FUN WITH HOUSING CRISES

My month off wasn't exactly the scholarly idyll I had hoped for. A few days after Spring semester ended Jessica and I ran into the landlord in the courtyard and asked when he could come over to negotiate August rent and extend our lease through the summer. We had discussed the matter several times with him and while I knew there would be a wrangle over how much more we would have to pay during the Olympics (nervous about it, I had actually done a practice run of the negotiation process in class), I never doubted that he wouldn't extend the lease. I should have. The greedy Mr. Li informed us that evening in the courtyard that our lease ran out the first week of July and after that it would be taken over by an agency which was doubling the rent for both July and August. Even if I could have swung this, I couldn't have stayed. Mr. Li offered to allow us to move to a three bedroom he had in a building elsewhere, which would be more than triple the current rent for both months (never mind that the Olympics only lasts 2 weeks). Rent would also have to be paid through the first week of September, even though I'm leaving in the middle of August. We were told this was a requirement because of the police registration system for foreigners but I don't buy it.

When we got the bad news, Jessica was three days away from heading home to the U.S. and I was four days away from welcoming my new roommate Tiffany, to whom I had promised housing for the summer. Needless to say it was a terrible, terrible time to go looking for places. I'll spare you the gory details, but should you wish to understand better I refer you to the collage above, which I made to express my feelings about being in the middle of the great Olympic housing crisis (you can make your own here. Thanks Moxie!).

The turtle is a symbolic representation of my pal Dan, who as it turned out, still had some space in his 4-bedroom apartment for the summer after some roommates left. I have not actually insisted that he fight the dragon-landlord in order to bring me the key, but I'd be cool with it if he wanted to.

I'm still looking for two more places to live for next year in Bloomington: one for myself and another for a Chinese teacher here who will be teaching at IU next year so. The crisis isn't quite over but the worst of it probably is. I'm going to miss this big beautiful apartment very much but right now I am itching to get out, hating this waiting time when you don't feel at home because you know you have to leave soon and dreading a weekend of moving via suitcases and taxis. Every morning this week I've left the house with another plant that was just a sprout when I got here in September. A few I've given to teachers, others I've left in places around the building hoping someone will discover them and take them home.

As I told my teacher this week 在每个人的生活中,倒霉和幸运是平衡的 (within each person's life, fortune and misfortune are balanced -- and no Pops, I didn't get that from watching Kung-Fu Panda). I keep reminding myself of that and hoping that it is true, particularly lately, when it hasn't seemed that there is much to be happy about. This year is beginning to take shape in my mind as I will remember it, a blur of books, beverages, 漢字, and greasy vegetables, bookended by the symmetries of arrival and departure. Dan's apartment is in the same complex and the very same building as the first place we signed a lease for 10 long months ago but had to back out of. Every time I go there I remember the terror of the first week of being here and I remember thinking my life was going to be centered in that building. Summer semester has begun and almost everyone around me is a stranger once again. It's hot and sticky and lager is oddly delicious.

And symmetrical or not the best news of all is that Mark is on his way.