100/2 Reasons May 9, 2010

Why I am grateful that you are my mother.

1.  You care.

2.  You know who the butthole surfers are (what mom knows that?).  aka that’s incredibly awesome knowledge.

3.  You encourage/support my dreams when nobody else does (sometimes not even me).

4.  You let us keep Bruiser.  All of you who express dislike of Bruiser can leave.

5.  My friends are also your friends.  This is a quality most mothers seem to be incapable of.

6.  5 albums and a drive to Idaho, I told you the Foo Fighters were good.

7.  You are really good at making the few things I am willing to eat.  You’d go nuts if you could see all the things I’ve eaten in Asia.

8.  I love to tell people that my mom is a published poet. (who can say that?)

9.  You let me be me.

10.  I promise you we will do that road trip.

11.  We clearly have the best collaborative music taste in the family.

12. I told you I was going to stop watching rated R movies and you said: “What?! No! Why?”

13.  You are in my top 3 best friends along with Bruiser and Mexican food, it’s hard list to make.

14.  You are a vegetarian, but you should really be labeled “Rebelles Végétarienne”

15.  When I served a mission I often got to say: “actually my family does eat rice, quite often.”

16.  Every time Bruiser yelps you think its my fault…hilarious

17.  One time you told me that you liked Dustin because he laughed at your jokes…

18.  For about a months time we did weekly DI shopping…maybe longer, yikes.

19.  My favorite thing you purchased at the DI was a set of sciptures (Brown Bible, black triple) with somebodies name printed on it.

20.  I promise I will take you out to lunch.

21.  Your sarcastic remarks every time Abbey and I said thanks and I love you when you bought us something.

22.  You know we love you.

23.  Suggest a musician and she has instantly purchased it on the internet.  Will she get around to listening to it?  Maybe.

24.  My mom could beat your mom in a poetry jam session.

25.  Movie trivia.

26.  Despite the Insomnia she still rises early to make sure we get to school.

27.  Don’t recall a race or game she didn’t come to.

28.  Pretty good at keeping the house stocked with fruit snacks.  Which is amazing because I eat them at an incredible rate.

29.  She cut the pickles just right for my hot dogs.  It makes a difference.

30.  What do you want from China?

31.  It’s good to have an artist prepare your food.

32.  Half of the views on my blog are probably from you.

33.  You are computer literate.

34.  You like the movies that I made.

35.  The movies you made are beautiful.  I was super proud of you.

36.  You sincerely care for people that you know and for people that you don’t.

37.  After swearing you wouldn’t shop at Target again…

38.  One time going out to hang with my friends just to show everyone how cool my mom was.  You asked where we were going and I shouted that we were going to the moon and then shut the door.

39.  You called 10 minutes later.

40.  We will sit down and talk for as long as you want/need.  I want to.

41.  School Night 11 P.M.  Me: “Mom we are going bowling at Bonwood.”  You:  “Are you sure?”  Me: “yeah.” You: “okay…”

42.  You told me we couldn’t trick or treat past 10:30…I was 18

43.  When we went to see avatar…you asked what I wanted as a treat.  I didn’t want anything because I felt it was too expensive you then sternly said:  “have you eaten anything yet today (1pmish)?”  Me: “no…” you: “ugh!…what do you want?”  I got a hot dog, sprite, and some popcorn.

44.  While serving a mission you almost didn’t tell me you were going to see Ben Folds in concert because you didn’t want to make me sad.

45.  You emailed me almost every week of my mission and kept me updated on those who were incapable of emailing.

46.  You/John let the shed exist during High School.

47.  I love you .

48.  I love you.  I love you.

49.  I love you!  I love you!.  I love you!

50.  I will try and be at the same place for the next Mother’s day.  Love Walker

Don’t forget numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50.

Xi an April 30, 2010

That is a place in China, and I am traveling there this weekend. It is suppose to be beautiful. I am traveling with two people from Taiwan and another from Macau. Don’t know what/where Macau is? It’s an island near Hong Kong. It should be fun and fairly cheap because we are staying in a hostel.
Bored yet! Well I will take a near one million pictures and probably post about 3. China’s been cool, we had testing all week and I think I did pretty good. I think two Russian girls that sat behind me during the listening test were either cheating with each other or cheating off of my paper. They were talking the whole time, shoot I would’ve copied off me, my Chinese sounds dang impressive! Just the other day when I was out buying some rice the guy yelled: “Whooaaaaa!” And then he did a double back-flip.

I was taken…on 1-2 things. April 28, 2010

I went to the company today to collect my salary as the Russians would put it and I was near a part of Beijing that is pretty popular. I am not normally in this area so I went to check it out. I walked around and saw the stuff, people kept asking me in broken English if I wanted to buy stuff, and so on. I head back to the train station to head home. To get through the train station you have to walk through a mall, and wouldn’t you know it Fang Jing is waiting right there to talk to me. Some of you may be asking: “Who is Fang Jing?” Others may be asking: “Who the hell is Fang Jing?” and of course the rest of you are asking: “Why did walker use the wording ‘wouldn’t you know it’?” Well she is just a Chinese girl that was looking for an opportunity to practice her English and lucky for her I was American and lucky for me reason
No 1. She was pretty cute
No. 2 The same age as me
No.3 We ended up speaking Chinese about 75% of the time
Her approach was maybe we can get a cup of coffee and chat-I don’t drink coffee
Haha, ok tea-I don’t drink tea, maybe soda
We end up going to a tea shop, I asked her do they have anything else I can drink? We then asked the staff.
We have coffe-I don’t drink coffee
We have tea-I don’t drink tea
We have beer-I don’t drink beer
We have wine-I don’t drink wine, I don’t drink alcohol
I then asked do you guys have chrysanthemum tea?( it is a flower tea which is ok for mormons to drink) They fortunately did. She drank the more sinful green tea while i drank my less sinful chrysanthemum tea. It wasn’t anything better than I had had before, I actually preferred the juice box version which I had drank several times in Malaysia and Singapore…I know typical Walker right.
List 2
1. She invited me to drink tea with her
2. She asked for the bill
3. When it was announced that the bill was 325 dollars she ducked her head
4. I was shocked, why the hell was this crappy tea 325 dollars
5. I motioned that we each pay for our own
6. She blurted out, “In China!…” didn’t finish, but she was going to say that the bill is paid for by one person
7. If you refer to no’s one and two you will realize she should have paid
8. She only had 50 dollars
9. I spent more money than I ever had on a beverage in my whole life…275 yuan. that’s like 40 US dollars
I came home and told my roommate about the whole experience. He thinks I was cheated on 1 or maybe even 2 accounts. The first being the girl was in cahoots with the restaurant to fool an innocent (me) foreigner. The second being she was clueless and the restaurant just cheated us. Anyhow I plan on asking my teacher if I was cheated or if there really are tea places that are that expensive. It was pretty nice inside…Nevertheless, how ridiculous is that? If my teacher said I was cheated I will either a.) burn the place down or b.)go get my money back and pee all over the floor in the bathroom.

Hmm…Baby-making April 27, 2010

I think having white people (church) friends in China is the worst idea ever. They love to spend money like they are on scholarship or have fancy jobs. I guess most of them do. Where as Chinese people are too afraid of losing face if they let you buy anything. I don’t dislike the people at the church, but they love taking taxis instead of the train and eating out at nicer places. Rich people suck! Parental units, are you guys rich? If so I exclude you in my prior statement referring to rich people. Also at the branch talent show I found myself asking questions like: “how many more years do I have to attend such events?” or, “What is the average life-span of a human being?”Or, “Why did the branch president just scold me for taking two baby-sized sandwiches?” Yeah, seriously! I had just gotten two sandwiches, baby-sized, and he just happened to be at the end of the line (what was he on sandwich patrol?) and says:”You shouldn’t have taken two sandwiches we are short on them and there are a lot of people.” Unfortunately for him I had already doused (hoping that word is used properly) my sandwiches in ranch. He then walked away and somewhat roughly tapped my side. What the hell? Later in the evening everyone went back for a second sandwich. Listen. Leadership of the church let the sandwiches be eaten by the hungry college students; that is the only reason any of us went to the cruddy talent show anyway. Number 2: you have to watch out saying that kind of stuff, I just spent 2 years listening to members complain about being offended by other members. Mormons need to do a better job of chillaxing about the sandwiches and just know that if you run out you can always go downstairs and buy some rice. Sunday the guy comes out in elder’s quorum saying we never know how much to buy for these functions…so what? You always make sure to buy not enough? Buy a whole bunch of food and let people take it home for goodness sakes somebody is bound to need it and also willing.
I am trying to get a running program started. Boy that mission sure slowed me down…I feel like I have never trained before, but feel fortunate that I know how to train. I think a lot of it is just my mind telling me I am out of shape and also I feel my mind prefers it when my body is pursuing more lazy activities. I do feel good after a good run and even some push-ups. It would really kill me if I don’t end up being awesome at least at one thing in my life, so I hope it is running. If not I will have to major in baby-making.

China Blog Picture Debut April 22, 2010

Satisfying?

The face says it all, I hope everyone will enjoy this blogs pictorial debut.

A take it eassy… April 20, 2010

For the most part I would say my job is going good. Some of the translation is really difficult, some really easy, but for the most part it is an intermediate level. Mind all of you I took this job without any training, literally i had 0 training. “We will send you some documents to translate.” I got the documents and I translated them, sent them in, no problem right? A week after starting my Russian boss calls while I am eating lunch and goes nuts, crazy yelling at me. Imagine all of the following quotes in a russian accent. You are supposed to fill out a work report everyday walker! Okay, should be no problem right, next time you hire why don’t you go ahead and inform me. (by the way i was sending in work reports to the guy i work directly under, he didn’t pass them to her). Walker you are working to slow, it has been a week already and you haven’t finished any documents! Wait, what? I gave 3 of them to Maksim (yet again the guy I work under) on the day they were due. Walker! they are suppose to have chinese and english on the same page! Hey, Zerena (boss’s name) that would have been real cool if somebody told me, I was told to translate which is what I did. Working too slow! Zerena one document had about40 chinese idioms (chinese sayings) that only a native will understand, the rest of us chumps have to look it up in a dictionary. “Oh,” zerena replies it has idiom’s. No wonder this translation took longer. So long story short, apparently they have no clue what documents they are sending me. Hopefully now that things are a little bit clearer I will never have to talk to zerena until i give her back her laptop when I quit this job in about 2 months. Even though she was incredibly rude I will keep the job for the experience. Obviously they should have told me how to do it rather than assuming I would just do it how they wanted. Crazy, huh? Is this what’s it’s like to have a real job? I don’t know if my job is real or not, I think it’s close though. My boss’s new name is Crazy Boss 3000, I think she is featured as one of the main boss’s of those old video games I used to play…

As Promised April 16, 2010

Just as I said, if I got a computer of my own I would blog more often.  Thanks to the 35 strong campaign earning a total of 0 dollars my goal was accomplished, seriously you guys really sucked that campaign up.  I decided to take the advice of Curtis and get a job(see posts on “superstar”). This job so happened to provide a laptop for me while I am here.  I am translating documents for internet computer games that you may have played before on facebook.  I translate them from Chinese to English.  Curtis I am also in search of a motor scooter to scoot my way along the streets of China.  I know it’s no car, but it gets the job done.  I work about 3 hrs a day, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.  I think it will end up looking good on a resume and I am getting paid to learn lots of new vocab.  Which is why I came here anyway right?  My blog kicks ass, goodbye.

Superstar March 10, 2010

Finally the respect I deserve.  People look at me here like I am able to do anything.  On my first day of class here when the teacher discovered I was from America I think I saw a few tears trickle from his eyes.  Always referring to me as the American student and referring to me more often than others.  It was uniform for the other teacher…maybe it’s the standard around here.  I had some Chinese guy stop me on the street and ask if I knew how to teach English or in other words if I would teach him English.  Returning to my room a girl stopped kissing her boyfriend walked away from him and started kissing me!  The perks of being an American….alright, that last one isn’t all true.  She stopped kissing him walked up to me and asked if I would tutor her in math!?  Like it’s just okay to assume I am good at math?  I told her I was horrible at math and apologized.  Some Chinese lady on a train asked me to open a bottle of water for her, said she was unable.  I instantly open it for her and realize my nephews could have opened that bottle of water and my nieces!  She was either hitting on me or is suffering from some sort of bottle opening disease.

Just arriving to walkerinchina.wordpress.com anybody and I mean anybody can leave a comment.  I think, so give it a go and tell me what you are up to.

Peanut Butter

That’s the last time I ever give Lesley 10 dollars! (see comments for 35 strong!)  I’ve fallen ill.  During class on Tuesday I wasn’t feeling well so right after class I returned home to sleep on my rock hard bed.  I woke up from that nap with a fever and a head ache.  I decided not to attend class on Wednesday, but to rest instead.  After I woke up I thought, maybe all I need is some food that I am used to.  Went to the shop on campus and wouldn’t ya know it…Peanut Butter, but no honey.  I reluctantly purchased some apple jam and some 3rd rate bread.  My roommate returned to the room 30 minutes later saying:  “Guess what I found?”  It was peanut butter.  Now none of you need to worry, I have 2 jars of peanut butter, 1 jar of jam, and I know where to buy honey.  Also I don’t feel sick anymore.

35 Strong! March 6, 2010

Started school last Wednesday.  I wish that I could have been blogging more, but I don’t have my own computer.  Which is why I have started my new campaign of 35 strong.  I don’t know or even think 35 people have read my blog.  Take it sarcastically, jokingly, seriously or all of the above.  35 strong is a campaign where 35 people contribute 10 dollars each to Lisa Bickmore which enables me to then buy a laptop.  A 36th person is very welcome to join the campaign.  The 36th however has the responsibility of sending me some peanut butter as it appears China is all out.  I looked at the same grocery store for about an hour and even looked up how to say peanut butter in my cell phone dictionary.  Turns out it’s not in the dictionary either.

Having been in China for a week now I have learned that the natural meaning of Zhong Guo(China) is; Big and Cheap.  That is not one bit true, but they should consider changing the name, right?  I have met a few people. My roommate is from Japan.  His name is willy.  He speaks pretty close to fluent Chinese with a funny accent and no english.  Which is to my advantage in learning Chinese.  We both enjoy nintendo and movies.  We watched “Get Smart” last night.  I don’t know if I am suppose to like that movie or not, but I did.

Mom please notify the world of my 35 strong campaign!