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I sometimes think that these kids are in second grade. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I think it's hilarious, and I cannot tell you how much I prefer second grade boys to high-school girls. Think about it. I'd rather deal with people wrestling and joking around a lot to people who poison each other secretly....I think all of you would choose similarly
On an aside, I saw pictures of the Dijon study group and noticed Bonnie was in one of the pictures...I had almost forgotten about her, what an interesting senior year I will have...(imagine what would happen if Crespi sends Jess home and she gets buddy buddy with Bonnie, it makes me smile).
Loves what is going on here in China, I met up with Amelia today and we went for Hebei cuisine (read for details). I am going into WangFuJin with Kaelyn tomorrow (supposedly) and hopefully she won't invite Alex K, we'll see.
I feel sorry for the bikes we bought...
Beijing is slowly being deserted because of the Spring Festival, which means that everyone is going back to their home provinces, which means that I am missing Emily.
Monday February 12, 2007 ~ CLASSES, AN ODD LUNCH, AND CARREFOUR
It was nice to get up “later” again, and when the alarm went off at 8, James and I were rather quick to get out of bed. I did the morning thing and finished off the last of the breakfast that I had in the room on the way out. We got to class a little early, but it was okay. The bike ride was a little chilly, but it is always a refreshing experience because there are SO many different sights and smells on the way that one cannot help but revel (maybe I’ll record it one day). After the ride, we had our Chinese classes, which were much more interesting today because we had to talk about ourselves and introduce what other people did over the weekend. That took much longer than I could have ever thought it would, but I enjoyed it much more than reading dialogue after dialogue in the book. In our second class, we went over the shi-bu-shi pattern, which was horrifically annoying, but I had a sentence that literally made him stop the exercise and say, that was the best sentence I’ve heard, and he praised me for quite a while. “你吃亏的时候，你愤不愤怒？”(When you “eat your losses” are you angry?). He was very happy with my use of colloquialism (口语)。After class, a bunch of us thought about where we could eat. We wanted to explore the “downtown” area a little more, but we didn’t see any cheap restaurants around, so we headed back to the hotel so we could eat at 老家, which I honestly did not want to do. We passed a random restaurant and went inside. The menus were of course in Chinese, and I was able to pick something that I wanted, which was 红烧带鱼 though I did not realize that the “dai带” was a kind of fish鱼 and not a way of preparing it. The others picked based on their basic understandings as well, but Ben got the shit end of the stick. He randomly picked something, and it was really funny. He picked 红烧肥肠面 which literally translates into fried intestines stuffed with pig fat with noodles. Of course we did not know the two most important characters (“fat” 肥and “intestines”肠). My fish came, and although it was delicious, it was very difficult to eat. The spines were intact, and it was very difficult to get the meat off the bones without actually getting the bones in your mouth, but I got good at it (using chopstick and not my fingers). When Ben got his food, he did not look that happy, and the women working the counters literally were laughing at him. They were trying to hold it in, but it was understandably hilarious. We laughed at him, too, and made the waitresses feel more at ease about how funny the situation was. We asked them to write down the characters for what he had eaten and then we left. When we got back to the dorm, I looked up the characters to get the information that I needed. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. I spent some time doing homework and reading at my desk until 3, when I had class again. Prof. Crespi’s class was really entertaining today as I is usually. After class, James and I went around buying things that we needed. I bought a loaf of bread, and some crackers from the store on campus and then we drove back to the room to deposit everything. My loaf of bread for some reason came with a package of milk that does not need to be refrigerated. Apparently one is supposed to put the milk on the bread, but I don’t understand it nor do I trust it, so I threw it out. James and I took the 808 bus to the Carrefour district, shopped for cheap and illegal DVDs at a corner store, and then went back to the electronics mall to pick up a few things. I got headphones with a microphone so now I can skype without borrowing Angel’s. We haggled her down from 15元 to 10元, which was okay. After that, we searched for a cheap webcam, and we got both one with a 1200X1600 resolution for 67.5元each. We could have gotten her to go a lower price, but our haggling skills are not yet up to par. We did not start low enough. Regardless, we are happy with our purchase and we are happy because the sales lady at the camera booth was really nice. We left there and went to the Carrefour where we bought bowls and chopsticks, tons of food (and lots of Ramen) and random odds and ends to complete our room. We ate in the mall at 面包新语, which is a bread place, and then we took a cab back to the hotel. I spent the night alternating between doing Chinese homework, procrastinating, and hanging out with people in the hallways. It had been a more or less quiet night when I went to bed at 12.
Tuesday February 13, 2007 ~ CLASSES, WORK, AND AMELIA
Waking up this morning was a effortless, which was a welcomed change that I very much appreciated. After doing the breakfast thing and getting ready for the city, I went to class. The bike ride over was refreshing, though very cold, which means that tomorrow I will wear my gloves. Class was not unbearable, which was good. The speaking course was not too bad, but the writing class was. It ended before we couldn’t stand it anymore so it wasn’t too bad, but he needs to do a serious 180 with that class otherwise it will become unbearable. The grammar is not going to get any more intense though either because I just looked at the last chapter in the book, and it only goes up to the 越V1越V2 pattern, which was second semester sophomore year grammar. I left class quickly and rode to 老家 with the guys where we had lunch. It was sad because not only has one kid already had a bike stolen, but now literally three bikes fell apart on the ride to the restaurant. Kyle ran over a stick and now his bike is funny, Ben’s brakes literally fell off, and Alex’s fell apart in some way that he was able to fix. It was bizarre, and I hope that my bike holds up because I don’t want to have to buy another one. Anyway, the food I got was excellent. I ended up getting more rou bing (meat pancakes; 肉饼)and egg fried rice, which was amazing. I was really happy with lunch there for once. We went back to the hotel, and I caught up with people on AIM, memorized some straggler vocabulary and characters, and then read a little for class on Thursday. I rode over to class at 3 and Crespi told me that he’s still looking for a teacher and that he hadn’t thought about practice rooms. I told him that Amelia had mentioned that music stores will let you play for 5元 an hour, and he said he’d look into it. Class was pretty good, but no one apparently really liked Shanhai Baby like Ana and I did. Instead of taking the book as a testament of a woman searching for in international identity and letting go of her Asian roots (to the best of her abililities) and trying to accept the superficial, flashy cosmopolitan super-culture and reflecting this sentiment in her writing style rather than just saying it flat out, they took it as a cheap and tawdry poorly-written pseudo-porno. There were some people who liked it, but the general consensus was that no one felt any emotion toward the main character and thought that the author was trying too hard to be deep. I liked it from the perspective I discussed, and obviously Crespi does, too. A style like that has to come out of something; Wei Hui is a product of her environment, a superficial and uber-modern city, Shanghai (上海). I returned to the room after that, read some more, and then waited for Amelia to call me at 5:30. She told me to meet her at the West Gate at 6, and we went out to eat. I ran to the ATM and got there just on time. We went out for Hubei food (湖北), which is a province south of Beijing east of Sichuan (where all the really spicy food is). The food there was really good, and I enjoyed it a lot. We talked a lot of English, though I learned a lot of little things about Chinese (and I told her a lot of colloquialisms for English). She gave me a tiny pocket notebook so that I could take notes on new words and things, which I thought was an amazing gift, and now I have to get her something, but I don’t know what because I have to be inventive. Anyway, the food was good, and I tried some lotus root (which is bland, but good), and a certain kind of noodle, which I enjoyed. We biked back to the west gate, and then we parted ways. Once I got back to the room, I talked with people online and finished up my homework for the evening before it was time to go to bed at 12.