2015 World Figure Skating Finals (Women's Long Program)

I happened to pick up a copy of the China Daily newspaper on a recent flight and was excited to find that the World Figure Skating Finals were going to be in Shanghai.  First thing on Monday morning I had some help tracking down tickets (because at the point you had to go to the venue to pick them up in person - will call would have been a bit handier).  

We spent Saturday enjoying some very talented figure skaters.  We had no idea what to expect and we didn't know that we'd be there for 4 hours and over lunch time.  In the US at a sporting event there would have been several options for food, most of them covered in processed cheese.  This being an event in China, I should have known to bring our own food.  I was not thinking!  The girl snacked on popcorn and suckers.  Towards the end of the event I almost got bold enough to ask the couple next to us for their extra chips.  The guy virtually had a grocery store in his bag...sandwiches, chips, and some other snacks.

Despite our hunger, we had a great time.  The staff at the event were so kind and polite and the spectators were amazing.  When the last 2 groups of skaters performed the audience pulled out flags for each of the performers respective countries, even those with complicated histories.  Very impressive!

It was very special to cheer on the US skaters while on our "home" soil in China.  We proudly waved our flags and screamed just a bit!

First competitor

Unless cousin Molly competes some day, I doubt
we'll be at another World Championship!

Flags ready and watching closely.

Impressive

US skater Gracie Gold 

US skater Ashley Wagner

Great job Ashley!

Waiting for the scores

Sporting some US pride 

US skater Polina Edmunds

The little skaters picking up the stuffed animals
thrown to the skaters.

This bear was bigger than the little skater
trying to carry it!

The winners...Russia, Japan and Russia.

Medals ceremony

I enjoy going to Shanghai to take advantage of the opportunities "city" has to offer! 

And, no, we don't have 4 girls now...we grabbed a friend of LBean's so she could enjoy the day too.  Jamie weathered the estrogen, Taylor Swift tunes and figure skating very, very well.  We appreciate his dedication to his daddy duties!

Avoiding Bitterness: Why Not Knowing is Okay

“So, you’re moving this summer, right? You’re moving back to the US?”

The question that keeps getting asked.  A lot. Well, actually we don’t know.  

“You mean Jamie doesn’t have a job?!”

Well, Jamie’s role during his time in China was to train up a Chinese national to take his position.  The time has come for the national to take over and we are excited about this!

“Can’t he just go back to the job he left in the US?”

Jamie’s company encourages their employees to move roles/positions/jobs every 3-5 years.  It is necessary for career development and learning new skills.  Jamie’s skills have grown, changed and evolved while we’ve been in China and a different position will be a better fit (just like if he would have been in a role for 4 years in the US).

“Is there a job for him?”

Well, in a large company it is really about timing.  What other people are also looking for their next position within the company and what positions will be available when we think we'll be moving?   This is the point that we’re at, looking at what might become available in the next 6 months.

“Don’t you want to move back to the US?”

Sure, that would be great.  Family, friends, cheese, driving and Target are all great things about the US.

“Don’t you want to have another expat assignment?”

Sure, that would also be great.  We love to travel and there are so many more places to see.  The experiences that our girls are having are shaping their world-view in such a positive manner.

“Aren’t you freaking out?”

Not yet.  I had tea with a friend last week and she mentioned that there were about 102 days between last Friday and their projected move day (at the end of the school year), which is potentially our move date.  She was meeting with the relocation people in the afternoon to start assessing their belongings and what it would take to move everything back to the US.  One hundred and two days is not long at all!

The conversation with my friend put me in a very reflective mood.  I started remembering all the feelings that I had before we moved to China and one of the emotions I had was bitterness.  I was excited to move, I was ready for an adventure, I was sad to leave family & friends, but our little family of four wanted to go.  We were choosing this.  However, as the process got started, emails started rolling in, the continuous stream of calls with lawyers, accountants, packers, etc. I developed a lot of bitterness.  I didn’t want to spend my last 8 weeks feeling harassed by my to-do list.  I had the distinct feeling that the only thing keeping me from breezily sailing through this move was me.  Me not willingly to stay up all hours of the night filling out forms, responding to emails, organizing our things, and marching through the to-do’s.  But, I couldn’t escape it and those things had to be done.

I wanted to spend the time leading up to the move savoring time with family, enjoying one more round of hugs and laughs with my closest girl friends and giving my girls an extra big dose of Americana to sustain us through the first 6 months of our move.

So for now, from my perspective, if we don’t know where we’re going, then I can’t have a moving to-do list.  Frankly, if an international move gets crammed into 30 days, then fine by me because it will be crazy and exhausting no matter how many days I am given.

I’m avoiding bitterness at all costs.  Instead, you can find me soaking up all things Suzhou and China and enjoying what time we have left here.

More Evidence that It’s a Small World

If you're a faithful reader (thanks mom!) you might remember few posts about small the world can really feel.  Let me think back…

The time we met friends of my parents at an international meeting in Korea.  My parents' friends next stop was Shanghai.  They were meeting in-laws of one of their own children.  However, the in-laws they were meeting didn’t actually live in Shanghai, they lived in Suzhou.  Hmmm, I’ve heard of that place before!  A few years have passed since that realization and it’s fun to chuckle about it because the people they were visiting have children LBean & EBean’s ages and our kids all go to school together.

Another reminder was just this past fall when our taxi driver on the island of Borneo had not only been to the US, but had lived in souther Illinois (my home state) for over a year.  He had attended flight school at Southern Illinois University.

Later int the fall we were in line to board our flight back to Shanghai from southern China and the father behind us nudged his son.  He said “Did you tell them?” and his son shook his head shyly.  Turns out that they had stayed at the same resort as us in Borneo 6 weeks earlier and they remembered us.  (So much for being anonymous while on vacation.  My first thoughts were: 1) Had I been yelling at my kids and 2) What had I been wearing?!)

In January I was scanning through a Suzhou friend’s FB page.  I was helping put together a photo book for her going away party and needed to find some contact information for her friends.  As I was scrolling through her friends list it told me if some of my Facebook friends were friends with her Facebook friends (did you catch that?).  Most of the friend connections were easy to figure out…people from church, Girl Scouts, housing compounds and other Suzhou-related ties.  But then, there were at least 4 or 5 connections that had nothing to do with Suzhou at all.  A dear friend of Jamie’s from college (a study buddy that we have camped with on many Labor Day camping trips), one of my good friends from college (we might have passed the time in class by trying to complete the daily crossword puzzle in the Daily Illini), and someone I know only via a Facebook introduction (but she also lives in SE Asia).  It was fun to keep discovering the connections.  

ChinaBean "demonstrating" some
of my physical therapy exercises

Most recently I started seeing a doctor to address some pain in my foot from running.  During our first meeting we started chatting and as it turns out, he is also originally from central Illinois (my home state in the US).  We grew up within hours of each other.  Now I can pretend to be very particular about my health care and say that I will only go see a doctor from my home state.  You can do that, even in China!

She is having way too much fun with this!

Maybe instead of seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, it should be the seven degrees of Suzhou?

Time to Empty the Pantry

As an expat I think it’s pretty common to bring back food from your home country.  Sometimes it’s because the the same product is just ridiculously expensive-hello $10/box cereal.  (I even know one person who would freeze big blocks of cheese and hide them deep in her checked luggage.  The cheese would thaw during the flight, but still be cool when she landed.) Or, you stockpile because you just can’t find it in the country you’re living in (mmm, Girl Scout cookies, candy corn, etc.)  I also tend to buy multiples of things when they’re either one sale or just randomly happen to be in the store (butterscotch chips).

We think our time in Suzhou is limited, although we don’t know anything for certain.  So, I decided that it might be time to start eating from the pantry.  A few weeks ago I went to the store, bought $50 worth of food (although not just for one meal, but still) and all I managed to eliminate from my stockpile was a taco seasoning packet.  I must rethink my tactics.

For anyone who lived with me at 4-H House in college it brings back memories of the end of the semester.  If the commissar did a good job managing the finances, we’d have a surplus at the end of the semester, and we’d dine like queens during finals week.  Shrimp, steak and other foods we hadn’t eaten for a whole semester.  Except for our situation, I foresee a lot of tacos, tea, Crystal Light, lentils and butterscotch cookies in our future!

Chinese New Year: Married to Spiderman (& Batman)

The year of the horse is ending and the year of the sheep will begin soon.  Last night Jamie had his annual dinner at work to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year (CNY).  We've attended a few of these before...2012, 2013, and in 2014 (apparently I didn't blog about that one).  

I am always so impressed with everyone's willingness to participate in the entertainment.  It is common for different business groups at Jamie's company to perform dances, skits or songs and it is taken very seriously.  It's great that the expat employees embrace the experience too and take part in the celebrations.

This year Jamie had the option to perform a dance to a pop song that is very popular right now (Xiao Ping Guo-Little Apple) or dress-up in costume.  He voted for the costume.  

Now, I get to tell people that I'm married to Spiderman (and Batman too....flashback to EBean's Children's Day last year.)  Have I ever told you about how my husband is such a great sport?

Making his entrance

The big reveal!
The employees had to guess the name
of the person in the costume.

Some of the other expat husbands performing
their dance to Xiao Ping Guo. 

Some of the husbands (too many to fit
into a single picture!)

The supportive spouses.  I'm so glad that these women are
also friends.

Happy New Year!

Made in the USA

In the US the joke is that everything is made in China.  I think there could be several statistics to (nearly) back that claim.  But, on two separate occasions, when I have been particularly observant,  I have noticed some good ‘ole “Made in the USA” products here on the mainland.

The first time was at the girls’ doctors office in Shanghai.  One of the international hospitals uses otoscopes that are made in the US.

And the second time was this past weekend. At McDonald’s. Near the bathroom.  The hand dryers were not only made in the US, but also in my home state of Illinois.  You really just never know!

(And, for full disclosure, when I told the girls that their reward for being such good troopers while I dragged them through Old Town was McDonald's, LBean groaned.  She really wanted to have sweet & sour pork from Yang Yang's.  Sorry missy, mama wanted a spicy chicken sandwich.)

My Word for 2015

Last January several of the bloggers I follow shared how, instead of making lists of New Year's Resolutions, they chose a word to represent their upcoming year.  Maybe as a mantra or a reminder, but something to direct their efforts and new-found enthusiasm at the start of the year.

I jumped on the band-wagon and I chose the word steady.  You can read last year's post here http://mcclintockclan.blogspot.com/2014/01/now-where-were-we.html.  Although I didn't wake up every morning and chant "steady, steady, steady" or meditate on it, the word was running through the back of my mind.  One friend would even reference it for me.  Over-all, I did feel steady last year.  The waves of life came (house stuff, expat life, heart surgery, months in the US and away from our normal routine, and the general calamity of having three young kids), but the waves did not over-take me.

Drum-roll for this year's word please...
                                                                      rest

Which, as it turns out, is oh-so-hysterical at the moment because it's 5 am and I'm up blogging.  I'd really rather be resting, but ChinaBean still has a touch of jet lag.  So, when she woke up at 4 am asking for a waffle because she was hungry, she woke me up too.  She is now happily sleeping in a cozy bed next to her daddy and I'm up blogging. Oh well.

Anyway, looking ahead to 2015 I know there will be epic adventures (trying to soak up all the goodness SE Asia has for us), there will be changes (moving?  Probably. Where to?  No idea), building a house (maybe), and by the end-of-the year I will have a 9, 7 and 4 year-old.  Wait, what?!  

In between all that I need to find rest.  Seek it out, look for it, ask if what I am doing is restful.  I want to read more.  Enjoy the quiet.  Be alone some.

Found this on: http://bravegirlsclub.com/archives/10250

As for the "not" New Year's Goals that I wrote in my planner last year (I like to think of it more as a running to-do list), I will happily be carrying over the unfinished ones to this year and not add anything new.  And, in last January's post I referenced potty-training (done) and pacifiers (done)...I'm calling 2014 a complete success.

So, here's to 2015 and a new year!  May it be restful for all of us.