St. Pauli Girl

I've officially moved into my new place on Grand. It's a really cute condo with a jet stream bath tub! It's going to be really exciting living in the heart of the city I grew up in. Hopefully a job will follow... I had an interview last week for an education assistant position at the Korean Service Center. It sounded like a really great job although I had most of the qualifications, in the end the fact that I don't speak a lick of Korean hindered my chances. Needless to say, I didn't get the job. It just wasn't meant for me. I just have to keep a positive attitude that something will come along. As of right now I just need a steady income then I can spend my time doing a lot of the things that I love like writing, photography, reading (I plan to start a book club) and not feel guilty about it. I realize that I shouldn't feel guilty about doing things that make me happy but for the time being I know I need to focus the entirety of my energy on a job hunt. I might be doing some work again for New Moon. The identity of the magazine has changed a lot, with most everything being online. In the meantime it will be nice to be back in the publishing world again.

Ni Hao

A passage I stumbled upon from my journal in Qingdao, China:

As a couple days passed of settling in, my traveling buddy Sarah and I decided to find a quaint restaurant for lunch. We stumbled upon what mimicked a shack with a chinese symbol that we had come to learn meant "Restaurant". The inside, no bigger than a classroom, smelled of fresh fish clearly just caught from the ocean not four miles from where we stood. My immediate inclination was communicating in English was not going to be an easy one.

"Ni hao!" spoke the tiny smiling woman behind the fish counter.

"Ni hao!" Sarah and I timidly replied.

Through several hand gestures and sign language both parties came to the conclusion that a table for two was indeed what we wanted. As we opened our menus the only thing we could rely on were the pictures. We used what little Chinese we had learned in class, "pijio", or beer, being our favorite word of the day. Through another series of pointing and pantomiming with the waitress we proudly basked in our ability to communicate what we wanted. Little did we know lunch was not going to be so little.

Roughly 15 minutes later, in one fell swoop, a large pot of fish head soup, echoing a bucket of chum on a fisherman's boat, was laid before us. Both of us, jaw dropped, looked around at fellow patrons of this restaurant and keeled over laughing. Apparently the pictures were very deceiving as to what we actually ordered. Next came a bowl of rice big enough to feed the entirety of the restaurant. We continued to gawk as a pile of garlic stems (one of my favorite dishes) adorned the rest of our feast. We sat back not quite knowing if more was to come but after a few minutes we grabbed our chopsticks and dug in. This was not the first time we had fish head soup and it was certainly my favorite of all the dishes I tried. The meat is especially tasty within the cheeks, the Chinese cuisine is full of pleasant surprises.

After putting a miniscule dent in the dishes our fish head soup was poured in plastic bag and we walked out as if we were proudly leaving a pet store with a brand new beta fish. It was a moment we both vowed to share only in our memories as we both managed to forget our cameras. Shucks.

Fearing fear

I've cracked...I am officially reading a self-help book. Scary. I know. I always steered clear of that section of Barnes & Noble but for some reason I was drawn to "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway". I had a discussion with a friend the other day about fear. Fear can come in a lot of different forms. Fear of failure, fear of the unknowing, and something that surprised me while reading this book is the fear of succeeding. I've never really thought of it in those terms. Sometimes it's just as frightening to succeed at something than it would be to fail. I think there are most expectations placed on your shoulders when achieving your goal...the "what's next?" questions is brought up. I've read stories about the depression some people feel after reaching a goal such as receiving a PhD...they're at the top and aren't quite sure what's next.