Today I rode the Chinese rollercoaster. I haven't felt this frustrated by China in quite a while; it kind of snuck up on me. The day finished well, though, fortunately. I'll give you the bad news first.

I awoke early this morning, even though I don't have class on Wednesdays. My lecture had been moved up a day, from Thursday to Wednesday, and I found this out on Monday, so I had to finish my preparation. I've been thinking about this lecture for over a month, as I was advised early of this obligation. I had a very good mental outline, but still had to do all the legwork of getting photos for my powerpoint presentation. My laptop has been very finicky lately, however, and today was particularly bad. It crashed repeatedly, and the last time did so in spectacular fashion--I lost 75% the photos in the slideshow (many of which had been painstakingly searched and edited from the Internet).

Additionally, as I was debating what to wear for the lecture, I discovered that every pair of dress pants I brought to China, as well as a skirt and a sweater, are infested with mold. I was (and still kind of am) distraught--how am I supposed to bleach all of them to kill the mold, without absolutely ruining them? I'm in search of bleach-free solutions, and I think I might end up just taking them to the dry-cleaners and hoping for the best. Shopping for clothes here is very unpleasant, for many reasons. I'm not a traditional Chinese shape, in any way. Also, my budget limits me to a selection of apparel that can be best summed as brightly colored polyester. So cross your fingers I can eradicate the mold without destroying my existing wardrobe...

The mold discovery came on the heels of my last computer crash, and all this nearly drove me to hot tears of frustration, were it not for the fact that I simply didn't have time to cry--my lecture was at 7 pm, and I wasn't finished. Luckily, my friend Xiang Bing offered me the use of her computer. I hurriedly ironed a mold-free dress, saved the skeleton of my presentation and rushed to her place to rebuild as much as I could. I scraped together a decently long presentation (when I finished, speaking slowly, I spoke for about 40 minutes). In the taxi on the way to the new campus, I kept taking deep breaths to try and shake off my anxiety and stress. I just wanted the evening to be a success--it was the first lecture in a probably two year-long stint.

Now for the good news--I am happy to tell you that everything went off without a hitch. The technology in the lecture hall did not fail, I had a good crowd with most of my students in attendance, and all indication tells me they enjoyed it. I enjoyed myself, at least. My lecture, lengthily titled "All About Mary: An Introduction to the American in Your Midst, the US-China Friendship Volunteers Program and a Brief History of the Peace Corps" (or something like that). I spoke about why I am in Luzhou as an English teacher, as I wanted to highlight that I am different from the average foreign teacher in China. I also spent a lot of time talking about MN, Minneapolis and my family, which was really fun for me. I drew big time "oohs" and "ahhs" with photos of fall colors and winter snowfall in MN. As usual, they loved my family photos. After my formal talk, the floor was open for Q&A. This elicited the usual grab bag of questions, both funny and serious. For example: "You said you speak Spanish [I mentioned my year abroad], do you know the song 'Cup of Love' by Ricky Martin? He sings a few lines in Spanish, do you know what he is saying?" I didn't know. And of course, the old standby: "How do you like Chinese food?" On the more serious, and unanswerable, side: "What do you think of the esteemed stateswoman Ms. Condoleeza Rice?" and "How did Americans feel after September 11th and how do they feel about it now?"

It was just really fun to talk with them, they are so curious and so eager. The audience was mostly students, a crowd I'm getting increasingly comfortable with. I felt very on top of my game. The love me, they really love me!

Now if I could just solve this bloody mold problem...