Nerdvana Takes On China!

  Well, as I'm sure most, if not all of you, know, I am currently in China with my new husband! It has been interesting, to say the least.
  I thought I'd start off answering the questions I get most often when people first find out about me being in China (for the few of you who may not know).

 Q: Why are you in CHINA? What the frizz-nitch?
 A: My husband is working for a company here, SkyRay. They make chemical instruments. McKay was supposed to help them build a Mass Spectrometer (yeah, I don't know what it is really, either), but when they realized he's only here for the summer, his boss decided to put him with an analysing team to do research and such. And, yes, it IS weird they didn't realize we'd only be here for the summer as the invitation letter they wrote us specified we'd be here from May to September. They keep saying he can come back after he finishes grad school and stay for a couple years. I keep laughing at this and saying, "We'll see." As McKay has already picked up in our marriage, "We'll see" means "Not a shot in h***."

 Q: Okay, I get what McKay's doing in China. But what are YOU doing in China to occupy your time?
 A: Excellent question! When I am not occupied re-watching ALIAS, I go grocery shopping (which takes several hours to complete, as it takes two buses to get there and takes a million years to find one specific item in the ginormous grocery store that is Auchen), do laundry (which I always manage to screw up), write emails to family and friends (if you'd like to write me and keep me entertained, write me at juliabeesley@yahoo.com), try to write more of my book, and attempt to cook. We bought a miniature fridge for our dorm-size apartment and a woman in the ward has lent us a portable oven. Combine those with our coffee maker, which we use to boil water, and we have ourselves one ghetto kitchen alternative! In other words, I find little ways to occupy my time. I have become obsessed with craft blogs, learning how to make cake pops, and facebook stalking people I hardly know. On the weekends, McKay and I go on fun adventures, which I'll write about as they come.

 Q: How do you get to church?
 A: We usually get a ride with one of the members of the ward who also lives in Kunshan. Sometimes this does not work out so well and we have to take a taxi to Suzhou, which is about 40 minutes away. Church is in a three-story apartment and has about 50 members that attend. Everyone is very nice and helpful, and I quite enjoy going because I get to have conversations with people without trying to think of simple English words they might know. Though this is often a mistake because the Chinese like to learn the most obscure words in the English language; When I asked a woman at McKay's work what she does "for fun", she looked horribly confused. After some further description and miming, her face lit up and she said, "OH! In my leisure time, you mean?" Um... yes. Leisure time. Just the words I was looking for. What the what? Who the heck was your tutor?



  Feel free to submit any more questions about China you may have and I'll try to tear myself away from the all-important ALIAS to address them.