Hello all!

It's been almost one month since I last updated this blog, and I'm sure you're all just dying to hear about every second since Thanksgiving.  Well, thankfully I discovered this awesome new technology that records every passing moment!!  You can listen to me snore, learn about my dreams, and even learn how my teeth feel after I eat breakfast!!!  It's called the *NEW* Chrono-corder!!!  The best part is that you can now buy it at half the in-store price by calling this toll-free number--

If you read this far, that means you realized the above is a joke.  I have neither the intention nor the ability to tell you how I spent every second of the last month.  What is true, however, is that Christmas will fast be upon us.  Although Christianity is not the most popular religion in China, Christmas is a popular commercial holiday here.  All the big department stores--actually, I take that back.  ALL the stores, big or little, are having Christmas-y sales.  Even the price of chocolate has gone up!!  It's a sad, sad day when I can't even buy chocolate-covered almonds without spending over 40 yuan.  I wonder how much chocolate will cost on Valentines day.  On a side note, this year Valentines Day coincides with the Chinese Lantern Festival.  That'll be a crazy day.

Since Thanksgiving, I have managed to have fun, leave the city, meet new people, and make jokes using String Theory.  Thanksgiving actually started off rather unhappily for me.  I don't have the happiest memories surrounding past Thanksgivings--most of them have been wonderful, but you know how one bad apple ruins the whole barrel.  Lucky for me, I have a lot to give thanks for--the best friend to whom I can pour out my feelings, and who can reciprocate and support me; a wonderful roommate who immediately worried about me when I turned taciturn; and loving family members who would mail me a roasted turkey with all the trimmings if they could. As a result, my Thanksgiving went from mopey to "Share the love"!  It even lasted an extra day.

Since my family couldn't mail me a turkey, and because turkeys are expensive and rare in China, I decided to make brown gravy the main dish.  For any non-Americans reading this blog, brown gravy is the foundation of a good Thanksgiving dinner.  It is the quintessential addition to the meal, no matter what else you make.  Because of this, I wanted to make brown gravy.  Turkey (any bird, really) was out of the question; I decided to use ground meat and mushrooms to flavor the roux, and I went from there.  In addition, I wanted to make a family dish called a Mushroom Cloud.

Now what is a mushroom cloud?  Fluffy, like pancakes? Does it make you crazy, like the drug "mushrooms"? NOPE.  It has real mushrooms, but this "cloud" is more like a dark, roiling storm cloud, thick with energy (calories) and dense.  Anyways, the quintessential Thanksgiving sauce + family food = homesickness remedy!!  It really did work.  Just shopping for the ingredients lifted my spirits.  Even better, I was able to convince my roommate to cook with me that night, and we shared a belated Thanksgiving dinner.  (Truth be told, I actually screwed up the mushroom cloud recipe--I mistook cornmeal for wheat flour, so the clouds came out more like hush puppy pancakes.  Still really yummy.)

(These are proper hush puppies. Mine were big and flat...)

Once Thanksgiving passed, all the memories related to it soon faded.  After that, I had the chance to leave Chengdu and relax.  I am a university student in China, and came on a scholarship.  The organization that gave me the scholarship often hosts sightseeing trips for students, so that we can explore the history and culture of their region.  This trip was a two-day, one night trip to Emei Mountain. 

Emei Mountain is a very--and I mean VERY--famous tourist destination within China, and it's very popular with Chinese and Buddhists.  This is because, at the top of Emei Mountain sits an ancient Buddhist temple.  It was one of the very first Buddhist temples built in China, and many Chinese emperors visited.  It gained a reputation of great piety, and so many kings financially supported it and prayed at its halls.

Visiting Emei Mountain is a big commitment for a tourist.  In order to reach the mountain-top temple, it requires two days of climbing steep stone stairways.  The only accomodations are the monastaries located on the mountain slopes, and the only food is from vendors who also live on the mountain.  Tourists are generally encouraged not to carry their own food, because there are also wild monkeys.  These wild monkeys have grown aggressive because of past tourists who fed them, thinking the monkeys were cute.  Now, they are known to brazenly attack and steal your food.  When my group went to Emeishan, we (un)luckily did not see any monkeys because the weather was so misty and cold.  The locals surmised that they probably stayed near the top of the mountain.  My group did not attempt the 2-day climb to the mountain-top; instead, we spent about half a day visiting the temples and monastaries on the lower slopes.  Even the lower slope temples were wonderful, though, and still required a good deal of climbing.   Sometimes, the "temple" was actually just a relief carved into the stone mountainside.  Some scenes were of famous Buddhist monks taming the mountain animals, other depicted ancient emperors praying to the heavens.  I liked Emei Mountain because of the natural scenery--the human presence felt a lot smaller.

In order to compensate for all those monkeys and steep stairs, Emei Mountain does have one great attraction.  Hot springs!!  That night, my group stayed at a hot springs hotel, and thank goodness for the springs!!  The temperature at Emei is much colder than down in the Chengdu plains, so everyone was cold upon arrival at the hotel.  Before we were allowed to hit the hot springs, however, our group first went to dinner.  We ate outside (yes, in the cold) and were treated to a performance put on by the hotel.  There were three young men singing pop songs, and young women dancing in the style of the local ethnic group.  All wore their traditional dress.  At the end of the performance, the audience was invited to join the performers in a circle dance around a great bonfire.  Although I didn't join in, it was fun to watch my classmates dancing and kicking up their legs.

Actually, I was able to really get to know some of my classmates through this trip.  Hot springs are really good places to have deep conversations, it seems.  One of these new-found friends later on invited me out to Karaoke with her local Chinese friends.  One of her friends had come across a discount card for a high-end karaoke shop, so we all went together and SANG!!  I think we stayed there for about 5 hours.  By the end, my voice was half-gone but I was very happy.  Since then, I've hung out a lot with my classmate and here Chinese friends; just yesterday I went with them to a Jiaozi restaurant on campus.  Boy, was that Jiaozi delicious!!  After lunch, I was able to walk back with the two Chinese, and practice my speech a bit.

I'm also hanging out more with my classmates in general.  I have a friend from India, whom I've been teaching American slang and history.  She attends a local church here in Chengdu, and last Saturday night I and my roommate helped her bake some mini cakes.  My Indian friend even bought a new, standalone oven in order to do this!!  While the actual making of cakes was really easy, we really just wanted to hang out.  It had been a while since we all last saw each other.  We ended up making six mini cakes (scorching one to a brick in the process)--we didn't finish until midnight.

Then last night, my Indian friend invited me to attend her church's Christmas service with her.  It was rather different than the services I'm used to in the US.  The pastor was American, but the congregation didn't have an actual church.  Congregation usually consists of just 6 Chinese families, but for this event, everyone invited guests, so there were at least 100 attendees.  For this service, then, they rented out an entire restaurant and held a buffet.  There was, of course, a nativity play acted out by the little children, and then the pastor explained the meaning of Christmas.  There was also singing of hymns (in Chinese), and the evening ended with games of musical chairs.  I had a lot of fun; even though I didn't know every word, the pastor spoke in simple Chinese and used a lot of body language, so I was able to follow his sermon.

Okay, I'd like a moment to brag.  While I was at Emei Mountain, I ended up walking with the two Chinese teachers who were hosting our trip.  Speaking with them, one commented that my pronunciation and speaking fluency was really good!!  (Yes!! fist pump)  I guess even if I don't notice specific improvement, I really am becoming more fluent.

On a random note, I would like to share a funny thought with you.  While on the bus to Emei Mountain, I was using the internet on my phone, and reading about String Theory.  If you've ever seen the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory", then you have an idea what I'm talking about. Basically, String Theory states that there are teeny, tiny, immeasurable strings of energy that vibrate.  Think of these energy strings as guitar strings--they're constantly under tension, even though there's nothing physically pulling or holding them.  When these energy strings vibrate, the "note" they give off come in the form or quarks, electrons, etc.: these vibrating energy strings create the most basic building blocks of our universe.  Well. The whole idea of String Theory is actually based off Albert Einstein's breakthrough theory.  To quote the site I was reading, "The Einstein equation says that the curvature in spacetime in a given direction is directly related to the energy and momentum of everything in the spacetime that isn't spacetime itself."  "Spacetime" refers to the dimensions of space and time (i.e., all four dimensions of our world that humans can perceive); the curvature of the earth, as we perceive it, and our sense of time, is a result of these other energies.  Energy that isn't part of spacetime is, for example, electromagnetism. 

As I sat on the bus, reading through this, my mind began to digest the information.  Based on my extremely limited and fanciful understanding of String Theory, I thought to myself, "If electromagnetism is a force in spacetime that also influences the curvature of spacetime, does that mean that a strong electromagnetic field will change our perception of the earth's curvature?  This would help explain why the earth is a squashed shape, instead of a perfect sphere.  Since the earth looks "flatter" at the poles (from space) would that be considered increased or decreased curvature? But what about time?

  If electromagnetism can cause time to "curve", does that mean that a second is smaller in an electromagnetic field?  Is it that our machines, which count time, count faster? or that "time"--that incomprehensible "thing" which cannot be disected or experimented on--literally tightens its curve and flows faster?  And finally, if we assume that the first situation is correct, that spacetimes's curvature increases and time flows faster, does sexual attraction count as an energy which affects spacetime? 

I'm sure all you logical people are pulling this though apart, but just stay with me.  If sexual attraction affects the curvature of spacetime, then guess what?  Math has just entered the dating world!!  You can now find your soulmate by measuring the length of seconds.  So forget the old adage "time flies when you're having fun".  Now it's "time shortens the more you're in love".  This is revolutionary! Can you imagine if a couple were so in love, they curved time so tight that their entire lives became what used to be a second?  Would the rest of the world's time also tighten? or just the time near the couple?  What if the curvature of time acts like the curvature of space--like gravity wells?? Will the in-love couple notice that time is speeding up?

Just a fun thought. Since we're currently incapable of measuring the curvature of time (as far as I know), we can't know who's shortening your life span.  At the least, I plan to ask that all couples refrain from acting lovey-dovey within fifty meters of me.  No kissing!

(Note: a gravity well is just another way of talking about how much gravity/weight a thing has.  In a place like outer space, planets have gravity wells, which denotes how much gravity exists on that planet. Small things can also have gravity wells; they're just smaller wells. "What is a gravity well? A gravity well is the pull of gravity that a large body in space exerts. The larger the body (the more mass) the more of a gravity well it has."  This awesome picture is from the site xkcd.com)