All righty, my duffel bag is [somewhat] packed and my backpack is stuffed to the brim. My camera(s) are packed, batteries charged and memory cards EMPTY. I bought an extra battery and another memory card for my Nikon. I am READY!~
I am leaving early tomorrow morning (6:45 AM!) for the airport to fly down to Kunming, and I will be in Yunnan until the 30th. So, I won't be able to blog until then, but when I get back be sure that I am going to upload lots of pictures from my trip :)
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Countdown to Yunnan: 1 day
It's been a busy week. Every week is a busy week, but this week especially. I had a topic proposal report due on Tuesday (for the essay/presentation 5th years have to give at the end of the term, entirely in Chinese...), homework to do, dictations to study for, and a test tomorrow (right before we leave T_T) We're leaving for our long trips this weekend; I'm going on the Yunnan trip and we're leaving on Saturday at 6:45 AM, bright and early. I've also been preparing for that. I am going to Carrefour (家乐福. French Walmart. I <3 Carrefour!) with Jenn Fung today. I go there a lot. I just went yesterday with Kate, and now I'm going back today. I just can't get enough apparently.
I'm pretty excited for this trip. I love traveling. We're going to be doing a lot of hiking on this trip, so I picked up a pair of a semi-hiking/outdoorsy shoes yesterday. I need to get an extra battery and another memory card for my camera. I'm going to take a loooooottttttt of pictures. My neck will be sore the entire time, but it will be worth it! We're going to Kunming, Dali, Zhongdian (Shangri-la!!), Napa Village, Tiger Leaping Gorge and some other places in between. I'm not even sure, but who cares! It's going to be great!
I'm getting back from the long trip on the 30th and right after that is the is National Day in China. It's very special this year because it's the 60th anniversary of the PRC, so China is going all out. It's a pretty big deal over here. There are posters EVERYWHERE; the government has put a lot of effort into the anniversary (even more than the Olympics. Pretty hardcore). I have have a break until October 5th for the Mid Autumn Moon festival. 吃月饼的时候！Time to eat moon cake, and lots of it. Even Starbucks sells moon cakes here.
Originally, I was planning on going to Shanghai for the break, but train tickets are all sold-out, or hard to come by. Everyone wants to travel during the break! It sucks, but there isn't much I can do about it. I guess I will just hang around Beijing, and work on my essay and powerpoint presentation for Chinese class. I have to write about my travels in Yunnan and give a presentation to boot. And of course, all in Chinese.
So, remember the new washing machine that I was oh-so excited about in my last post?
WELL, despite it being new, it SUCKS and doesn't work properly. So, in preparation for my trip, I've been hand washing my clothes for the past three nights. It's a good work out, but it leaves my hands really dry. Not to mention, it just eats up a lot of my time ;p I should probably start studying for my exam tomorrow. I met with my tutor earlier and she went through a lot of the stuff that I have to know with me. I love my tutor! She's really patient with me, and she's just adorable and super nice.
Here are some pictures I promised from last time:
Both these pictures were taken at Hou Hai (后海). I love the colors of both these pictures. I feel happy and cheery every time I look at them :)
I probably won't be posting until I get back from Yunnan (with AWESOME pictures), so look for new posts then!
I'm pretty excited for this trip. I love traveling. We're going to be doing a lot of hiking on this trip, so I picked up a pair of a semi-hiking/outdoorsy shoes yesterday. I need to get an extra battery and another memory card for my camera. I'm going to take a loooooottttttt of pictures. My neck will be sore the entire time, but it will be worth it! We're going to Kunming, Dali, Zhongdian (Shangri-la!!), Napa Village, Tiger Leaping Gorge and some other places in between. I'm not even sure, but who cares! It's going to be great!
I'm getting back from the long trip on the 30th and right after that is the is National Day in China. It's very special this year because it's the 60th anniversary of the PRC, so China is going all out. It's a pretty big deal over here. There are posters EVERYWHERE; the government has put a lot of effort into the anniversary (even more than the Olympics. Pretty hardcore). I have have a break until October 5th for the Mid Autumn Moon festival. 吃月饼的时候！Time to eat moon cake, and lots of it. Even Starbucks sells moon cakes here.
Originally, I was planning on going to Shanghai for the break, but train tickets are all sold-out, or hard to come by. Everyone wants to travel during the break! It sucks, but there isn't much I can do about it. I guess I will just hang around Beijing, and work on my essay and powerpoint presentation for Chinese class. I have to write about my travels in Yunnan and give a presentation to boot. And of course, all in Chinese.
So, remember the new washing machine that I was oh-so excited about in my last post?
WELL, despite it being new, it SUCKS and doesn't work properly. So, in preparation for my trip, I've been hand washing my clothes for the past three nights. It's a good work out, but it leaves my hands really dry. Not to mention, it just eats up a lot of my time ;p I should probably start studying for my exam tomorrow. I met with my tutor earlier and she went through a lot of the stuff that I have to know with me. I love my tutor! She's really patient with me, and she's just adorable and super nice.
Here are some pictures I promised from last time:
Both these pictures were taken at Hou Hai (后海). I love the colors of both these pictures. I feel happy and cheery every time I look at them :)
I probably won't be posting until I get back from Yunnan (with AWESOME pictures), so look for new posts then!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Updates!~
So, I know I said in my previous post that I would post up pictures from places and whatever, but I don't have the time (or energy) to do that right now, so no pretty pictures in this post. They are all uploaded onto my flickr account, if anyone wants to take a gander.
Anyway.
This program is quite draining. I feel tired all the time. And the Chinese is definitely consuming me. There are so many new characters, new idioms that I don't understand and I'm not really absorbing it. It's not sticking in my mind. I feel like I'm not studying hard enough.
I'm probably not studying hard enough. I need to study harder.
It's hard getting up in the morning. All I want to do is stay in my bed and sleep for a few more hours.
I wish people were more committed to the language pledge. I know it's difficult to speak Chinese 24/7, but honestly, aren't we all here because we want to learn the language?? Why are we all such obnoxious Americans who refuse to adapt to the environment we brought upon ourselves?
Living in the dorms is lonely. Almost all the people I've gotten to know and become close to are all in the homestays. It sucks. I feel lonely every evening, when all the homestay kids go home for dinner with their host family. I'm actually looking forward to having a roommate. As much as I enjoy having a room to myself, I feel really lonely, and I'm hoping me and my new Chinese roomie will become great friends.
My trip to Yunnan is approaching really fast. I'm leaving next weekend! WHAT. It's crazy. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'll be leaving to go there next weekend.
And not to moan and groan again, but I miss my family. And I miss Dan. And my friends. And Rochester. I miss New York. I miss America. But at the same time, I'm starting to open up to Beijing. There are a lot of things I don't like (the dirty streets, the spitting, the smoking, the lack of traffic rules, the fact that I have to bring my own toilet paper EVERYWHERE, squat toilets..), but there are so many things that make this place unique. For instance, earlier tonight on my way back from dinner with a few dorm mates, we passed by this playground area on campus where there was music playing and there were people dancing. Like, straight up ballroom dancing. It was really cool. And there were lots of kids running around and playing. It was adorable.
But I still feel homesick. I've been having stomachaches these past two days and it really sucks. I thought I would adjust to the food here without much problem, but apparently, I was wrong.. which makes me a bit worried about my trip to Yunnan. I hope I don't have that problem. Please please please...
My head kind of hurts right now. I think it's from staring at all these characters so intently. And from the air conditioning that blows straight at me. I don't really need the AC, but I kept it on so my clothes would dry faster.
I decided to do my laundry last night, and the laundry on my side of the hall mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen, so I went down the hall and used the washing machine there. WELL, that machine SUCKS. It didn't spin my clothes dry and when I took it out, my clothes were still wet and dripping. I hung it up last night (dryers are pretty much obsolete in China, I'm pretty sure) and it was dripping, so I had to put a towel over my bed... but it still dripped on my blanket. It's taking extra long for my clothes to dry and now it smells. Gross.
Good news though! A new washing machine (BRAND NEW) has been put in on my side of the hall, so yay.
There are so many characters. So so so many characters. My head is spinning.
I met with my tutor today. She's a year younger than me, studying Chinese at Bei Wai, with the intent of teaching one day. She is also from Shanghai! What are the chances?! Haha. She is really nice and helpful and so cute. While we were going over my homework, this random guy came over, sat down and started talking to us. He's a grad student at Bei Wai, studying English with the intention of becoming an interpreter. He really wants to go to America, and he loves NY. At first I thought it was a little weird, but it seems that it is pretty normal in China that strangers just strike up conversations like that. It's strange to me because I always thought that Chinese people were very private and would be suspicious of such interaction, but it seems it's quite common here in Beijing.
加油！加油！
Anyway.
This program is quite draining. I feel tired all the time. And the Chinese is definitely consuming me. There are so many new characters, new idioms that I don't understand and I'm not really absorbing it. It's not sticking in my mind. I feel like I'm not studying hard enough.
I'm probably not studying hard enough. I need to study harder.
It's hard getting up in the morning. All I want to do is stay in my bed and sleep for a few more hours.
I wish people were more committed to the language pledge. I know it's difficult to speak Chinese 24/7, but honestly, aren't we all here because we want to learn the language?? Why are we all such obnoxious Americans who refuse to adapt to the environment we brought upon ourselves?
Living in the dorms is lonely. Almost all the people I've gotten to know and become close to are all in the homestays. It sucks. I feel lonely every evening, when all the homestay kids go home for dinner with their host family. I'm actually looking forward to having a roommate. As much as I enjoy having a room to myself, I feel really lonely, and I'm hoping me and my new Chinese roomie will become great friends.
My trip to Yunnan is approaching really fast. I'm leaving next weekend! WHAT. It's crazy. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'll be leaving to go there next weekend.
And not to moan and groan again, but I miss my family. And I miss Dan. And my friends. And Rochester. I miss New York. I miss America. But at the same time, I'm starting to open up to Beijing. There are a lot of things I don't like (the dirty streets, the spitting, the smoking, the lack of traffic rules, the fact that I have to bring my own toilet paper EVERYWHERE, squat toilets..), but there are so many things that make this place unique. For instance, earlier tonight on my way back from dinner with a few dorm mates, we passed by this playground area on campus where there was music playing and there were people dancing. Like, straight up ballroom dancing. It was really cool. And there were lots of kids running around and playing. It was adorable.
But I still feel homesick. I've been having stomachaches these past two days and it really sucks. I thought I would adjust to the food here without much problem, but apparently, I was wrong.. which makes me a bit worried about my trip to Yunnan. I hope I don't have that problem. Please please please...
My head kind of hurts right now. I think it's from staring at all these characters so intently. And from the air conditioning that blows straight at me. I don't really need the AC, but I kept it on so my clothes would dry faster.
I decided to do my laundry last night, and the laundry on my side of the hall mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen, so I went down the hall and used the washing machine there. WELL, that machine SUCKS. It didn't spin my clothes dry and when I took it out, my clothes were still wet and dripping. I hung it up last night (dryers are pretty much obsolete in China, I'm pretty sure) and it was dripping, so I had to put a towel over my bed... but it still dripped on my blanket. It's taking extra long for my clothes to dry and now it smells. Gross.
Good news though! A new washing machine (BRAND NEW) has been put in on my side of the hall, so yay.
There are so many characters. So so so many characters. My head is spinning.
I met with my tutor today. She's a year younger than me, studying Chinese at Bei Wai, with the intent of teaching one day. She is also from Shanghai! What are the chances?! Haha. She is really nice and helpful and so cute. While we were going over my homework, this random guy came over, sat down and started talking to us. He's a grad student at Bei Wai, studying English with the intention of becoming an interpreter. He really wants to go to America, and he loves NY. At first I thought it was a little weird, but it seems that it is pretty normal in China that strangers just strike up conversations like that. It's strange to me because I always thought that Chinese people were very private and would be suspicious of such interaction, but it seems it's quite common here in Beijing.
加油！加油！
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