It's a love hate relationship, and right now it's love!

As my time in China comes to an end, my feelings about China seem to be much more extreme. I oscillate between loving China and loving my life here and being so sad that I have to leave and getting so aggravated with some "China moment" that I can't wait to get out of here. It changes probably daily. Like on Sunday it was a beautiful, hot, sunny day. I went to church with Laura, which was interesting to see the community there. It is all foreigners from all over, but alot from the US, alot of whom I had never seen before. We sang songs for the first part, which I liked, then it was coffee break with free coffee, which I also liked. Then was the sermon part which was about fathers and disciplism. It had some good parts that I picked out, but it's always nice to go to church and just use it as a time to reflect, which I did. Then I went to rugby, which was HOT but also very fun. People kept asking me when I was going home and it made me think about that I actually am going home really soon. It doesn't seem possible. I kept thinking "I really am going to miss it!" Then I went swimming and hung out with Huangjie a little before going home to do some homework. It was a good China day.
Then some bad things happened, like on Monday I was making Bruschetta for a dinner we were having and I burned my hand really bad on the spatula. The dinner was fun though. On Tuesday morning I went for a run and on the way back I started across the street and a motorbike hit me and knocked me down. I just scraped my hands and knees, but I was OK. As I was getting up out of the road, the lady who hit me is just smiling and laughing and then she drives away. That just put me in a bad mood all day. Then you just get annoyed with all the people yelling "hello" at you and laying on their horns, and cutting in front of you in line, and having absolutely no decency at all. Chinese people are so nice to you face to face, but aside from it's like they have tunnel vision and they can only think about themselves and seem very rude. Then something good will happen, like I'll eat some really good Chinese food and I'll feel better and not want to leave again. It's all very crazy. I think I'm starting to get more annoyed because I know I am going home soon so I am finally letting myself get annoyed. Before I knew that whether I liked it or not I had to put up with it so best not let it get to you. But now I'm almost done and all that pent up frustration is just coming out.
However, right now I have had a string of good China days. I have just been taking them one at a time, enjoying myself, I think by Friday I will be ready to go home. Like, last Wednesday, Fourth of July, was Matt's 21st birthday. We had a party for him on the 3rd because his mom had to leave on the 4th. Matt and his mom made ribs and we made make-shift pizzas, which were really good! And I made a birthday cake, lemon with chocolate frosting (Matt's request). I wanted to make a good cake, so I made a lemon layer cake with lemon filling in the center, homemade chocolate frosting and candied lemons on top for decoration. It turned out being really beautiful and delicious! I was so proud of it, definitely the best thing I have baked in China so far.
The thing that I will miss most about China is the newness of it, there is always opportunity to try new things and go on an adventure. Yesterday, after almost 11 months in China, I was still getting to try new things. Yesterday for lunch I had frog legs and they were actually pretty good. Alot like fish meat, very tender. Then I had sushi for dinner, which I thought I didn't like, but was delicious! I think China is expanding my taste horizons, which I am very excited about. The UW kids and I also went on a field trip to Zigong, the Salt Capital of China to go to the Salt Museum and the Dinosaur Museum. If you have not read Mark Kurlansky's SALT, do. It is an excellent read and it talks all about Sichuan and this place, Zigong, which has been producing salt for millions of years. The Chinese people were salt pioneers and alot of cool inventions and innovations came out of the Ziong salt wells, like using natural gas to heat the evaporation pans or new well drilling technology. We went to see the Shenghai Well, one of the only remaining old wells, which is still functional and producing salt. This well is just over 1000 meters deep (amazing for how old it is) and they drop a big, hollow iron pole down that has a catch at the bottom to hold the brine in. Then they reel the pole back up and release the catch to get the brine out, then they do it again. The brine is then transported up to the processing area where natural gas burners still heat giant stone evaporation pans. There was salt in different stages of completion and salt grime was everywhere! It was really cool to see though.
Then we went to the Dinosaur Museum, which was less cool, but very fun. Kind of like a really hastily done dinosaur Disney land. There were lots of fossils, but with the usual Chinese hilarity. They named all the dinosaurs funny things like "Sichuanosaurus Zigongensis" and "Giantspikosaurus". The best part was this giant rubber mechanized triceratops that you could put 5 kuai coins in and it would move and poop out this little egg. Laura and I paid to do it, but it wouldn't poop out the egg so the lady came over and gave us a bunch more coins, but after like 3 tries and still nothing she reached her hand up the dinosaurs butt and pulled out the offending egg. The egg could be folded out into a dinosaur transformer sort of thing, very similar to something you would get in a Happy Meal.
For the rest of the time in China I am just trying to take it one day at a time and have fun. My mind literally cannot handle thinking about going home right now.
But, whether I'm ready for it or not, I am coming home in no time at all and really I can't wait! I'm so excited to see everyone! I just know I'll miss China when I go, which is a good thing.