Day 46 -- July 9

Had some trouble sleeping due to the heat. I’m having a slight issue with my Japanese roommate, Emiko. She doesn’t like the air conditioning on but I can sleep without it. I have expressed to her in Japanese, Mandarin and English that it is impossible for me to sleep in this heat. She however, is refusing to yield and will turn off or turn up the air conditioning. So I have to guard the air conditioning every night just to get sleep. It’s a little bit frustrating but at this point I am at my wits end, short of shaking her I literally have nothing else to express. So I was tired when speaking to mom on Skype. I’m a bit stressed out at the moment, I think it’s because I’ve hit the half way mark. This place is no longer new and I’m starting to plan for the return journey. Nothing big just talking about moving out of the dorms. I am considering maybe getting a hotel for a few nights instead of dealing with the hassle of the dorms, we shall see.

    I went to my breakfast place and studied for a bit. It’s much easier that in the dorm where my desk is too small to share a computer and all my books. I hate having to toggle between everything but this is life. I got my iced coffee and went to go chat with the usual crowd. I was actually pleasantly surprised about how many people I now know on the 8th floor study area. We had a few really good discussion about learning Mandarin. Class was also fun, we are able to string sentences together now that have a little bit more relevancy for life. My understanding of the spoken language is much better than my actual ability to speak.We found out that we are going to have a few days off but to make up for them Laoshi is holding us for an extra hour. That will make four hour days of intensive class. I have no idea how I will survive. My brain may melt a little bit.

    After class I went home and ground out my homework. Johnny called me and went and got dinner. I really like wandering around with him and chatting. We stopped by a fruit stand a picked up some pineapple, which is awesome!  He needed to make an important business call so we decided we may go see a movie later this week, it depends on how it all pans out. Plans change on a dime here, just gotta roll with the punches. We walked backed to the dorms are were sitting out front when these two girls came up to me. They had my student ID cards!! I guess someone had found them and returned them to the Gong Guan dorms. Apparently they were sitting in the front desks lost and found and girls had seen it and recognized me. I am so happy to get them back. I am going to go to the international office and see if I can’t cancel the other card order since I doubt they’ve actually gotten to it. I get discounted prices again!! An excellent way to end the night, now I think I will attempt sleep. Hopefully it’ll be alright, good night everyone.

Sun setting on our walk