EPIPHANY TIME

"Money on My Mind" by Sam Smith came on just as I began to write this post, which is appropriate because of what I am about to write.

I think that China has already influenced my career choices quicker than I had expected. Before I came here, my plans were to become sophisticatedly fluent, enough to communicate in the business/politics world, go to college and major in economics, get a master's degree in business, and become an international businesswoman. The main goals of this career choice was to make a million dollars per year, have three mansions/penthouses around the world, and to be able to travel around the world as much as I did with my dad when I was a little girl. Since I became freshman class president, I started to become transfixed with this idea of having a lot of power over people (not to say that I had any power over anyone whatsoever during freshman year. I just liked to pretend that I was in charge of all 660 students in my class), and I became very competitive about my grades, which turned into a subconscious desire to be the best of the best not necessarily just in school, but beyond. That all changed the day after my mental breakdown.

There are some things that China has taught me about my previously established goals. What had kickstarted my epiphany is what Ms. Becker told me during my flurry of emotion. The thing about my goals is that it's not that they were unreachable, but that I was setting myself up for misery in the sense that any time I have a setback, I will become stressed to a point of breaking. Another thing is that I realized is that being the smartest person in the world is not only impossible, nor will it make me a better person. School Year Abroad is ridden with smarties whose intellectual capacities greatly surpass mine, which means I have to accept that I am not going to be near the top anymore, as I was at Salinas High. Having to accept this fact forced me to think about what else I have to offer. Athletic ability was most certainly out of the question, as it has always been since day 1. Of my life. I thought about the defining factors of people, and I realized one of the main factors was the way that they treated others (to sound as un-cliché as possible). Even though that does sound cliché, it is what makes them who they are (oh god so cliché). I decided that I am going to take my extreme level of competitiveness and aim it towards being a better person (I CAN'T STOP), because I would rather be known as a good person rather than the girl who can't control her emotions because of the pressure she puts on herself to succeed therefore causing her to take it out on the people around her.

A second factor in my change of heart was that calculus made me realize that I am not good enough at math to become an economics major. I had to reevaluate my purpose. What was I good at? What do I like to do? What do I actually want to do in life? After several minutes of thinking on the bus home, I came down to the answer that I've had all along (well, since seventh grade): photojournalism. Photojournalism has the answers to all of the questions which I had stated above and thought about while holding my rolling backpack for balance on the bus. 1) I believe that I am good at photography, and writing. I believe this because people tell me that I am, or else I wouldn't say so. 2) I absolutely love taking pictures, and I have for the past four years. Ever since my dad gave me his old Canon 10D during October of seventh grade, I fell in love with the art. There's nothing better or cooler than capturing moments that can't always be remembered by memory. In just a fraction of a second, a piece of history is saved forever. How much cooler can that get??? Probably a lot cooler to many other people but let me have my moment. I have also loved to write since 4th grade, when I got a journal for Christmas. Ever since then, I've gone through about 5 journals, but until now I haven't really been able to express my writing to so many people, and I like writing even more than before. 3) What better career choice than to combine the two together? And as I stated before, the main goal was to travel, which is something that is basically in the job description of photojournalism. The other part of the original plan was to make a ton of money, which is highly unlikely. But that leads me to my third point.

The third way that China influenced me to change my goals is the lifestyle of people here. One night, I went out to dinner with my mom in an outdoor restaurant. The floors were dirt, the chairs were of cracked plastic, the tables were all a little bit dusty, and a couple of stray puppies were running around. The people, men wearing dirty white tank tops and slippers telling stories and laughing and their children, who were chasing each other around in their underwear, seemed as joyful and happy as they could be. It was the opposite of glamorous, yet the humble lifestyle of those people, and many others in Beijing, is what made me realize that being able to go out to five star restaurants every night clearly isn't the key. Making millions did not seem as important anymore after that night. "I don't have money on my mind" anymore, as Sam Smith stated (I'm sorry that the way this portion ended in relation to the beginning was the most anti climactic way possible for it to end but it was too perfect to pass up).

Now that that's over with, my style of writing will now become just a tiny bit less self-centered. As I stated before, our class went to the Great Wall. Quick fact about the Great Wall: it is not one continuous wall. There are several sections of it. The section that we went to, of which the name I already forgot, had very few other tourists. There's not much I can say about the wall itself besides that it was incredible, just as I suspected. Our group was pretty spread out for most of the time, but we managed to get the official class picture of SYA China 2015. For half of the time, a female seller, a short, pudgy woman whose tanned skin was wrinkled and looked like she was in her mid fifties followed me and only me around, insisting that I bought some of her paraphernalia all because I showed a little bit of interest in a t-shirt that she had. She tried selling it to me for 80 kuai, which is incredibly overpriced. I told her I'd take it for 30, and she was exasperated at this. I had originally planned on not getting anything at all that day but she finally brought it down to 30 and in admiration of her persistance and me thinking I got a good deal and also because I simply grew fond of her, I bought the stinkin shirt, which says "The Great Wall of China" in Chinese and English. My American naivety made me think I had gotten a good deal because I then found out that someone had gotten one for 15 kuai. 

I got home at around 5 PM and took the subway to meet some friends for dinner. The subway was a little bit scary because I had never ridden it by myself and I had to make 3 stop changes, but everyone around me was able to easily point me in the right direction. It was right before I got off the final stop to Sun Li Tuan, which is where the restaurant was, when I checked my purse only to find that it was about .5 lbs lighter. My body temperature dropped and my heart started racing and tears welled up in my eyes when I realized the fact of the matter: I had been pick pocketed, and my wallet was gone forever. That morning, I had withdrawn Y1000, or $166, too. My debit card, school IDs, drivers license, and 3 gift cards which all have less than $2 left on them are in the possession of a thief. My friends offered to cover me for dinner, but I had lost my appetite. It was about time to get a new wallet, anyway.

In other news, I started my English class on Wednesday. I taught the first 12 letters of the alphabet to some hilarious old ladies, which I guess is good enough to get me in the newspaper.

In case you don't know what I look like, I'm the one on the far right. I know I'm not wearing the SYA shirt like everyone else but that's because I went home before they took pictures, so they asked me to send in a headshot. Now all of China knows an alumni from Charles E. Teach Elementary. Go Tigers!

It's 1:49 am, which is a good time for me to sleep since I took a 4 hour nap today. We only have 1 day of school this week, because our school wide sports day, sports meaning track and field and the jump rope game, in which I am participating, is on tuesday, and our week long October break starts on Wednesday. Hooray for being Chinese.