Of AAARGH, PANG and YEAH!

I believe that aside from the neutral emotive position there are three key states of being.

AAARGH! This is a state of intensive frustration and annoyance - frequently felt when people cut in front of Xin on the freeway and then proceeds to drive really, really slowly - AAARGH. In these situations I am, of course, forced to tailgate, but I digress.

I had plenty of AAAARGH moments yesterday on my journey between Melbourneand Shanghai. The first was when mum used the beeping intercom system to wake me up at 4:00am after only 4 hours of sleep. I don't think she understood the concept that I thought I explained clearly - please wake me up at 4:00am because I don't want to be jarred by the alarm. So waking me up with a loud and obnoxious intercom system sort of defeated the purpose... hmm...

The second AAAARGH moment occurred when I got to Melbourne airport. Some silly Qantas staff member harried me constantly as I waited in the check in queue. "You know you're only allowed 25kg of check in luggage", "Are you sure your cabin luggage is cabin luggage size?", "I think we had better try and get it in the cabin luggage frame checker", "You know it must weigh only 7kg right", "Let's weigh your hand luggage" - phbbt, no wonder planes are so expensive and airlines are not performing well. It's not the fuel crisis it's the stupid money wasted on pointless employees!!!

Luckily my flights went relatively well - nothing to really AAARGH about until I arrived in Shanghai and queued to get through customs. And when I say queue I really mean queue - I don't think anyone has really experienced queuing until they queue for something in China. However the fact that I had to queue is not really cause for AAARGH but what really made me got AAAARGH is the fact that they had 4 queues for foreigners and 2 queues for DIPLOMATS... am I really to accept that 1/3 of all foreigners going into China on any given flight are diplomats?!? It maketh no sense!!! GRRR... and to make matters worse I was queuing behind some guy that was really sloooooooow to move up the queue when it actually did progress (GAH! I am not one for patience) but I also had 3 really, really drunk guys behind me talking obnoxiously about how much their wives love them... hmm.... now having sampled how truly bad the scotch and dry on the flight was I am not really sure how they got THAT pissed but I suppose unlimited quantities of alcohol will do it for some people... I don't think I have ever been so relieved to clear customs!!!

YEAH! is pretty self explanatory - and the best example I can give of a YEAH! moment actually happened yesterday. I saw a taxi being fined by the police as I was driving to the airport - HELL YEAH!!!

I had only one other YEAH! moment yesterday and it happened as I left Pudong airport in Shanghai. It's not cold enough here to require thermal underwear yet!!! YAY!!! *Does the happy dance* Of course it will get colder soon and will DEFINITELY be freezing when I get to Beijing but for now I am content with what I can count as a small blessing! :p

PANG is a state where there is a super tug on the heartstrings. You feel it most acutely in the twist in your gut and the cold in your heart.

I had one super, super PANG moment yesterday when I kissed Rufus (my gorgeous teddy bear) goodbye and looked around my room to realise that I would not be back here for 8 months. I left the room exactly as I would have if I was going to be back tomorrow - clothes strewn everywhere, bed awkwardly made but as I turned off the light and closed the door the fact that I really was NOT going to be back any time soon really hit me - I was really sad.

I'm really going to miss Melbourne and all my gorgeous friends there...

(not that that's going to stop me from having a ball here! :p)