5 Days of Moving

Day One: August 24th
4.10 a.m.
It is 4 a.m., there's a thunder storm outside and Snow Patrol is playing on my laptop.
I binged from 5 to 8 but somehow I don't feel full now- but I don't feel so good either.
I can't sleep so I'm up packing.
It feel's strange taking my room apart.
Today's the Olympic closing.
Today will be my moving day.

1.40 p.m.
I wake up to the sound of the phone in my dormitory ringing.
It is Roxie and she is irritated, we only have one key to the new apartment and it's with me. I was supposed to be in the apartment moving my things in. She comes over and I hand it over.

2.30 p.m.
I need boxes to move my stuff with so I set out to the supermarket to ask for some.
Once outside the dorm, I step almost automatically into a non-licensed cab (or "black car" -the car was green but that's not the point) and found myself calling up the nail salon in Wudaokou to make a quick appointment.
10 minutes later, I am in the basement nail salon with a Starbucks Coffee of the Day.
2 hours later,I walk out rigidly with my finger and toe nails painted a matching shimmery black.

5p.m.
The landlord is late.

I decide to move my stuff over myself instead of paying RMB 300 to a moving company and take a taxi back to the university and haul three quarters of my kitchenware over and up four flights of stairs.
The taxi driver bitches all the way about not wanting his precious car to be treated like some kind of truck. I thank him quickly and repeatedly to shut him up.
The landlord brought over another guy to fix up the wireless system for us. He watches me unload my 15++ bottles of herbs and spices and eyes my oven curiously. I suppose he thinks I'm quite a freak, but he doesn't say anything. I am given my set of keys-or rather-one key- to my new home and a ride back to my dorm.

7.40p.m.
My room looks like a hurricane hit it and I don't feel like staying in it.
I head down 5 floors to Mil's room to use her internet.
The closing ceremony didn't sound very interesting and the only time I glanced at the TV I saw tons of happy smiling athletes and irrelevant Chinese kids, each more un-cute than the other.

11.20p.m.
At Lush with Mil, a little tipsy from a Corona and some Tsingtaos, but nowhere near as drunk as the guy on stage for the Open Mic. It appears that he was getting free Coronas, the lucky bastard. Too bad I can't sing.
I don't feel like going to work tomorrow. Nor do I feel like moving.
The two of us walk and ramble back to the dorm.

Day Two: August 25th
9 a.m.
I call in sick from work, hop out of bed and wander around downstairs looking for an unlicensed car that's big enough for moving things with. The van that I see sometimes is nowhere to be found.
I curse the odd-even number road system and settle for a medium sized car.
I pay the guy RMB20 to help me move the stuff, but I have to haul it all up to the fourth floor myself.
I don't know why I don't call someone up to come and help me.
It's one of my defects, I never really figured out one ask for help.
Come to think about it, the only time I've ever asked for help from friends was last summer when I got my leg so badly cut that I couldn't really walk and needed someone to take me to the hospital for stitches.
I guess I burn more calories this way.

7p.m.
I've traveled back and forth the apartment and my dorm, hauling all sorts of things up the godforsaken stairs for the third time now.
There's still a whole bunch of odds and ends left in my dorm room, and some big items.
I have no idea how to pack that stuff.
I start tossing things I'm not taking with me underneath the bed.
I can't believe how much papers and junk I was keeping.
And notes from classes that I forgot I ever took.
Perhaps I am skipping a little too much.

Day Three: August 26th
7.30p.m.
I go back to the dorm after work and I've got all my stuff lined up near the doorway and ready to go.
I stuck a colored poster advertising the sale of my fridge, bookcase,bedside table, tv bench and curtains.
The fridge looks dirty and I start to clean it.
The freezer shelf has a thick layer of ice over it and I don't feel like waiting for it to melt in case a prospective buyer wanted it right away.
With a pair of scissors I start to stab at the ice but don't really make much of a dent in the ice block.
The floor beneath the fridge is getting wet.

8.00p.m.
I get my first customer.
And he's interested in the bedside table. After some thoughts about whether it would fit into his room, he fetches a skateboard and wheels it away.
Later, he returns with cash and a table knife and shows me the right way to hack off the freezer ice in chunks.
He's nice and pretty interesting. We chat a bit and hack away more ice.
I decide that French Canadians are okay.
It is nice to have company at any rate.

8.30p.m.
It's pouring outside. I suppose this is a message from a higher power telling me that I need to stay in the dorm for one more night. So I do.

Day Four: August 27th
7.20p.m.
Return to room from work to greet two customers.
The first is a middle aged Japanese guy who takes the bookcase.
The second is a group of young French speakers-an Asian girl, a blonde guy and a brunette.
They haggle with me for the fridge in Chinese.
There's something really unnatural about being haggled with in Chinese by someone who is blonde and blue eyed. I feel ruffled and insecure.
The guy obviously wanted the fridge but insisted on pushing for 10 kuai less, which pissed me off and brought out the competitive part of me.
I do not end up selling the fridge and am stuck with it for yet another day.

8.30p.m.
I get the unlicensed car driver that drove me to the apartment on Monday to come over and help me move again.
This move was easy because I didn't have as much stuff and the heaviest thing I had to carry was the water cooler.

10.00p.m.
Roxie tells me she's spending the night at her parent's house so it looks like I've got the place to myself for the night.

11.30p.m.
I am unreasonably hungry and there is nothing to eat.
I venture out to the convenience store and buy yogurt and almonds.
It occurs to me that I have grown too comfortable with campus life and am ignorant of the dangers of the outside world.
My steps quicken when I walk past a perceivably shifty looking guy.
I eat my food while watching Hillary's endorsement speech on youtube.
The speech is amazing and she's a fantastic woman.
I shouldn't have eaten in the middle of the night.

2a.m.
It appears that the shower water comes only in Too Hot or Too Cold.

Day Five: August 28th
5p.m.
I decide to hell with it and text the French speakers to tell them that they can have the fridge if they're still interested.

7.20p.m.
The fridge is moved away and I empty the dorm room of all the things I want to take with me.
The TV bench is the only furniture left, and I take it to Ivy's room,which is two buildings away.

8.00p.m.
I am pissed off with the central housing management in Building 19.
I learn that I need to fill in a form to state that I am moving out of school and it needs to have a stamp from the foreign students office-which closed hours ago.
No one informed me of this throughout my 4days of hauling things around.
I get into a heated argument with the bitchy woman at the counter who refused to take any responsibility for their neglect to inform me.
A bunch of Korean students who were obviously just moving in stare at me in bewilderment.
I don't know why I got so uptight about it. I guess I'm just sick of moving, I wanted it to be over with and now I have to wait yet another day.


10p.m.
Drinks at Propaganda with a new friend. Propaganda's reopening signals the fact that things are getting back to normal in Beijing again. Clubs are reopening, beggars and peddlers resppearing, it feels good to know that.