MissUMana wrote:
@PureElegance : I don't know what other people think, but I'm going to greatly miss your live-in-China reports, so I don't want you to fly back either.
Thank you ^_^ Oh believe me, I don't want to go back either! I'm so happy here. I was just talking to my friend in the US on the phone, and I told her about this moment that I had right after the Banco Santander brunch... I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but something changed inside me. I suppose it was the extra confidence and the other things that happened so unexpectedly, but I knew the moment something in my mentality and perspective changed for the better. I felt calm about it too, even though it was a hard thing to change. I danced in my room that night to Diana Vickers, haha. I've been happy this entire time I've been here, but the change I felt that night is an added bonus!
I haven't felt this way in so long!
You know that feeling when you're so confident about something, but then the seed of doubt gets planted and you start to slowly completely doubt yourself?
It's funny because I can tell when it's happening. Yesterday we went to Ajisen Ramen, and I always get the same thing, braised beef noodle soup. We connect our tables, but we're separated into a group of girls at one long table and guys on the other, and I'm not sure how that happened. Some of us get our food, and I wait for mine to cool.
These girls, Dorothy and Kira, ask if this is my food. I said I'm pretty sure this is my food because I order it all the time. They keep asking me about it, they also say it might be Dorothy's, and I say I'm sure this is my food. But then I start to wonder. Is this actually my food? I thought it was; it looked like what I always ordered. Their questions died down, I started feeling unsure of myself, and I began nibbling. The beef started to look unfamiliar. The seed of doubt was planted.
Then they start asking me again if I'm sure that's beef in my soup. Is it pork, they also ask. I begin to get flustered and slightly annoyed because I was sure this was my food, but now I'm losing confidence. I sit there staring at it, wondering if it's pork, and all of a sudden Strickland, from across the long table, asks seriously, "Adela, is that your food?" and I go, "I thought so..." and he just says, "Then eat it." I was taken aback by how serious he was and I wasn't sure how to respond to that but looked around. Again he asks from across the table, "Adela, is that your food?" I say I'm pretty sure it is and he goes seriously, "Then eat your food." I get all "Okay okay!" and start eating it and the girls immediately stopped badgering me. I'm so glad he did that because knowing myself I would've sat there and kept feeling flustered.
I'm going to a Peruvian restaurant "Ceviche" tomorrow with my friend because when I went with my mom it was AMAZING. AMAZING. While we were eating lomo saltado, my mom remembered her childhood and I recalled the days in Trujillo, riding on the back of a date's motorcycle on the Buenos Aires beach, exploring Chan Chan, waking up to giant windows, eating at small restaurants, La Rosa Nautica. She couldn't believe we were in Shanghai eating amazing Peruvian food, haha. It's the best Peruvian food I've had outside of Peru by far.