Foreigner Be My Guest

So I was able to interview for a spot on a game show a while ago and I was hoping to have done it and be paid last week. Then I would put the money towards spring break in Korea!![next week] (For some reason Korea is becoming another dream...)

Anywho, I was finally called and they'd asked me to come down today. They didn't say what to wear or do or anything really. Just time and place. For some odd reason my 'boss'? only gave me the pinyin for the address at first. I can't believe that yet again I have to remind people, even if you give a foreigner the pinyin, it will do them no good since we are in china and characters are a must. So she texted it to me. Thank goodness for the internet because I needed to try and find out how to get there by cheap public transportation.

I arrived at the area of the shoot and I was happy because I was 15min early. Then the area turned out to be full of small streets and since I was being poor and decided to walk, I was late by 10min. Thankfully the staff was still shooting something else. We actually waited about an hour until my group was on.
During the wait, I met and talked to my partner and our opponents. All seem to be cool people. There were two Chinese people and one German guy. The name of the show is 老外做客 （laowai zuo ke）. (that's pinyin in the parenthesis) The title of this blog is the translation. There are teams of 2 consisting of one foreigner and one Chinese native. We do all kinds of games and at the end someone wins!!! lol I forgot to ask if there was a prize. I was only concerned with pocket money at the time.

We ended up shooting at a bar where we played a game of pouring beer sliding it to your partner and then pouring it into a big measuring tube. It was not cool because I was catching the beer and it spilled on my arm. Then, beer has stupid foam so when the measuring tube as overflowing with it, it just slid down my hands. Sure the game was fun but I didn't want to smell like beer.

I thought everything was fun though until they wanted to shoot an interview. You know. The one when a contestant usually talks about what went right or wrong about the game. Did I mention we can only speak Chinese? I was fishing for a story man!! We lost so I was trying to say we just have to work harder next time and I have no experience with the bar nonsense blah blah...I survived but I want to prepare for the next "interview" and fix my grammar and maybe add a few sophisticated words!!

Unfortunately they don't tell us the games in advanced so I have to make it up while doing the game or as soon as we finish and just hope I'm not first.
*sigh*

After that we got a DVD and CD of different bands. Our task is to copy their style and learn a song. Which song? They'll tell us Thursday. I picked The Rolling Stones for us because the Beatles are on the bottom of my list of who I've listened to...And my partner doesn't know either one so he didn't care.

I went home after that and worried about my Chinese skills the whole time. Not only is it quiet when filming but the air seemed still as I was talking during my interview and the camera was in my face! But I was instructed not to look at it!!! A -- Gon -- Nyyyyyy~~~~


For those who know me though, this is my lifelong dream job. Well actually it's acting, this is more like reality TV haha I did a commercial when I was in Chengdu but since they were putting music over it we could be talking and the camera wasn't front and center in my face :)

Innocence

Today I got up around 6:30am because I did not finish writing my homework lol I laid down and dreamt that I was writing. (Thank you Lord for the wake up call.) because my alarm is set for 7:30; just enough time for a snack, change of clothes and the bus.
I packed everything including some buns, an apple and milk. Then I hopped in the shower! This was crazy because I'd let the time drift to 7:35. I barely made it out the door at 8.

I passed the gate, greeted security, and only waited 3min for the bus. I got on and decided to take a seat so that I could read over the vocabulary again. It's funny how 3 drops of water are on a seat and people act like they can't sit down. I did. And sure enough the lady beside me says it's wet. I told her it was no big and proceeded to study.

I reached school around 8:50 and class started around 9:15. As my teacher read one line and then explained for each line of the passage. Exasperated, I read it myself and started a new one. Then I decided to rethink the situation.
Even though we only have four students total in class, it is highly possible, that not all of us are able to read and comprehend! [Gooonnng~] It's true! There must be someone who, even though all new words are defined in the book in English, just can't seem to comprehend. So. I stopped reading ahead and listened to the teacher explain and read each line.**** But then I got tired so I took out my electronic dictionary and "tested" myself on vocab ;p (hey, I tried.)

After class I waited 40min for the other classes to finish so that I could return a book to a friend. (Yes. That's how early we end.) It turned out that she hadn't gone to class so I gave it to a mutual friend and left school to buy Taro milk tea.

I walked to a bus stop that would take me home. While standing at the bus stop, a tiny tot and his grandpa sat on stone sculptures a little ways away. The tot looks at me and excitedly says something to his grandpa while pointing at me. I smile. He runs to him and gets his milk then looks at me and waves the milk as if to say, "I have a drink too!" So I wave mine and drink some too. This happened about 3 times. and then it started O.O:

Him: Puts up one hand in high five.
Me: return the five
Him: high ten!
Me: High 8...(I'm still holdin my drink. He gave his to grandpa)
Him: funny face with tongue out
Me: funny face with puffy cheeks
Him: heart above his head (His arms were so small I almost couldn't tell haha)
Me: heart
Him: kissy face
Me: blew a kiss
Him: bunny rabbit with ears
Me: short bunny
Him: monster
Me: dog wagging tail
Him: foot in air!
Me: dying of stink!
We laugh quite a while and with one last heart and a wave goodbye we part ways.

Mind you the bus stop was not empty. So yes. For the sake of that tots' laughter, I was being completely silly. Of course everyone commented on me "playing with the kid". Some man even let me on the bus first! (In this "me first" country)

I got off the bus at my connecting stop and while waiting for the bus I unconsciously look around and lo' and behold!
Two guys on a motorcycle are not even caring about the road, because they (I assume) stared at me the whole time and then finally yell out a hello! I quickly wave fearing their safety. By all means they should pay attention! There have been accidents.

(I've been in China too long. Since when did I ever need spell check? Or dictionary dot com?)

Much Irritation, But Not All Is Bad

I know I have kept you waiting long enough. I feel like I've been in Shanghai forever and school is just dragging away my...life! I've been irritated and itchy and tired and frustrated, but I've kept all of that inside. (This may be a long post to cover the week) It all boils down to this:

I am ready to leave Shanghai. I was told that when I was a toddler I couldn't stand dirtiness. With time, a little messy was ok. But Shanghai is one of the dirtiest places I've been in, and it rains on the mess! People seem to relentlessly spit all over the place and eat while throwing their plastic bags/bowls/uneaten food on the ground!? Do they really care nothing about their city? I wanna go home. And when I say home I mean Chengdu. Sure they are dirty too, but it's way more tolerable.
It's too bad. The people here are wonderful but I can't do this environment.

All right all right let's get started.

Monday 23

I went to classes and came home early. Just a normal day. It didn't rain. But I'm mad at myself because I spent 3hrs reading one chapter of my Managing Global Economy book. I guess it was the chapter because usually I am interested and time flies while I study it. Needless to say I put the book down and just read for U.S. China Relations.
[I'm trying to finish the last 5 chapters of MGE before spring break (April 6-10)]

Tuesday 24

This is the morning I was supposed to do more MGE but I didn't even touch the book. I studied Chinese instead. Then I decided to try and study right before the class [4pm] but I just left it in my bag and...I don't remember. But I know I didn't study it.

Wednesday 25

My Chinese teacher gave us a heads up on the next chapter we'd study and told us we would have dictation on Monday[30]. One of my classmates decided that studying 75 words was just too much for 5days. So the teacher cut out a lot. I hate that because half of the words are characters we already know how to write; easy things. Also our homeworks have been slim to none and our class time has been dramatically reduced! (It's been like this for 2 wks already but it's just now making the blog. I didn't want to post my complaints.)
Maybe I'm the class mate you don't like because I would rather use class time and have homework, but I prefer this because I pick classes that I want to use in life.

Anywho, later I finished copying my notes for US China and then went to that class (haha I had the notes highlighted in the readings, I just copied them to refresh. I wasn't lazy.)
In class I was told that my research topic had finally been approved and so even though I'm behind I'm still thankful. We talked about a lot during the class and 2 topics were things I wanted to share with you:

1* My teacher got on the subject of how Chinese girls don't talk about politics and don't know their history and such, and this caused a very offended response from my American counterparts. The thing is, even though I'm sure it's not everyone, the girls that I've hung out with haven't been very historical/political or anything. We always talk about pop culture and such. The guys I hang out with, on the other hand, happily mix those "important" issues into our conversations.

2* We talked about how Chinese people view Americans. The surveys we read proved that only the governments have a problem with each other. One girl expressed that she feels hated and gets dirty looks and gets talked about and stared at....
I'm sure I've covered this before, but let me explain again. Being foreign and black (which she is) you will get stared at hard and talked about!! If you learn the language like you are supposed to, (her choosing this specific program proves she wanted to learn right?) you would hear all of the adoring comments they are making out loud. Maybe one day I'll post a blog about all the things I've heard.

Thursday 26

I wanted to just stay in bed all day but I lured myself to China Phenomenon...late. After that class I wanted to study on campus but I didn't. I signed up to learn how to sing Beijing opera and do traditional dancing. Definitely up for putting myself in a position to understand culture. ;p

Friday 27~Saturday 28

I woke up late so I skipped breakfast and went on to Chinese!! This was the musical chapter so we read about the famous musician in our textbook and then listened to some of his folk songs. I want to get them.
Wang Luobin王洛宾- 在那遥远的地方In That Faraway Place
达坂城的姑娘 The Daban Cheng Girl
After we ended up listening to random songs that are popular nowadays.
Unfortunately (because I missed the first dance class), we had a make-up class right after it. We got our topics for our final speech and we present Wed. Can you believe I haven't started!!

This night was reserved for my friend that had to return to Japan. We karaoked and then hit a night club. I stayed the night at the dorms and in the morning bid her farewell. I'm sad because she was my only language partner. Sure there are other Japanese students at my school but they don't seem to like me much and I prefer her friendship to "strictly" language partner.
I went home and ate brunch and tried to catch up on some Anime. (I know. I know.) I watched the latest English subbed episode of Naruto Shippuden and tried to find more but of course they can only come out as the ones in Japan do. I did find that the Chinese youtube is one episode ahead but of course only with Chinese subs. I can't read that fast yet. Also subs don't work when you understand most of the spoken language. (Maybe I underestimate my Japanese. But I really want to understand every~ word~ o.o) Surprisingly I started another series on Chinese youtube because it wouldn't play on crunchyroll. Yet again, I battled the Chinese subtitles. [I think I'll do more of this to improve my reading.]
And then because of Friday night, I was knocked out hahahaha

Today!!!! Sunday!!!! 29!!!!

I was mad lol because I missed the Earth Hour thing. Even found out that this isn't the first year!! I am such an environmentalist and yet I don't even know these things.
Anywho, I studied and then decided it's better to study at school. Not that I wasn't doing well, but my favorite show came on and I wanted to avoid temptation.
As I walked out of my community's gate, the security guards gave their daily greetings. I really want to type today's in Chinese because it's funnier:

保安人员：你好！（热情地） Security guard: hello! (enthusiastically)
我：你好。（带着微笑） Me: hello. (slight smile)
员：你要去上学吗？ Guard: You going to school?
我：对上学。笑 Me: yep, goin to school. (giggle)
员：今天是星期日！你该休息~！Guard: Today is Sunday! You should relax!
我：我要学习~！ （都笑） Me: I want to study! ( all laugh)

Ok. Maybe it's not that funny. lol but xiuxi rhymes with xuexi so it was cute to me. Mind you there are about 3/4 guards talking to me. They bid me good bye and welcome me back everyday for the past week. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!

Welp, I have wasted your time enough. I need to study for tomorrow's dictation...again...

**(0.0) **

Touched By The Chinese

Today I was called out around 4pm to help a friend study English. She wants a perfected accent so that she can find a new job. She also wants to study at BYU. I took the bus and the metro in complete la-la land. Singin in my head and dancin as non-obviously as possible O.O We ate first and then started a battle with her TOEFL book haha

She actually decided to rip up the book in sections! Anyway we studied in a place called English First. This is really supposed to be a school where you pay and take some classes and join English clubs, but they have the place set up to where people from where ever can come study. I envy China for having these things...and I'll get a picture for you next time.
We spent about 2 hours going over an article in the text (while chatting with her friends in between). I think that if she keeps up her...will to learn and pace, she should be able to pass that test by the end of this summer!

I wish I could take the HSK test this year, but the test is in June or July and I leave in May...early May. I'm thinking that if I have to (want to) I'll come back next year just to take the test. (It'd be above my means to do it this summer.)****

On the metro ride home I decided to do my U.S.-Chinese relations reading. Then I switched to a bus that would lead me to the mcdonalds at the end of my street. (I was craving french fries only. I hate mcdonalds.) I was messing with the worker again, because usually people who work in these American fast foods will automatically throw out their English, but he was so shy, that 2dys ago when I first walked in he just looked at me. Shy smile with no words! Then I ordered in English!! (just to be difficult). All of his co-workers were like "You should help her out! Speak English!" whatever whatever.lol I decided to cut him some slack and throw out some Chinese. [Oh how quickly you relax when you hear your own language.] He confessed that he just can't bring himself to talk to foreigners in English. Oh well! Even though today he didn't say a word when I got there, I ordered in Chinese and only teased him a little. ;p

I decided to walk the 15min back to the house. (So I could scope out the night market. My clothes are getting holes in them. Not cool -_-) I ran from the bridge to the complex gate (it was a 1min run haha I don't like running). And to my surprise a security guard walked out and asked if i spoke Chinese.

I said yea as i kept walking. He says, "No! don't keep walking!!" It wasn't a command. It was a wish. I stopped and asked why. (being difficult again) He said he really wanted to talk.
We talked about working in America and here and schooling, etc. I was surprised at how much we'd covered in such a short time. I found out that I'm a year older than him and he wasn't going to enroll in college because he needs to work. 12hrs a day. No paid off days. As he put it "No work. No food."
I had asked him why he didn't learn a foreign language, since he likes to talk to foreigners. He said learning English is of no use to him. He won't ever work with enough foreigners. He will go to another city tomorrow to find a new job. I told him to spend some time doing self study and find his strengths and then change jobs. He expressed that I was better than him and that he just couldn't do it. I asked him what his dream job was. 'What do you want to be in life?' He didn't know.

[He was sooooo excited to just talk to me.]

I've had a few conversations like this with my Chinese peers and I can't help but feel bad. because I know it's going to be harder for them while they are here. There are just too many people to be considered 'exceptional'. In America we're told that it's ok to just figure out life when we are grown, but i seriously think you should think about it in at least middle school. Why so young? Because in a world that has already produced so many products, geniuses and ideas, it's only going to get more challenging. No matter what I must do something that helps my peers to be able to live comfortably. Our parents and grandparents and great grandparents have done what they were going to do. We also must do what we can do.

I would cry, but I'll pray instead. The lord is still on our side.

Kickin' It With The Fam

So It's only Thursday meaning I still have 3dys of no school. I was going to be cool and go to random places but so far I've just walked around, ate in one restaurant, studied outside in the good weather, and chilled a home.

It's funny because I can see some similarities in our families. Of course I have also picked up on the differences like a hawk. It's definitely shown me some things I think the "ideal" family is.

First:
There are only 3 people to begin with but chores are done in a completely "team work" manner. If dad cooks he'll clean the pots out right after. If mom cooks she'll do the same. As you know, Chinese people serve all dishes in separate bowls.

Second:
After eating sometimes mom will do the dishes but it's normally the son. he doesn't need to complain because we don't finish all the food normally. Meaning we only dirty one bowl apiece. He washes those and then our chopsticks and the table and counters, whatever.
Clean-up has taken but a second.

Third:
Son may come home and be very tired and say, "I don't want to do the dishes. I'm soooo tired." There is no outburst from Dad saying, "I bought this house and your blah blah blah yadda yadda (hours go by)."
There is a level of understanding. They all work so they know how it can be when ONE day has really gotten to you.

Fourth:
I'm not sure if this isn't normal but they usually eat dinner together. This is the time they can talk. They eat pretty fast so actually it's after that Dad is watching TV and Mom and Son talk while Dad throws in a 2cent something haha.
I think it's good to talk. You should know who your family are.

Fifth:
Sure there are some arguments. usually not as important but we all have them. Son is allowed to give his opinion. I like this a lot because sometimes parents have to know that, they...are...wrong. Oh the world! A parent was wrong!! so?

RenMinBi 人民币

This is actually going to be a short thing.

I was going out and just in case put 100RMB in my shoe. When I got home I forgot to take it out, since I didn't need it. My host brother found it and then my host dad showed me that my shoe had turned red!! not too much but still. He told me that that meant the hundred was real!

So I found one more way to make sure the money you get is real. You rub it and see it any color comes off. If it doesn't it's fake!! That baffles me in the sense that in order to make a passable fake RMB you have to find out how they make it to where people can use it everyday without it losing all of it's color by the end of the day, and yet will rub off a good amount when using your finger...Oh well I have no intentions of producing fake anything so ha.


It's the first day of vacation and I didn't do much of anything...Oh well.

Nanjing and Park Pics

Oh yes. The most comfortable Chinese beds.平静。
Me and Veronica. We like to actually explore China.
Just had to let you see how some babies get bundled up. Poor 8mo old. It's actually not even cold this day.胖乎乎的
Haha chess baby! 下棋！
I'm gonna ride this....one day...before I leave.我要乘这个。。。有一天。。。我回国前。
Fishing in Zhabei park 在闸北园钓鱼
I was pulled in to XinZhang style dancing...
We walked all that way to construction... :(
This is what I go through to get good pics...O.O 惨死了！！
Nanjing Massacre Memorial
南京大屠杀纪念碑
I didn't take pictures inside because it's really not allowed. Sorry. I chose to be respectful of this FREE museum. Please see it yourself.
Lantern Festival at Fu Zi Miao 夫子庙的元宵节
我属龙。I belong to the Dragon. (Year)
They wanted my picture at a lake in Nanjing 南京。 对我就是这么有名的。呵呵


sorry it's not in any order. and it's late lol

Fitting In Fun

Wednesday is the day I have classes 9am-12pm, 4-5pm 5:30-8:00pm (sometimes later). I get tired before the 4o'clock TaiChi sometimes haha. In any event.
I pulled through the horrible mornings' Chinese class. It's finally boiled down to my teacher explaining the text sentence by sentence. Not cool. (Whatever. I've been reading ahead.)
I ate lunch with friends and we were talking for sooooo looooong. Well, mostly me and my friend Mai. We just kept switchin subjects makin the table laugh. I forgot there were others on the second floor of that small restaurant....until they all turned around to look and laugh at us....I was like "eh hehm" but we kept on laughing! I was thinking,"Why? Do Japanese people not talk while they eat lunch?" It was in no way offensive. I would have stred at us too. AND eavesdropped!! haha We had been going back and forth with stories and I don't think we followed the few seconds of silence in between rule...hehe

So! I went and studied a little and at 4 I was in TaiChi. I am now the translator for this class. I found out that I can interpret Chinese for English speakers pretty well, but it's a little difficult for the other way around. Maybe I need a few more months. My vocabulary in Chinese is still in progress.

After I went to Chinese U.S. relations class. Interesting.

Finally!!! I went into the dorms to eat with my friends. They had decided to cook Japanese and Mexican. We were speaking English Spanish Japanese and Chinese all at random times and mixing whenever and where ever. The food was good and smelled awesome. The atmosphere was lively and I will dearly miss this when it's time to go home.
We are comfortable and accepting of everyone speaking whatever language. No one randomly cusses me out in English because it's their favorite part of their learning. No one gives up and makes dumb excuses about why they don't want to learn the "stupid" language. No one laughs at you and tells everyone that you are weird because you are learning a new language.

*sigh* Welp! I'll just keep myself as involved as possible so that when times are tough I'll remember the life I lived here.

The Park

After returning home at about 10pm I ate dinner and went to bed. Not as comfy as the hotel but far better than the dorms.

I awoke to *sings* SUNSHINE! not rain! ( I know the song's not like that but who cares.) I showered and ate breakfast while sitting by Ahyi at her request. I told her about the trip. The downs and the ups. Then I set off to hang with a black girl!!! Yeah!! (I'm glad I'm not the only black girl anymore. She's American of Cayman Island decent.)

We went to the park across the street, behind some stores, from school. We walked around the whole thing to watch the old people play badminton, do some exercise that I think is too graceful to be exercise, do tai chi, and dance. There was even a childrens' area for rides and painting and such.

While taking pictures of a Xin Zhang minority dance, I was pulled in by someone. So we took pictures and danced away! lol Actually I had to have them teach me a bit but it wasn't too hard.

We left there and my friend was approached by...a secret police? He was asking her how she liked China and I was snapping away on my camera and taking videos. This is how I found that he was a secret police. He politely asked me if he was in the photos or footage and please edit him out. If we needed anything call him. Cool.

We went to take pics with a statue and a lady walked her baby to us so we could....I don't really know. I wouldn't walk my baby up to strange but beautiful black girls! haha It was cute anyway. Then a mother and daughter walked in our direction. The girl asked her mom where we were from. The mom said Africa. I had to correct her (no I didn't say Jamaica this time) people need to know that blacks can be American. We talked a bit and the girl was sooooo sweeeeet she called me jiejie [big sister] and asked a few questions. I wish my friend wasn't a complete beginner so they could be mezmerized by her too.

After, we went to see some young boys practicing their WuShu. While taking some video I acknowledged the boys' nervousness in front of the 'cute black girls' and told my friend we should leave.

We ended up going to a bigger park. Century park I think. It was 10 to get in but it was huuuuuge. I think next time I go I'll rent a bike. There were boats, tents, kites, you name it. Families enjoyed themselves.

We were in need of lunch and since my friend has not enjoyed any Chinese food here we went to Papa John's. They messed up my order and a delightful Cantonese elderly couple gave the waiters a piece of their mind for me. hehe They were the one's who reminded me it was women's day!! So we got ice cream at Cold Stone and headed home.

At dinner I talked to the family about my day and they asked me questions about America and then we practiced learning foods and so on and so on.
I went to bed early. School on Monday.

(I've tired myself out. I'll upload pics and Mondays events later. My hind quarters need a break.)

Rushing Nanjing 南京

We woke up early to be able to eat breakfast before 8:30am check out. It was the best breakfast I've had in my time of china. We were scheduled to leave at 9. For some reason 3 students had caused a problem and 2 became victims.

One girl washed off heavy makeup with the hotel's excellent quality blindingly white rags and didn't wash it out. They wanted to charge her 30 yuan. She washed it out herself and didn't have to pay.
Two girls spilled "drips" of red wine on the incredibly similarly blindingly white sheets and the hotel wanted 2000yuan. Needless to say those girls rushed to wash them out.

Unfortunately for my friends they ended up paying for a missing laundry bag that even I had not seen while staying in their room until late. The funny thing about their case is that my director asked them if they had it, to which they replied no. Then she returned with a bag to say 'this is what it looks like but if you really didn't take it I'll fight for you'. One friend was asked to go look for it herself(before this happened) and the other one felt so embarrassed being taken as a thief that she paid. I thought the Chinese were good at saving face? She had taken everyone else's word for missing things. (There were about 5)

Those things are only told to you because they affected me in the way that we couldn't leave the hotel until well past 10 and everyone knew we were trying to pack all of day ones events into day two.

We went to the city wall which was nice but we were told we only had until 10:40...The majority of the kids returned at sometime past 11. (Mind you when I was walking back I saw all of them and said we only had 2minutes...Not to be bossy/mean 'cause I'd directed it towards my friends)

We went to the Nanjing memorial site. A place to remember how the Japanese troops ridiculously eliminated over 300,000 Chinese people. It was a breath-taking place. We were supposed to stay for an hour but that place is huge and so it took an hour and a half for everyone to get out. (Yes I was late. I'll tell you what I thought about this in a different post.)

We went to lunch late and I decided that all of Nanjing served small portions. Remember this is China. Dishes are a grab what you can from the middle type of deal.

After lunch we went to check out Sun Yatsen and Ming Xiaoling's mausoleums. That was a great experience too. Because the weather was great, I had some friends run up the billion stairs with me, watched Chinese men in uniform, and was informed that I was black.

lol here's that conversation.
him: Hey! Hey you! You are black!! haha Can you understand me?
me: Yes I understand...ummm-
him: That's great!! Yea you're black!haha *thumbs up*
me: right ummmm thank you?
lady in his group: how cute she is *smiles at me*

[ at the wall some lady didn't know I understood her and when asked if she wanted to take a picture with me, she ran over while saying 'How black! How beautiful!' Before her group bombarded me, mind you, I was trying to take a picture of a bird with slightly green feathers....-_-]


But anyway. I really love China. Only here do people tell me that I'm black.

( I'm posting pics Tuesday my time.)

NanJing Here We....*sigh*

ok. the internet was being stupid so i'm goin back a few days.


We were scheduled to go to Nanjing 南京 last weekend but because of a trip to the expo on a Tuesday some students signed up to be weekend volunteers. Why they had to pick that weekend I'll never know. ('cause I'm not asking.)

Well I arrived slightly early at school but the bus "wasn't there" for our 8:30am departure. If they would have walked to the front gate (visible from where we normally take the buses) they would have seen a huge white bus awaiting our arrival. We get on the bus and as usual somebody says 'you know i wanna go get some type of breakfast' and 'oh i just woke up i'll be down in a bit.' And because our director allows this we leave a little after 9.

During the ride I couldn't really sleep so I listened in on my friends conversations and it was funny. They were having a good time and some kids in the back were not happy cause they wanted to sleep. It was a Friday morning. A day that we usually have class. They should have been just as awake but there will always be rude people who think that just cause they are tired the world should stop.

The bus broke down....Oh well. We fortunately broke down minutes before hitting a gas station slash mechanic. Too bad they weren't bus mechanics. (didn't know things were so different from cars...)
We ended up waiting for another bus...2hrs. I went and waited outside of the bus with friends. We salsa-d, talked and just became crazy until we boarded the next bus.

Finally we reached a, maybe, 4 star hotel. It was soooo comfortable. We arrived around 3:30 ish and everyone was craving food. So we went to eat across from the hotel and then our director informs us that all museums close at 4:30pm. Since we wouldn't even eat dinner together she gave us 50元 per person. Then we were left to do whatever.

I went with my classmates to go see a Lake. It was nice. I ate cotton candy that was delicious (how can you mess up cotton candy??). Then we rushed back to the hotel to go to 夫子庙 as a group. Fu Zi Miao is a ... temple with shopping areas. They were having a little lantern festival so I got a couple of pictures thinking 'This sure is...lacking'. Then I went with some friends to eat. When we got back to the hotel we were all tired but we debated going to a club and karaoke.

I went back to my room to put my stuff down. Laid on the bed and thought 'Denied! I am going to indulge in this extravagant sack of comfy-goodness. I got out of bed though to visit the friends I had not hung out with to see if there was a grudge against the 2 that I was with. (I do not want to be in the middle of any mess.) They said there wasn't but speaking in a language unknown to the other and avoiding counts as having a problem with somebody. We ended up talking until way too late as my eyes were closing and my roommate went back to our room with me.(No we did not go back to the problem topic. I don't linger over hot water.) We watched a little bit of a show and were knocked out. haha


I will post these pictures tomorrow (Tuesday for me) ;p

In Ancient Times

Sorry this really has nothing to do with me being in China but here is what I've been pondering over.

I have Chinese Phenomenon and Chinese-U.S. Relations class which both have made me more interested in reading about some of China's history. While reading about all kinds of political figures (from whatever country), or just people that were able to build empires for their own families, I realized something that separates us from past and now.

Nowadays everyone and their mom goes to college. In the past mostly the best went for higher learning. Granted there are always exceptions. (Since everyone has access to a library) I find that the past gave only a few people the opportunity to learn more than their peers. So whoever went, that wasn't rich, went to be somebody and become something great! They studied their hearts out, got involved and then made something!! They were able to request only the best when applying for jobs. They deserved it!

In this time of anyone enrolling and finishing college, I don't see many who study their field as if it's their only chance to get good and do something great. You can pass most classes with D's (From grade school up). There are certain majors that say at least a C... Is this what you went to college for? A D or C? Weren't you highly interested in your major?? Didn't you want to use that major to be the best thing since the internet???

I look at my own self and apologize to the person that really wanted to be in international business but can't because I'm in their spot. I only want to become an actress with the ability to speak multiple languages and I'd like to use interpreter as my backup. No I don't study business the way a major should. But I study these languages as if it's my only chance to get good and do something great.

From now on I challenge myself to be like those in the past that finished only college (because I rarely hear of them attending grad school) and ended up being remembered and living to the fullest. The way they planned the minute they decided that they would study above and beyond.