You can take your red rubber stamp and ...

I have filled out their documents in triplicate and quadruplicate. I have affixed at least a dozen small, unflattering photos of myself to various forms. I have made an estimated 999 photocopies of my passport to submit to various bureaus whose authority I couldn't even begin to guess at. I have registered at the local police station to get the appropriate red rubber stamps to take to the provincial government to get the proper red rubber stamps to register with the Foreign Experts Bureau (yes, I am a Foreign Expert, OK? Quit the snickering) to get my residence card, which I will then take back to the government and the police to prove something or other. I have been warned repeatedly that screwing up any step in this process, even inadvertently, will mean I am not legal. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it's been repeated so often and in such ominous tones that I gather it's not something I want to discover.

We met the Dean of something or other today, and he gave us our teaching schedules (and yes, I believe there was a red rubber stamp on that as well). Despite being assured that we wouldn't have any writing classes, we were assigned writing classes. We pointed out that we hadn't prepared for that. "I think ..." the Dean said, touching his steepled fingers to his lips and gazing up at the ceiling. "It is OK." Oh. Hard to argue with that.

Unfortunately, the apparent cosmic okay-ness did not last through the day. I got another red rubber-stamped document from the university to take down to the China Telecom office, hoping to finally get my Internet set up. An hour later, as the Telecom guy was still frowning at his computer, my passport and University letter clutched in his hand, I asked the student assigned to help with this task if everything was OK. He smiled encouragingly. "I don't think so," he whispered back. Much later, I was told that it wasn't working today. What exactly wasn't working (his computer? his frickfrackety red rubber stamp? the whole Internet?) was never made clear. They promised to call me whenever it was working, though. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

When I got home, I discovered that my phone service had been disconnected. Ha! Joke's gonna be on them when they try to call to tell me my Internet is working!

OK, so all this sounds like a preamble to another "I hate China" lament. It's not! I absolutely love Xining. The weather is great. The people are great. The food is fantastic (don't worry, I
found another baozi lady). My apartment is ... well, special. There's no shower, or water in the bathroom sink; I've been scrubbing the kitchen for days with chemicals so intense my hands started peeling 15 minutes after I first started using them and there are still several layers of grime to get through; my bed is essentially a mattress pad on a board; and, most irritating, the pictures of cartoon dogs that someone has glued to all the windows are nigh on impossible to scrape off. BUT, there are no cockroaches, and no special room filled with yak dung (that's how one of my fellow vols is expected to keep warm this winter: burning his supply of yak dung in the stove. He also has to pay $1 every time he wants a shower, which is located down the street and shared by the rest of the village). So I'm not complaining.

I'll post photos of my apartment as soon as I get the place presentable.