Chengdu Week 12 - End of Week

Nov. 19, 2014

    So I left fairly early with Cassidy to go to the Global Center, which is essentially just a giant mall in a cool building. She and I both had hopes that we could buy some clothes. It was actually a good hour bus then train ride to the center, it’s pretty far out of Chengdu. The building itself is very interesting looking, and walking in side is overwhelming just a little bit. This mall has the world’s largest indoor water park (I think so anyway, correct me if I am wrong.). Essentially Cassidy and I spent the day shopping and chatting about life. Cassidy discovered the wonder that is Uniqlo, a Japanese brand store. She was able to get a bunch of clothing. Unfortunately my bust is way to much for China to handle, so even with my weight loss I still can’t buy anything in China, but I will survive. I’ll just wear my baggy clothing or if I get really desperate just order online. It was really fun, and we made it back around 3 pm.

Four stories up looking straight down

    After our adventures in the Global Center, I had to scramble a little bit with homework. I have a history presentation tomorrow and I needed to actually write up the physical powerpoint as well as my own notes. Then I got my Xian journal together, essentially I used my blog, which is one of the reasons I keep a blog. Then it was time for Chinese memorization, I have 26 characters to learn for the dictation tomorrow. At some point Chiyi popped over to practice English. Her test for English qualification is in a few weeks and she is really beginning to study hard. We talked about good study habits and also how to use the USAC students as a resource. After that it was actually surprisingly late, so here I am in bed. Tomorrow should hopefully be an interesting day.

Nov. 20, 2014

    Chinese was not on today. I spent most of class struggling through. It happens, just gotta roll with it I will figure it out. History didn’t do much to improve my faith in classes. I had my presentation, which went well I think. I discussed the connection with Tang dynasty’s rise into the Golden age and Wuzetian’s role in getting to that point (If you have some time look up Empress Wu, she’s awesome). It was a pretty standard presentation and Xiao laoshi didn’t do much except repeat things I said in agreement. I consider it a win. Class finally ended and I spent the rest of the evening with Jesse and Corey watching movies. I did somehow manage to lose my room key (Probably when we went to dinner), so it was 100 RMB to get a new one. I hope I can find the old one and get the money back. Overall it was a meh sort of day.

Behold our mighty addiction!!

    The one thing that made it better was Jesse went to Ikea to get the vacuum sealed coffee for the French Press. He came back with ten bags of coffee, as they were on sale. Essentially it was the most ridiculous thing, I have ever seen. Jesse and I both have a coffee addiction, the rest of the dorms also got a kick out of it. I now have coffee for days, it should last for a couple of months at least. Otherwise the day was unspectacular, tomorrow is Friday and I can’t wait, weekend time!!



Nov. 21, 2014

    I spent a good portion of the morning milling about. There wasn’t really anything to do except some quick calligraphy homework. Otherwise is was computer time. Today we discovered that our calligraphy teacher was ill and would need a substitute for the rest of the semester. Yen Laoshi took over for the class. It was actually quiet relaxing, we just wrote characters until we felt like finishing. I enjoyed the time to sort of free hand. Then it was back up into the dorms, for cooking. I helped Corey cook some Chicken for our dining pleasure, though dinner was far later than I expected. I also somewhere in-between manage to have an allergic reaction to something. Thus Benadryl started flowing through my veins, making me into a zombie. I really hate having to take it but I didn’t want to itch any longer. Having allergies in China makes life a little bit difficult, because I’m not always sure what caused the reaction in the first place. Tomorrow is my long work day. We shall see where it leads, hopefully it won’t be too difficult.

Nov. 22, 2014

    Saturdays are unfortunately long days. I went early in the morning to Starbucks, to meet Cindy and Mabel. Cindy was in full form today, but she was actually speaking more English. Meeting  in the coffee shop is really difficult because at some level we need to be respectful to the other patrons. Cindy is at the age where she doesn’t want to sit still, so book work is essentially out of the question, no matter how much her mother would love for us to sit for a two hours. She continues to ask about my own kindergarten experience, but it’s really not the same thing as we are in a tutoring session. That and any games played were always in groups. I was treated to lunch, then it was back to the dorms for a quick nap. I actually did get enough sleep in-between, and was up and ready to go when it was time to leave.
    Saturdays are generally like any other other day, in terms of traffic, but for some reason it took the bus nearly 20 minutes from the time I arrived at the bus stop. Then it was extremely crowded, which is unusual for the time of day. Once I arrived at work, albeit late, there were no students. We thought for a moment that we weren’t going to have anyone, when three students showed up ten minutes late. Class in small numbers is a little bit difficult to get the energy up. Lily and I managed, and at the end we colored turkeys. It’s funny that they talk about Thanksgiving but most kids have never eaten turkey, or if they have it wasn’t a particularly special occasion. As Thanksgiving closes in, I realize I am missing my family. This is the time when I get ready to see everyone and this year it won’t be that way. The USAC students are planning on having a Thanksgiving at the apartments, so hopefully that will help with the longing I think everyone has for home. Only three weeks left of the semester, and I have been in China for three months. I wonder where the time went?