with dog*

So, there wasn't a better way to bring up that heartbreaking news? Now her and Jerry are back in Quanzhou taking care of things and I am alone with the nanny in the house. I'm not kidding, the minute my host dad and Jerry left the house I took off my pants and started running around screaming. Haha I hadn't had a moment alone for over a month - it was a big deal....

My moments of Beijing without working:

Valentine's Day was spent alone, in a cafe, reading and eating a whole pizza.

Lets just say I should be a bargainer for a living.

I was walking to meet up with Linda at a mall and was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. I looked over to see a Chinese guy with the biggest smile across his face just staring at me. I was expecting him to want a picture but instead he said so enthusiastically, "It is so nice to meet you!" I just kept looking at him not really knowing what to do and he continued, "Can I speak English with you?" haha so he starts asking me all of the usual questions when you meet someone - why are you here? How old are you? Blah blah blah.... but then things get serious and he turns to me and says, "I am very sad. I love living in Beijing because I live with my friends and family but I am very sad because I have two job offers." My reaction was how could you be sad that you have two different job offers? I would be pretty excited about that. So we get to talking about it more and it ends up he got a degree in the UK for architecture but absolutely hates it. And he got a job offer at an architecture business and at a bank. First of all Chinese people all want to be bankers. Very well paid and automatically put in a good social class. Second of all they don't think outside of the box with "if you don't want to be an architect then don't be an architect." If they major in something then that is what they are supposed to end up doing.

 After all of his explaining is done he stops walking, turns to me, and says, "Lucy, I need you to tell me what to do." By the tone of his voice I knew he was completely serious. I looked at him and said, "Jay, I know I'm only 19 years old, but something that I have discovered in life is we find things that we think we love, and it doesn't work out; we end up not loving them. But that is okay because we can turn around and find something else we love! I think it is so awesome that you went out and got an education and it sucks that you ended up not enjoying what you studied, but you still went out and got your degree. The thing is when I wake up in 10 years and have to go to work every morning, I don't want to be miserable doing it. I want to do something that I enjoy and like doing! So my advice to you is - just because you got your degree in architecture doesn't mean you have to do that. If you want to be a banker, be a banker." When I looked back at him I thought I saw tears forming in his eyes. All he could get out was, "Thank you, so much." It was such a tender moment. Here I am giving a 32 year old this advice that maybe any of us would think is completely common sense, but it was the first time anyone had told him to do what he loves.

Linda came and slept over. We got hungry in the middle of the night of course and ran to McDonalds. We weren't sure if it closed at 12 and had exactly 20 minutes to get there. I ended up climbing a fence, Linda couldn't get over, ran along the side of her trying to get out, came across some sketches and finally made it. The second we found out it was still open we started jumping and screaming. I never thought I would be so excited to eat at McDonalds. I became a true American and had my first BigMac ever. Ya, they aren't good.....

xoxo