Follow the dream doesn't mean leave the love

Ok, so I know it’s been a really long time since I have blogged. In my defense, I’ve had a lot going on. In the past month, I was sworn-in as a Peace Corps volunteer (no longer just a trainee!) I passed my language proficiency interview with an intermediate low (this is what we were shootin’ for), moved to a new city and started my teaching job. So there has been a whole lot of apartment shopping (I bought a goldfish), lesson planning and friend-making going on in my life.
If it is any consolation, ya’ll have been on my mind a lot these days. I dedicated the name of this blog entry to an Atmosphere song that talks up the Midwest, specifically the northern portion. People seem surprised when I refuse to concede that anywhere they come from could be cooler than Wisco. All you Wisconsinites know what I’m talking about. They’ve obviously never boated on Wissota, floated on the Chippewa, drank margaritas at Cancun while obliterating an entire bowl of ranchero dip (with salsa mixed in obv), gotten crazy at Country Fest, stumbled down Water Street at night, then woke up and nursed their hangover with a sexy chai latte at The Nucleus while obnoxiously recapping the previous night with their friends, wandered the halls of the capital, driven to Weavers in the fall just because they wanted to see the leaves changing along Hwy 12, seen a car turned into a raft for fat far, danced the night away at Shenans (when you’re in the mood for the worst pop music) or The Mousetrap (when you’re in the mood for some local folksy band). And on and on and on… and they’ve never met you guys. So yea, don’t think that my lack of blogging = me not missing you all like crazy.
One of the classes I teach is an oral English course for freshman. I just started this course and for the first lesson, an introduction-filled 90 minutes, the students had an opportunity to ask me questions about myself. One girl raised her hand and said something along the lines of “my hometown is really, really far away and I miss my family very much. How do you deal with being so far away from your friends and family?” You all know what a bleeding heart I am and that bleeding heart just completely melted. I tried to explain that I’ve been trying to make a life here for myself but that I miss my family a lot too. I also did an activity where the students had to choose one word to describe them. She chose “nostalgic.” I totally hear ya girl.
However, I love it here too. I have a great group of friends to hang out with, which I suppose is all I really need to be happy anywhere. I’m surprised at how much I actually enjoy teaching. My students are really, really sweet. There is something a little surreal about graduating university and then three months later teaching university-level courses. I’m teaching a Greco-Roman Myth course…. A course that I actually took a few years ago.
We just celebrated Mid-Autumn festival here. The biggest thing to say about this festival is that people give each other this pastry-ish thing called a mooncake. To put this simply, mooncakes are interesting. They can be filled with strawberries, grapes, pork, beef, and so on and so on. I’m pretty sure that there are very few things that you can think of that have not been baked into a mooncake at some point. My university gifted me some that are filled with some mysterious but amazing substance. I’ve chosen not to dig too deeply into figuring out what exactly is inside. Talk about life lessons I’ve learned since coming to China …sometimes I’m better off not knowing exactly what it is I’m eating. Some of my students shot me a “Merry Mid-Autumn Festival” text… it was nice to know they like me. I mean, of course they like me, but I appreciated the thought.