Update: Mood Lately

Recently I think I have hit the bottom of the Cultural Rollercoaster here in China. Which means two things: Everything only goes up from here, and that right now may be one of the harder times while being abroad. It doesn't help that Christmas is coming up soon either!
Factors for this low point:
1). Catching a cold
2). The cold weather (which I am not accustomed to, I am spoiled by Southern California)
3). Language barrier (people may erroneously think I speak perfect Chinese, but I still have so much more to learn and this weighs on me)
4). Christmas!

I notice that I am in a good mood when I am out and about with my friends, but for some reason when I am at school in the morning before lunch, or out and about with my host family I feel a little less than miserable. Most of the time I am with my friends. I wish it wasn't like this, but it is.

Last weekend I was feeling "particularly shit" (as my British friends like to describe bad moods). I woke up late on a Saturday morning feeling ill and tired. I also felt bored. I stayed at home even though my family wasn't there. I felt like I should wait for them, although they hadn't even told me what they were doing/where they had gone/when they would return.
Two o'clock in the afternoon rolled around and I decided to get out of the house. I called my British friend Frances, who said she was heading to the only Starbucks in the area. This place has become my "de-saddifying" center. In the comfort of the cushy chairs, heating, the familiar smell of coffee, and Christmas music we discussed our day.
Just before I had left for Starbucks my host father had called me inviting me to their other apartment in Chongqing for dinner (they have three, I live in one, which they bought just for me). He asked me to take a taxi....which would cost at least 30 yuan (which is costly for a taxi, when the starting fee is 5 yuan). So I waited for a taxi. They were all full. I bailed. I wasn't in the mood to be there anyway. I had a feeling all I would end up doing is watching TV. I called my father again and asked for a busstop to show a fake willingness to go. He admitted that he didn't know of any buses that went to the neighborhood nearby that apartment.
I politely said that it just wasn't going to work out because I was feeling ill and I didn't want to walk anymore, or walk with effort looking around for a busstop. Unfortunately he didn't undertsand, and asked me to reconsider. I asked him to give me 45 minutes. All of that time I spent at Starbucks with Frances discussing the situation. I think I would have gone bonkers if Frances hadn't been there! She talked me through the decision process: stay home and have dinner with friends at a restaurant a stone's throw from my house, or go see my family.
I opted to stay home.
Don't think I am a jerk though! After Starbucks I arrived home to find my Grandma waiting for me. She was going to take me to the other apartment. I told her that I was not feeling up to it, and with the aid of a piece of paper and a pencil everything was sorted. I wrote down what I said, as I said it, to make myself clearer. Straight away she gave my father a phonecall. I burst out laughing, because my Grandmother sounds like a Jawa from Star Wars (Youtube them if you don't know what they are).
She sat down on the brown sofa in the living room and picked up the Chongqing Daily Newspaper. "No relationship, don't worry." (The expression "No relationship" is the literal translation of a phrase that really means no problem). Relieved I asked in some of the local dialect "And what are Little Brother, Mother and Father doing?" She looked up from behind the paper and peered at me through her tiny wire-rimmed glasses. Her hair is black and shiny, she dyed it before the family took their most recent group photo. "Little Brother is playing badminton, and Mother is sick in bed~o." The added extra "~o" is a particle added at the end of a sentence to show that you are saying something with endearment.
Yet again I was relieved. If I had wasted that time and money to go to the apartment, I really would have just ended up watching TV.
"Come here," my grandma patted the empty space on the sofa near her. "You should try and read this, it will help you with Chinese!" she encouraged me, holding her hand out to another copy of the newspaper. (We get two different editions of the paper everyday, they aren't evening or morning editions...so I am pretty sure one is economics and the other is well, other). She proceeded to explain the headlines to me. She read them aloud slowly and asked me to follow along. Recently the Chinese Newspapers have had complete editions dedicated to the massacre in India, and so I learned new words like "unexpected attack" (袭击) and the sentence structure for "So-and-so was shot dead by so-and-so." I should find this useful I think.
No, but I really did enjoy spending this time with my Host Grandmother while I was waiting for my friends to pick me up for dinner. I think she had a good time too, because we discussed the current events. She told me how China is so much better than it was when she was little.
As it turns out we both had to leave at the same time because she was meeting with my Host Grandfather for dinner. The pair of them rarely spend time with each other! When my friends invite me to dinner my Host Grandmother encourages me to go because she knows she can seize the opportunity to spend time with him. My Host Grandfather takes care of my Little Brother's cousin, while my Host Grandmother cooks, cleans, washes the flat I live in. AND she picks up my Little Brother from school.
The dinner with friends and the time spent with my Host Grandmother definitely made me feel better that day.

Thankfully there are a few distractions coming up soon:
1). Returning to Shanghai for Christmas
2). Going to Beijing with my AFS coordinator and another AFS'er from Chongqing