The Worst Great Day -- or Best Bad Day? I don't know which...

I sometime refer to my "chemical happiness" as being a dominant feature of my life -- and perhaps I am one of the few who says this without taking happy pills or smoking happy pipes. On days like today, I simply realize that if my body is geared up to have a good day, it will have a good day with or without my approval and despite all attempts to reason with it. Let me describe today as a case in point:

- I woke up at 4am. I had a huge bug bite on my forehead that I had scratched off in the night, leaving a seeping sore. Fun, right?
- I woke up not due to the sore, but because I had to use the bathroom rather urgently. That is never fun, but it also isn't that strange. Discovering that there is no electricity anywhere nearby (not even streetlights to let in a little glow) is not the kind of thing that makes one of those moments better, as I had the joy of experiencing this morning. Thankfully, I brought battery-operated lights back with me from the States and had already installed the batteries. I blinded myself when I turned on the light, and generally would have disdained my whole bathroom experience this morning if I weren't so damn proud of myself for having brought that little portable light.
- I went back to sleep, planning to wake up an hour before my roommate so that I could take a hot shower before the tank ran out of hot water (because electricity never returns quickly in China once it is lost). At 6am, I did wake up of my own accord, and showered in steamy hot water in the creepy, blinding blue light of my battery-charged pride. Nothing bad there.
- .... except that I had no way to dry my hair. And I live in a cloud of ever-present droplets right now because Zhuhai takes its celestial reputation a little too seriously. Nothing dries. And my hair never looks right without careful effort put into either curling or straightening it. Without an iron of some sort, my hair is as indecisive as I am right now about choosing a grad program (which, if you have not heard the news, is a matter of choosing between Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Emory). As in every other aspect of life, this indecision results in a worst-of-both-worlds result. My hair is flat but fuzzy, crimping and limping in all the worng places.
- "Hmmm... what is wrong with my eye?" I wonder as I notice it hurts when rubbing it in the shower. After wiping down the steamy bathroom mirror with toilet paper, I see that my left eye is nearly swollen shut. I have proven that my hygiene is nothing to brag about for I have caught the common Chinese spring disease of painful swollen eye. Damn.
- My spewing sore is on one side of my head. The swollen eye on the other. Which one should I cover with my pile of indecisive hair? Well --- in all its indecision, my hair could cover neither. Thanks, Hair. You had one opportunity to prove yourself useful, but noooooo. Ah, well.
- I had to rush to class. My students gasped upon the sight of me. Some laughed. Something was obviously and terribly wrong. I could hardly speak. My throat was closing up. What the hell...?
- I tried to open the computer desk at the front of the classroom (where computers are locked behind a small door so that only authorized users like me can access them) so that I could show my PPT. I put the key in the lock. Start to turn. Pull the key out of the lock. Half the lock comes out with the key. And the computer is still secure behind the now inaccessible door. Grumble grumble...
- I laughed. I had to. What else could I do as every unimagined curve ball is being thrown my way? "Ok -- I brought my laptop in case there was no electricity in the classroom, so everyone just scootch in reeeeeeal close...." I showed my PPT from my laptop. No major problems there. (My students may disagree...)
- 5 minutes before the end of class, I get a call. "Hello?" I ask.
"Hello?" is echoed back to me.
"Hi." I say.
"Hello?"
"Really?" I ask. "Hi. Hello. Who is this?"
"Ni hui shuo Zhongwen ma?" (Do you speak Chinese?)
"No." Today, I do not speak Chinese to people who ask me, "Hello?" twice.
"...."
"Deng yi xia." (Wait a second) I hand my phone to a student. She knows what to do.
shuo shuo shuo shuo.... (they talk, I listen)
"Oh," I say, listening. "I guess I have a package." (After saying I did not speak Chinese, I felt guilty and hence felt the need to show that, yes, I did still understand some Chinese.)
My ever so helpful student hangs up.
"DHL has a package for you at South Gate. You have to go right now to pick it up."
"Ok, well then. Class is over. Have a great weekend!" The bell rang a minute later anyway.

- On the way to pick up my package, my left bike pedal broke off. Fell into the street. Would not stay back on even with three very poignant (and, in many ways, very necessary) kicks.
- I glided my way... uphill... to the South Gate. On the way I get two more calls from the DHL guy. It took me only five minutes to get there. Did he really expect me to drop everything and materialize at South Gate in half a minute?
- As I glided, I laughed again. I wished I could videotape myself pushing my bike along, sometimes with alternating steps, sometimes with synchronized leaps. I didn't have my camera, though...
- I came into the DHL guy's view as he made his third call to me. His English vocabulary sucked, but his accent indicated that he watched a lot of American TV. TV perfect.
- The package was from JH. Official stuff about the scholarship they awarded me. It made me smile.
- I went to the office (near South Gate, fortunately enough) to meet with students to grade papers according to my geniusly awesome grading schedule (to be described another time). Talking with my students and seeing their enthusiasm (even though they were at a manditory, out-of-class meeting) made me gleam with pride and joy. I love love love my students. And these are even new students. I did not have this class last semester.
- After our meeting, I glided my bike to the bike shop on campus. While doing so, I realized that rowing training was kicking in. I thought of my legs like oars, the pavement like water. Hit the pavement hard enough to get some solid traction, but don't waste energy pressing down against the surface of the pavement when you really want to apply the pressure to move the bike forward. Get into a rhythm. Let the bike glide, use your weight to propel it forward, then strike just as it begins to notably slow down. Stroke, stroke, stroke. It was silly and fun, and I wondered how often I would get the joy of such fun bad days after growing up.
- Through all of this, I had a headache caused by increasing head congestion and (if my unsatiable thirst is any indication) slight dehydration.
- I cannot open my fridge and eat any of my wonderful food because then the rest of it will likely spoil. And I actually have milk in there (a rare treat purchased for the sake of making lattes).
- Thankfully, my absolutely amazingly awesome roommate encouraged me to buy a beautifully hand-painted tray with a gauze retractable cover with which I can display yet protect my fruit (from the inescapable fruit flies of Rong Yi 504) outside of the refrigerator, so I could still eat guavas and oranges.
- My roommate is now the aptly self-appointed social chair of the SYSU Chapter of the Young Westerners Social Club (a name I admittedly made up just now for this blog). We have PB&J Fridays (for which I actually had a toasted sesame and tofu sandwich) as well as Potluck Sundays. Thanks to her, I enjoyed a wonderful 2-hour lunch with fellow teachers and students from the States and Belgium/France.
- Tomorrow I am going to Macau with two of the above-mentioned members.
- Today, I am reading. Just for fun. That is a part of the goodness of today. Reading with a headache -- not so cool. But still, I am happy. Each of the bad things I listed, even before they were memories, made me laugh. I enjoyed knowing I would tell a tale or try to draw a picture of what it was like to go through it all. In the end, I think I have failed rather miserably. I do not do well getting across the particularities of the experiences ~ how I got an email from a student saying, "You looked really bad today. Get some rest so you can get better," and how people were embarrassed to look at me because my current state of being was so obviously etched across every feature and sealed with a sly and inexplicable smile.

Oh, I do like my life.