Jet Lagged

I want to curl up into myself and sleep forever.  I want to find a dark cave with soft mattresses unlike the brick I currently inhabit.  I want to find the fountain of youth and find my younger spirit again.
Or...something.
I have jet lag like woah.  I go from hungry to nauseous, tired to wide-awake, muscle aches to endless energy, etc. etc.  It makes it hard to want to explore or feed myself.  Oh and the fact that I don't speak Chinese isn't helping.

Yesterday (the 4th -- I finally just altered this blog's time stamp for the new timezone - 12 hours ahead of NYC), I did not do much.  I withdrew money from the ATM and it worked--thanks to English directions.  Thus I have an access to money, which feels good.  Breakfast consisted of some toast, ham, and orange juice, thanks to Gregory's fridge.  Maybe it's a Russian tradition to just let guests do what they please, but he never really showed me where anything is but tells me to eat, or cook for myself of whatever.  I guess that means he is helpful and I am grateful, but I couldn't seem to find much in the kitchen yesterday.  Today I just made an omelette with Chinese gas burners, which are intense!  Very large flame and even all the way down, my eggs were bubbling like mad.  But effective.  Can't wait to have my own place and make culinary messes in privacy :)

Gregory is interesting to me.  He always talks about physics or American high school system or phones or anything really, maybe he is not use to company? Or trying to cheer me out of jet lag? I'm not certain.  He has taught in the US as well as Russia and is very bright.  He had some good strong criticisms of American private and public high schools, but is quite a fan of our universities.  We went for a walk with his dog, Gwy-gwy, which means cute in Chinese, though I may be wrong about the pronunciation.  We walked to a new nicer area of the International Community--which is where we live.  Though it's mostly Chinese--and by mostly, I mean pretty much everyone is Chinese--it is called the international community.  Apparently Chengdu hopes the other expats will move here.  The newer places are villas, a rarity in the apartment world of Chengdu, and are very very expensive, though very cheap for American standards, but not affordable by my intern salary or the teacher's salary.  They are nice with ponds, grass, and trees.  Gregory had much to say about...everything as usual.  We visited a store where he purchased some flour and things and I purchased Oreos.  They have more flavors of everything, including Oreos and Lays potato chips.  The Oreos were a silly purchase, I admit, and tasted all wrong.  But I was starving as breakfast was little and I thought we were headed for lunch.  Apparently I don't really understand Gregory...at all.

So after lounging around his apartment, we were visited by Charles, another teacher.  I purchased AP World History books for him and he came to collect.  He is American and maybe 50 with a large American gut, a tad bigger than Gregory's.  They told me that the school health insurance found them unhealthy, which they protested, and the school has changed insurance since.  Chinese are very thin.  Then again many countries have thinner populations than the US.  Charles asked if we had found food, which I thought meant maybe we would eat soon!  But, no, Gregory was saving room for dinner and Charles had already eaten.  After Charles left, I went to find food.

It was 3:30pm and I hadn't eaten much (besides Oreos) since around 8:00am.  Thus I picked the first restaurant I saw.  As I walked in, the waitresses laughed a lot.  Then I saw the menu and I laughed a lot too.  It was a clipboard where you check what you want.  And there were no pictures nor English.  Oh that's right, I'm in China!  After maybe 20 minutes of failed communication where ideas to communicated included looking at pictures in front of restaurant (which were all seafood and CHICKEN HEADS), the waitress saying fishy or chicken, which is great but not enough to pick food in a spicy spicy area with a jet lag stomach, and showing me raw CHICKEN HEADS in the back, a customer (I think) had the idea to take me into the kitchen, where he showed me raw meat (maybe pork? not really sure) and some veggies to which I nodded very very enthusiastically.  With my circadian rhythm all off and no food in hours I was just about to fall asleep from pure exhaustion.  The food arrived to the table just in time.  There was a plate of greens, cooked, and unidentifiable and a plate with the meat and light green slimy delicious vegetables.  I don't know what I ate, but the 2nd dish was delicious.  My right hand, however, was cramping with the chopsticks--perhaps also part of jet lag muscle fatigue as my body just aches or maybe new hand muscles developing, chopstick muscles.  They laughed a little at me trying to eat, but I was in heaven with food finally finding my stomach.  I took a while to enjoy my food, mostly due to the slow rate that I can eat with chopsticks.  The waitress urged me to use a spoon and I refused.  I need to learn.  I paid at the counter, 35 RMB, so about 5 dollars.  I said "xièxiè" or thank you, to which they smiled and then tried to tip them 10 RMB as I was so grateful (granted that's only $1.50 American).  The woman circled the 35 and I nodded and tried to articulate that it was extra, then left.  This of course, it NOT okay so the waitresses chased me outside and tried to stuff the 10 RMB into my pocket.  They eventually won and the entire street was paused watching.  My first meal on my own, what a country!  This is going to be difficult, but it did work, I did find food.  Life is all about the small victories.

I went to Walmart after lunch.  Yes, Walmart.  A new store for Chengdu, but apparently it is the reason to live around here in the international community.  I bought some hangers, my first pair of Chinese slippers for indoor use, some toasting bread, and some oranges.  I failed to find the weighing station, though the checkout girl was kind enough to do it for me.  One has to weigh produce before checking out.  I felt like a stupid foreigner.  A food coma, or real coma, or jet lag coma, or something was setting in fast so I walked back to Gregory's and took a nap, a 3.5 hour nap.

I awoke in darkness and found Gregory, already back from dinner with some friends. After the humorous but exhausting lunch ordeal, I was not very interested in struggling for dinner so I had an orange, some toast, and found some leftover pasta in the fridge (that was made for me the previous night, I should add).  Gregory and I discussed a bit more about teaching and I started thinking about my first class.  That was about as far as I got when another jet lag coma (I like that phrase) set in and I went off to bed.

I have never been so jet lagged, though I've never changed time zones by 13 hours before (or alternatively 11).  Though NZ was 18 hours ahead, it felt much more like 6 behind.  I read something online that suggested a day for each time zone crossed to which I laughed loudly at.  I'm not going to spend 11 days feeling like this, I have classes to prepare and food to find.

Today will be better.  It already is with an omlette and some coffee to wake up my circadian rhythm.  And I still can't believe I'm in China.  Hopefully my brain will be back online soon.

EDIT:
Today I went out with Gregory to walmart, just to follow him around and he was very helpful about where to find things.  So much fresh food at walmart, crabs and fish all alive, meat that is very very fresh, and more.  But on the CHICKEN HEADS, I was mistaken, I swear there was a beak, but apparently I didn't see the whole picture, they were RABBIT HEADS.  Which means the meat I had for lunch yesterday was also probably rabbit, which is still delicious.  Gregory says the heads are more difficult to eat but delicious.  We'll see...