Different cultures, different lives - ohhh so exciting

I didn't write that much about my trip to Beijing last year at the time. Funnily enough, although the reason I set up this blog originally was as a travel blog, I have ended up writing perhaps the least when travelling. There are so many things to see, to experience, to enjoy that the time feels too short often to find an internet access and submit an entry. And once back from the travels, often it feels a bit too late. So the blog has ended up less as a travel blog and more just a personal blog for my life in Geneva. Hopefully this will change the day I set out for my one-year long travel...

All this to lead into an entry about Beijing and Chinese people with more than a years delay. These thoughts are brought on by my dear boyfriend currently being in China for 2 weeks and hence writing and telling me about what he is experiencing on a daily basis. He loves it! Like I did! It is also brought on by the experience of some friends who happen to be travelling in China at the same time although they have been there a lot longer. They do not seem that happy. Actually in one of the last entries one of them, E, wrote that she hates it and that she cannot wait to leave. It seems that we experience things differently. What my lovely N and I seem to take as an interesting cultural difference, such as the constant attention one gets, E and M are taking differently. Perhaps it's because they have been there for more than a month now and it has worn them weary, perhaps it is just different ways of perceiving life.

For me Beijing was a great experience. I loved it so much that I wished someone would offer me a job there for a year or so to allow me to live there and really explore everything!

And I did not find the Chinese rude. When my mother and I walked down one of the main streets in Beijing, but one a little bit off the tourist paths where you hardly see any foreigners, people would stare and smile, children point and laugh. I took this as a positive thing. I understand them completely; we must have looked like aliens to them - both of us taller than many of the men, me very blond, my mum with white hair, fair skin, foreign - we look so different.

However, to tell a short story, not so many years ago, approx. 30, when my cousin then aged 5 moved to Paris with her family, she soon decided to wear a bonnet the whole year around as people wouldn't stop touching her very blond hair. This was hence the way Parisians behaved seeing a Swedish very blond child 30 years ago! For me therefore, it seems very logical that the Chinese stare when seeing European people 30 years later. And at least they are well behaved enough not to come up and touch our hair :D

As for the friendliness, we encountered it almost everywhere! From the taxi driver who couldn't understand our map (tip: get a map with Chinese characters on it as many people do not seem to be able to read a map but the taxi drives know what different streets are called) but tried his best to help us, even getting a police man to come with his map so that I could point out the right street there, to the hole in the wall restaurant in on of the Hutongs where the staff only spoke Chinese and the menu was in Chinese, but where they found someone they knew to come and help us order and we ended up having on of the best meals for hardly any money.

Sure there were some rude people around. And yes, we did walk out of one restaurant where we didn't really feel welcome. But people being rude to us happened perhaps twice in 8 days, while when in Paris in August this happened at least twice in 2 days! (Yes, Paris as the example again - it seems that I cannot get away from it ;)

I loved Beijing, and I am longing for the day I can go back and visit Beijing again and discovering some of the rest of the country! If you do go, try to enjoy the cultural differences as much as you can! That's the fun part of travelling to places far away from yours - people act differently than to home, life is different than to home and that's what's soooo amazing!

Autumn

Today was a lazy day of staying inside, making scones for breakfast (super yummy with goat cheese and honey miam), a sticky chocolate cake and pumpkin soup for a lovely dinner with a friend (with candles lit for the first time after the summer), and unpacking 2 boxes of winter clothes to repack them with summer clothes. Autumn is really here now, although it feels as cold as January outside with a maximum temperature of 10 degrees and la bise blowing freezing cold winds. The summer has packed up and left abruptly after a slightly prolonged stay. To be missed dearly and longed for, although days of beautiful snow and great skiing will lessen the memory slightly.

Today was a lazy day indeed. A day when I felt very happy not to be a swan ;)

Children? Yes, but not right now please

I want children one day, this is clear. But this day is not now, nor for the next couple of years actually. A pregnancy right now would completely alter my plans. And yes, I have heard how pregnancies have a tendency to happen when it's not the perfect time, while when it is the perfect time, people tend to wait for months or years without any results.

But still, this would so not be the right time as I am finally, after more than 7 years of talking, dreaming, planning, hoping and wishing for it, getting close to my dream of taking a year off and travel around the world! Less than a year left now until I set sail, a third of the money saved up (well half of the minimum recommended, but I want a safety buffer) and the dream is now approaching reality!

So although I one day really want children and cannot imagine a life without, right now would soooo not be the time. And hence I have the feeling every month that perhaps, just because now is not the time, now will be the time. Perhaps one has to have gone through some of the things I have to understand the fear when the period is a few days delayed, or as today, even a few hours delayed. And no, it should not be possible. But yet, I have heard stories of others who should not have been possible, have a couple of mini cousins running around proving that what should and should not be possible is a fluid concept.

Call me paranoid and I will answer your call, for this I am paranoid, but luckily my fear was once again proven wrong and my travel plans and dreams can continue, at least for another month :)

Financial reporting...

Working late after another day of difficulties concentrating at work. One reason, my tiredness. Antoher, the boring task ahead as I have to prepare the mid-term report for my biggest project and on today's agenda is the financial report. Urgh. Usually it's boring but quite a fast task. But with 8 organisations involved plus workshops and other costs, this one is a bit of a mess...

And somehow I wonder if this is the reason why I did 6 years of international studies? Do I really need a Masters degree to put together a financial report? Well, perhaps. But rather in finance than in history and politics surely... Do I need to speak 3 languages fluently for this? Especially since none of them is Mathematics ;)

Ahhh the joys of life and of my wonderfully boring job. Another year only, another year!!

In the meantime, and as an advantage of working late and being able to play music at work, at least I am now working while jazzing to some Erykah Baduizm! Yeah :D

New lunch company

Since my lunch buddy is out of the city for a week, I decided to get a new lunch friend:

This one wanted my food though, and finally managed to chase me away by almost coming up in my face even after the sandwich was finished and the bag thrown away. Luckily neither my cousin nor my friend A were there as they are both scared of birds!

Thyroditis, TSH at 5.7

In fact, if I remember correctly I never wrote anything about my last doctor's appointment to check up on my hypothyroidism problem. I'm supposed to go for a check-up every 6 months approximately and the last one was at the end of May. Normal discussion with the doctor asking me how I'm feeling, if anything has been bothering me. I, of course, tried to sound as convincing as possible when telling him that I feel just great. No problems really. Eeeh... Does that happen to you to? I can think about all the things that have not been great in the last few months, how this hurts, or how tired I am, or... But then in front of the doctor's question it's like if I am trying to pass an exam for the healthiest person alive. Of course I'm feeling good. I'm just peachy peachy!

So perhaps there is no wonder that he then told me that everything looks good and that as long as the test results come back ok - meaning that the TSH level is still under 5, in the kind of 'grey-zone' where it had been fluctuating up and down during the previous year between 4.3 and 4.9 (4.3 being the ceiling of the so-called normal level) - I would only need to come back for the next check-up a year later and not needing any medicine until then at least.

A few weeks pass by and I finally receive my copy of the test results. With the TSH level at 5.68! Hence quite a lot higher than the 5 that the doc had put as the ceiling for the grey-zone level. So I am quite surprised when I do not hear anything from him. Another week or so passes, and then I try to call my doctor to see what's going on. Evidently I get the nurse on the phone instead and explain my preoccupation. A few days later, I have a missed call in the evening with a message from my doctor saying that according to his notes on the test results everything is fine, but perhaps I can come back for the next check-up in 6 months...

And I stand perplexed. Under 5 was supposed to mean that everything is stable. Over 5, or actually close to 6 should have deserved at least a consultation no? Not knowing if I was overreacting and everything actually was fine, if the doctor had listen to my 'everything is great' speech and decided that although the results were so and so at least I seemed to feel good, or what? As the summer was coming up and I normally feel better in the summer, I decided to wait for the 6 months and discuss it anew with him then.

But now I'm wondering if that was such a good idea. I mean, a friend of mine was diagnosed with the same problem at a level of 5.8 or so and was directly given the medicine and started to feel better within a week. She said she hadn't realised how un-normally tired she had actually been before, having the same problem as me with comments from everyone else that are tired around. And she hasn't felt any side effects. Perhaps she's lucky? But at least she got some energy back again. That sounds like heaven!

Ooo so tired, TGIF

I'm soo tired today and my neck is hurting. Happy the weekend is here but stressed because of all the things i should have done but still haven't gotten around to. The problem of being tired most of the time is that I am always late, always last minute, always stressed and it makes me even more tired. Feels like I could just lie down and sleep for a couple of weeks. Would be so nice! Do nothing else than sleep, eat, read a bit, sleep, eat....

Is this a normal feeling? It doesn't feel normal. When I look around me, people don't seem as tired as I feel, as I look. I want to blame it on my bad values at my last doctor's appointment. But at the same time I wonder if perhaps I'm just lazy and unmotivated. Every time I tell someone of how tired I am, I got the answer that it is normal. But can it really be? How can the world go forward if everyone are as tired and unproductive as I am?