The Raptor

I'm not one to get sick, mostly because I hate it. Wow Ryan, what an astute observation because Nobody likes getting sick. Yes, but I especially don't like getting sick because every time I get sick, I usually refuse to acknowledge its existence and this can go one of two ways:

A) I get over my sickness faster because MIND OVER BODY (or any other weird mantras that you guys know)

or

B) I make my body weaker by continuously trying to do all the activities I've been doing for the past forever.

One time when I played high school water polo, I got disgustingly sick at our state playoffs. When I say disgustingly, this meant that I looked like death, had vomited in my mouth more than once that day, and had the general motivation of about 3 rocks. This is one of the few times that I actually acknowledged that I was ill after getting into a freezing cold pool and then was chased with a ball around said pool for about 2 hours. When I admitted defeat and told my coach, he gave me wonderful advice. "Just go hop in the shower and cough out the flem, then you'll be fine." Yes, because the flem is the only source of my entire ailment, why had I been so stupid.

I may or may not have thrown up in a couple of the drain pipes that day. But I did NOT sit out the game.

Well, today I think I might have been sick. Actually, yesterday is probably more accurate, but I still really refuse to acknowledge that this is happening.

Like many a great Chinese person, a friend of my roommate and I asked us to join him for dinner with some other teachers and administrators of schools in the area. OK, this means I have to talk just to try and impress them a little, right? WRONG.

In the middle of a sentence, my voice squeaked. Loud. What? Some kind of second puberty was going on and I was not OK with it.

"Well, at my university I study psyCHOLogy." again, another fluctuation. All of these men probably thought that I was getting very sentimental about my major since I wasn't able to talk about it with my voice not cracking. I sat there, frustrated with myself. I had not felt feverish in any way and this had come without warning. Body, what are you doing!? This open rebellion is not appreciated since I refuse to be sick.

Part of me thought that possibly I had been sick (even if I didn't want to admit it). It was really hard to tell the difference between humidity and having an above average body temperature.

Then, the part of my brain that refuses anything is wrong just said that this was the pollution. Yes, that was it, you were not yet used to the pollution here and for some reason that was affecting your...voice. Whatever, I'd take it.

I spent the rest of the meal carefully navigating through tones that I could say without sounding like a pre-teen at a new boy band concert (note to self: New Boy Band is a great name for a new boy band).

Eventually after a few errands, we ended up at home where I proceeded to try and hack up whatever was inside my mouth. Obviously, some type of troll had crawled up into my throat and was going to ruin my existence by diminishing my ability to speak English in a country where I don't even speak Chinese. I told myself that it would be better in the morning and life would suck a little less.

This morning started off with good and bad news. Bad news, my voice decided that it wanted a second go at puberty and was not cooperating. The good news was that my boss had cancelled our morning class so I would not have to yell at any children for at least 8 more hours.

I spent the morning gargling hot water, sitting underneath a hot shower, and yelling throughout our apartment to see what I could and could not say. 

"HA! BAH! HA HA HA HA! Blue JEAns..." Nope, that wasn't working. Words came out, but usually they only worked when I said them at a level that was not socially acceptable. Throughout all of this, I'm sure our new neighbors expected that we had let some sort of raptor live in our apartment while we were away.

"MRAW! RAAAAAAARH!"

This was getting annoying. I had children to scream English words at in only a few hours! It was at this point, Jake offered me some DayQuil. "It says decongestant." So I took the bottle and quickly took what I had decided was a good dose and tossed it back. Dear DayQuil, please bring my voice back.

The DayQuil gods smile on me today. Before I left for my class, the floodgates of my sinuses decided to release themselves and it was like I had eaten something that ate a lot of crack. I wasn't aware that much fluid could come out of my face and it was disgusting and exciting. How awake I was! Despite the fact my voice was still being stupid, I found the right tone once I had to yell loud English words at the children. 

"PAINT-ING! EAT-ING! DrAW-ing..." 

I'm almost through Puberty II: The Revenge.

The New Porcelain Throne

I've been in my new apartment in Zhengzhou for almost a week now and it feels pretty much like home now. I've by now found a place for all my things and figured out where everything goes and it's working out rather well. But let us go back to the second day I got here...

The day before I got here, apparently the sink in our apartment had been filling up with sewage (which of course is not ideal) and that day the toilet had been leaking at the base. This is also accompanied by two pipes on the walls leaking, but since we had sewage in our sink we thought that to be a priority.

The next day after returning from some errands, we heard a knock at the door and opened it to find our landlord standing there with a plunger. If there was one thing that we needed that day, it was not a plunger.

We proceeded to take him into our bathroom and my roommate Jake pointed at everything that needed fixing.

"This, this, and this." he said slowly motioning to the items in our bathroom from hell. The old man nodded and proceeded to flush the toilet to see where what the problem was. It came out the bottom as it had and he motioned for a rag he could use to shove down the toilet. I still do not know what he was trying to do at that point, but we gave him an old rag and then we left for the gym.

A little while later, I returned from the gym solo (since Jake had work to do in another part of town) and found myself riding up the elevator with two men who had the type of tools that say BATHROOM. They indeed happened to be some type of plumber men who came inside my apartment to see what the whole problem was. This is where the men proceeded to barrage me with questions in Mandarin. Knowing little to no Mandarin, I sat at the computer while using Google translator to try and form sentences.

"I move yesterday..Zhengzhou." I said to the old man while pointing down. He smiled at me and continued to talk very quickly. "I teach English." I said in very broken Mandarin at which point the old man picked up the ukulele we had lying on the couch and began strumming it. He then handed it to me and said something I could only assume meant, "Play me something, foreigner!" Lucky for me, that day I had been looking at ukulele tabs and I strummed out a few chords and proceeded to sit there while our landlord began singing.

Do I keep playing or do I stop? So I stopped. The old man then looked at me and sang out, "Do re me..." then stared at me until he motioned with his hands. "Do re mi fa so la ti do" I finished the tune and then he demanded I go back down.  I seriously began to wonder if our bathroom was actually getting fixed but I had to assume something since there was an obscene amount of noise coming from it.

Soon after my impromptu singing lesson, the worker came out and motioned for me to come inside the bathroom. They showed me that they had put a new pipe off the sink since apparently that was that problem and I also saw that the toilet was no longer connected to the floor. OK, well at least we're getting somewhere. I sat back down on the couch to try and wait and maybe have a little more conversation with our landlord. "I'm American." I tried. That really seemed to get his attention. "Oooh, Obama!" He said with a big smile on his face. "Yes, Obama," was all I could really say. Our landlord then made the motion of basketball with his hands and repeated "Obama" again.  This man probably thinks I'm sort of stupid mute, I thought to myself while I smiled and repeated "Obama" with him.

"Hey dummy, come look at this," I assumed the workers said to me when they came back out. I proceeded to head into the bathroom to behold the new modifications to our toilet. From wall to wall, the floor had been covered in, what I first thought to be sewage, was in fact wet concrete. Surrounding our entire toilet, a small hill of concrete had come rising up making it appear as if the toilet had actually come springing out of the ground with it. It was at that point after having nothing to say in Mandarin, that I had nothing to say in English either.

Basically our toilet

By this time, the men had found a girl that spoke a modicum of English to come and tell me that I should not sit on the toilet for "2, 4" which I could only assume was 24 hours. The men and the landlord proceeded to gather all their things not before motioning that I should wash all the remaining concrete down the drain. I sat on my couch as they left and gave them a "Xiexie" on their way out, trying to offer up one of the only Mandarin words I know. The worker, without stopping to turn around, raised his hand in the air and only said what I can assume was, "These Americans with their fucking toilets."

Welcome to Hong Kong

I'm alive! Even part of me doubted my passport to be real and that the US would just try and deport me somewhere else. "I swear! I'm American!" "Whatever you passport making fiend!" 

Then I get thrown into jail for eternity and just cry.

But no, I actually was able to navigate through 2 airports and get at least 3 hours of sleep on that 14 hour plane ride. That means that currently I'm scaring natives and other travelers with my smell and general appearance of a zombie--a tall brown zombie. I really can't complain though since the flight had all the necessities provided including the man who sits next to you with his legs splayed into your seat area. Some kind of odd, trans-pacific game of footsie. 

Now I get to play the waiting game. While I did come into HK with a traveling buddy, I am now on my own to get myself to my destination (Zhengzhou) and not fall off a plane or something. Only within the past 5 minutes did I actually find my gate for departure since it had not been posted so I did what any American would do when faced with a sea of strangers:

 I walked around with purpose while not actually going anywhere. Sitting at one gate for long enough makes it appear that I'm going to wherever everyone else there is going to. I'd couple this with wearing headphones (with no actual music playing) and walking up and down the airport looking at shops with the "intent" to buy something. Of course, I had already eaten and didn't really have any desire to invest in large bright t-shirts that had words like "swagg" and "YOLO" displayed on them.

I think to some, I just looked like a very lost foreigner who, beyond reason, had actually made it into their airport. But I showed them somehow. By somehow, I mean that I arrived at my gate two hours early and get up every 5 minutes to go and double check if it actually is the right gate.

             Exactly how I don't feel.

Just In Case...

I get in my plane in several hours and I have only just finished packing. Part of this is due to my terrible habits of procrastination ("Well I still have one day, come on.") and part of this is due to my Boy Scout senses kicking in. Over preparedness. The weird thing is this usually only happens when I'm packing. My mind goes into overdrive and when I pack for weekend trips, it looks like I'm preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

Despite the fact that this trip is a little different (3 days<6 months), I've been trying to pack very little so that the bag people don't freak and throw me off the plane mid-flight. I've packed and unpacked and re-packed my bag because this is usually the inner monologue occurs:

Hmm...but I definitely need to bring this pair of shoes because of what if there is a weather catastrophe I'll need to trudge through 4 feet of snow. Ok, next we have this shirt...well, if the plane decides to take a pit stop in the middle of the ocean, then I'll have this extra shirt to make into lodging on the deserted island I'll be staying on.

I knew I should have
packed the inflatable raft...

*unpack, repack*

 Swimming suit! Swimming suit you idiot, how could you forget in case you need to go down that inflatable slide on the plane into the water (full of sharks). Well, I might as well bring these other 100 shirts in case my apartment floods and everything will be destroyed. No...just 50, that seems right.

*unpack, repack*

You know, if I don't bring these extra shorts, an earthquake is going to happen and then I'll be pant-less in the middle of an earthquake (what a faux pas). Ryan, you need to bring those pants that are too big for you, you're going to get really fat. That reminds myself, the small ones too. Knowing you, some monkey will bite you and you'll get a fever and get skinny and THEN what will you wear.

*unpack, repack*

This has been going on for three days. I hope I'm not the only one. Knowing myself though, I'll get to China only to discover I left my suitcase in Utah.

All Shall Love Me And Despair

In my life, I have a problem with telling people what I'm doing unless I know beyond a good reason of a doubt that I'm going to do something. I will still usually tell people I'm doing something even if I'm not sure because usually I can't respond with: "Oh...I'm juuuuust haaaaangin'!" (said exactly like that) So I tell people and if plans fall through then they fall through and I feel stupid. So I usually just avoid talking about the instance all together unless I know 100% sure that I am going to do something.

...Let's hope that any of that made sense.

So here we go. I am doing something because the likelihood of me not doing it is very small. So small that it would take a meteor hitting me or my cat strangling me in my sleep for me to not follow through with it.

I have decided to move to China.

See? Now we can resolve that whole "What are you doing?" question and give this answer! Because when I was writing that, I was being barraged with this question since I had already bought my plane ticket and not actually having my visa so that I could actually enter the country (I know, bad planning on my part). You can stop right there with hiking up your judgment pants because I did give myself some time to get my affairs in order and I DID. The psychological burden that lifted due to the fact my visa arrived exactly 7 days before my plane departed was tantamount to when you go to the doctor fearing you have any number of terminal illnesses (BECAUSE WED MD TOLD YOU YOU DID) when you know you don't and then he tells you you're healthier than his many alpaca. That's how I felt. Like a healthy alpaca.

Such healthy chompers I have.

I, like many of the children of my generation, am going to teach my native language (English, to some of you snarky bastards) to the children that reside in this country. This apparently is one of those trendy things like owning a ferret or buttoning the top button on your shirt, and who am I to miss out?

For those of you thinking that I do not speak Mandarin, you would be correct--I don't. I know how to say hello and that, at this point, is the extent of my Mandarin. Don't worry, I'm going to invest in a dictionary or 22 and get help from the one person that I actually do know over there.

How will I deal with the children? I've always like to think that I'm not terrible when it comes to dealing with 6 year olds and I'm not going to stop now. If it ever gets to a point where I begin to doubt myself that they will have a teacher...a teacher great and powerful...as the sea...ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR.

*ahem*

Seriously, the only real concern I have working with children is getting their germy hands all over my face. This is also something I'm probably just going to have to come to terms with since if I've learned anything from my niece, the face is a good place to stick your fingers.

Am I going to see the sights? Probably since I'm going to be there for several months, but I've really only planned up to the plane flight over there.

Have I packed everything? Not really since I'm afraid that my bag will be too heavy and that I alone will be responsible for a trans-pacific plane crash because I packed that one extra pair of socks.

One might say I'm under-prepared. I would probably have to agree with that person but not before giving them a stern glare. Part of me wants this because I find some sort of weird romanticism in it, like in some way it will give my mind a really fresh experience with this. One of my best friends is currently living in Tahiti on an LDS mission and before she left we had a long chat about our longing to travel. Part of this entailed a movie quote and, where I can't recall the movie, it went something like this: "I would want nothing more than to wake up in a country where I don't speak the language." Of course, the line was much more magical and romantic, but it left the curiosity on our tongues about what that would actually be like. In the end we decided it would be great to wake up in a new country, but the knowing the language would be nice.

Of course, I don't know the language. I'm accidentally living this line by choosing a place I know very little about. That weird romantic movie part of me is very satisfied with my choice while my rational mind is pacing up and down the hallway of my brain while he considers how many floors it will take to kill him if he jumped.

I can't say I've truly had any kind of serious adventure, but I would like to say that this will count.

"You should probably learn Mandarin,
young hobbit."

Here we go y'all, off to China with me. I'm pretty sure that I am going to be able to take you with me so don't worry because you will just get to hear SOOOOOO much about my life. You can always tell me when it's too much and then I can take those thoughts and not care.

Here Comes The Bride

Just the other day I had the opportunity to attend my good friend Grace's wedding. Like most Mormon weddings, the day started out at the Salt Lake LDS temple where, in Mormon standard time fashion, I was running onto the temple grounds at precisely 11:00 (when I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be earlier or not).

With an untied bow tie flying around my neck, I ran to the exit door where all recently married couples exit and all the families get together and ogle at the new bride and groom while pictures are snapped to celebrate this happy day.  Only, I didn't see anyone that I knew at the exit.

Oh no.

In my mind, I was beginning to doubt my memory as to when I was supposed to arrive. It must have been 10 o'clock, that's why no one is here and I am a terrible friend and why couldn't someone have told me. With this in mind, I resigned myself to a bench in the shade while I finished tying my bow tie and constantly reminding myself what a terrible human being I was while I prayed that the time really was 11 and someone would show up soon. Not long after this, a few familiar faces started trickling in towards the exit door and I gave my memory a small pat on the back and happily waited until the new couple emerged.

"Grace is getting married?!"

From here, we have the usual wedding day events:

-Take pictures in front of the temple
-Mingle awkwardly while you aren't sure whether or not you need to be in any more pictures at the temple
-Oh, I need to be in this one?
-Haha. Of course not, how could I think I was supposed t--Oh I am.

Then, due to my lack of literal familiar ties with the bride or groom, I got to take a few hours off until I was to show up at the reception for, you guessed it, more pictures.

I mean, we do hire these photographers to remind of us the joyous occasion that occurred, but it makes me wonder how fickle people think their memory is. I can only imagine a conversation 60+ years down the road going something like this if there was no photographer:

Old Bride: Oh do you remember our wedding day, dear? Wasn't it glorious?

Groom: Yes, what a lovely winter morning it was.

B: No, it was in the middle of august, dear.

G: I do recall though, that I had a chill that day though and people seemed quite put out that there was snow.

B: But I recall it was so hot that Aunt Gina had heat stroke and had to be hospitalized.

G: That was your sisters birthday...or was it your cousin's quinceanera?

B: Wait...were we even married?! We have no evidence!

G: Nooooo *dramatically throws fists to the sky*

...I jest.

So of course later on, the bride calls me up and inquires as to my whereabouts since I was supposed to be at the venue at 5 (the call was placed at 4:45). So again, in good Mormon fashion, I show up slightly late with my tux askew after having a small panic attack thinking I had lost my tie and cuff-links (both of which were not far away and easily located later).

 Then, I walk quickly into the building to do my job!...which I wasn't really sure was at the time. Shortly, I found out my job was to stand in grass while I got a few pictures with the bride and then sat around while I hoped that no one could see pit stains on a tuxedo.

What happened next was basically how most wedding receptions go that I have attended in my life (which consist mainly of LDS receptions):

-You see copious amounts of people from your old high school years (if it's a friends wedding)
-You see copious amounts of people you do not know but constantly tell you that you look so dapper in your tux (Why thank you, you should thank the tiny hands that sewed it).
-You see copious amounts of people lined up to see the bride and groom who continually sneak sips of water and bread behind their backs because by now they're beginning to see stars.
-You get really anxious when the only place to sit is the chairs on a table where the guests are unrecognizable to you and you don't want to be "That guy" who walks around asking everyone, "SO HOW DO YOU KNOW THE BRIDE/GROOM?!" whilst giving them a look that says, "I might have been institutionalized in the last 12 months".
-You cling to the one person you brought for dear life so as not to look like a loser/wedding crasher.

This is at least how it goes down for me.

The night concluded with some awkward singing and a few speeches and eventually people cleared out after the bride and groom ran away probably to finally put real food in their stomachs and massage their smile muscles after hours of use.

I'm always glad to attend weddings because most people are so happy and I was especially happy to attend this one to see one of my best friends (ex-girlfriend even, HAHA) get hitched to someone that she feels comfortable enough to let her pick his scabs or whatever it is married people do.

My friend Grace is similar to me in the sense that very mundane situations can become trials of anxiety because we both often attach crazy thoughts to them. I was glad to see though that she wasn't running around her own wedding making sure everyone had food to eat or that someone hadn't died in the bathroom (who knows, maybe she did but at least she kept it discrete). I'm happy for her and was hoping that somewhere in her mind, she thought that this wedding would have been Kate Middleton approved; especially due to the fact that my niece called her a "princess."

Yes Grace, Kate and (dare I say) Pippa Middleton approved.

This is the only picture that I was able to snap or Grace at the temple. I really wouldn't have it any other way, though. Congrats friend, I love you so much and always hope for the best.

Look! It's Kate Middleton...'s biggest fan.

You've Had A Birthday...

Shout hooray!

We'd like to sing to Joey today!

My brother, slightly older than me, celebrates today as the day that he came into this world where he was welcomed by a swift slap by my older sister, Sarah.

I thought that to celebrate this, I could talk about some of our moments as siblings and you guys can sit back and enjoy the mental slideshow.

1. Going down the down stairs in multiple forms
In our early childhood going down the stairs was not only a typical activity to travel through our house, but also somewhat of an Olympic sport. One of these was continuously running up and down the stairs while we slid down on our stomachs. How we did not obtain serious rug burn, I do not know. Usually these slides were interrupted though when our belts snagged on the stairs and we would continue to roll down the stairs in slight pain. The quickest way down though, was to have your older brother donkey kick you down the stairs because you kept pestering him.

"Over there is where I hid the body."

2. One half of Penn & Teller
As kids on Sunday afternoons, we would occupy our time watching a magic show on TV where the magician would escape from various devices. If he could, why couldn't we? With this in mind, Joey and I would sit on small chairs in our sisters' closet where they then tied us up with jump ropes and any other thing that they could find. It was then up to Joey and I to weasel out way out of the binds and then somehow open the closet door (that had since been tied up with more rope). This is what we considered fun.

3. The Most Annoying Smash Brother
Super Smash Bros. is a game that holds a dear place in our hearts as brothers. Throughout our years of mastering the controls, Joey has become one of the only people that I really consider a true adversary when this game is place. Matches are never silly with us, no no; these are dead serious to-the-death matches where tempers will rise and certain words might be yelled. This game might have prevented real life physical fights, but it has also caused its share of death threats coupled with a rivalry they should sing about in songs. Curse you Fox...

4. A personal DI (or Salvation Army or donation center or whatever)
In elementary school, my brother used to hate the fact that I was taller than him because other kids loved to point this out. I just have to assume by now that he is over this because he loves to partake in going through my closet and "borrowing" anything that he thinks would look better on him. Sometimes this is great when I no longer want something or something shrinks due to my sometimes neglectful laundry skills and then sometimes it becomes one of those "brother" arguments.

5. A Personal Radio
Car rides with Joey are not quiet nor are they slow. Every song that has any lyrics that are screamed rather than sung that I know is due to this. You can always count on Joey to teach you a new rap while also getting you to a 3 hour destination in 2 and a half.

6. Taco Tuesdays
Every Tuesday for the past year, my brother and I would hit up our local Costa Vida. There, we would both order 4 pork tacos each (because even though chicken is better for you, chicken is bland). This time was an opportunity for us to catch up on the weeks activities and usually talk about all the professor shenanigans that were happening (since we have all the same professors). During these trips we would also consume almost 3/4's of a small bottle of Cholula Hot Sauce since we doused each taco until it was dripping. Sorry, Costa.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who can each as much cereal as this kid can along with being able to drink an entire Mountain Dew Bottle (the big one guys) and then hold his pee for the duration of our drive from Cedar to Salt Lake. Calculating, but somewhat impulsive, my brother usually chases down what he wants at the time because he wants it now. Now he turns one year older so go wish him a happy birthday because that's what older brothers are for: Constantly reminding them how old they're getting.

He is my favorite older brother. Shocking, I know.

Mr. SUU, king of the Cedar city cows.