Look what landed in my inbox last night - an email from one of my students in China:
I was one of your student when you taught us writing course in Yunnan Normal University, I graduated from that university 2 years ago.I think maybe you could not remember that ,but I still want to have a try to contact with you,This is the first time I contact with you!
How trippy, it's been over three years since we were in China..!
Part of my latest amazon order arrived today, so this evening we watched China's Lost Girls, a 2004 documentary on dvd. Aaron said he was surprised to find out there are so many orphans that don't get placed for adoption - they continue to grow up in the social welfare institute. Of course, I cried all the way through because I'm a big sooky softy.
A couple of weeks ago, Aaron and I headed into Brisbane's Chinatown mall in celebration of the mid Autumn festival. This is a traditional Chinese celebration where Moon Cakes are eaten. We watched some traditional Peking Opera (followed by the same girl singing My Heart Will Go On in English), and a range of artists playing traditional asian instruments or doing dances. It would be an understatement to say we were devastated that we didn't get to see a dragon dance (which was in the advertised program but never happened).
Here are some pics - Aaron tried a couple of different mooncakes. He reckons he could eat them at festivals and that's about it, but HECK YEAH he loved a little sweet cake that looked like a hot dog that we bought from the same bakery. Didn't get pics of that unfortunately...
We had our medicals today. There is an official form that the doctor needs to complete. It's a little invasive (chest x-rays, urine samples, breast examination etc)- sorry to gross you out, but we got lots more boxes checked and everything is good, good, good!
I received a phone call on Friday from the Intercountry Adoption Unit (DoCS). We provided them with two referees, but they are not suitable. The referees need to be people who are not related to us or each other, have known us longer than two years and visit us regularly.
We lived in Mt Isa for seven years, until Dec 2005. We have been in Brisbane for nine months. Everyone who knows us well but isn't related is from Mt Isa, so we provided contact details for people who know us very well and are in a good position to speak of our relationship - but because they don't visit us regularly NOW (even though they did for the seven years we were in Mt Isa), they can't be used.
I said we've only been living here for 9 months. Most of the people who visit us are related in some way. I was told that it was okay, the referees don't really need to have known us for longer than two years (... so why is that written on the form?)
I can find people in Brisbane who have known us for five minutes and certainly can't speak about us with the same authority as our original referees... doesn't make sense, but if we want to get this box checked we must comply.
WaiZuMu is the mandarin word for Grandmother (mother’s mother). [The shorter word ZuMu also means Grandmother, but refers to the father’s mother.]
My mum, who is yet to be a grandmother, posted this at her blog this week.
Aaron and I were lamenting earlier in the week that we probably wouldn’t be asked to progress our application for another ten or so months. This is because I read posts to a discussion list of other Queenslanders who said it took a year from submitting their application to being invited to establish eligibility. At the IAFQ information day in August, this ‘timing’ question was asked a few times.. with the responses ranging from “that’s the million dollar question” to “how long is a piece of string”.
Well, looks like we’ve hit the jackpot and that our piece of string is 7 weeks long!
We received a letter in the mail today dated October 4 inviting us establish our eligibility.
What does this mean? It means we need to have a rigorous health assessment, provide references about our suitability (these people will be contacted in writing to provide information about us) and have criminal history checks.
What wonderful news - now we need to get busy booking appointments!
