In Memento

September 11, 2008

For those of us who have already forgotten those who have fallen, this is the day to remember. As someone who was not directly affected, I can honestly say I did not remember until this very moment that I wrote the date. May the families affected back in America finally be at peace.

Now writing my quarter-weekly blog seems trivial to the issues occurring around the world, but for my parents' and friends' sakes, I will continue to recite the uneventful wakes of my days.

My first 9 hours of Chinese classes are over and I do have to say, Chinese is pretty intense here. I thought that Smith was hardcore because we did a lesson every 6 days, which consisted of 40 vocabulary phrases, but here, we do one lesson every 2 days, consisting of 50 vocabulary phrases. I guess its almost the same because 2 days here is 6 hours, which is 6 days at Smith. However, when one day is 3 consecutive hours, there is no studying time in between to continue to learn the words or even what the lesson is talking about! Apparently, each semester at Alliance is supposed to teach us one YEAR of Chinese. So after Beijing and Shanghai, I will be in Chinese 600?! Is there such a thing?

Anyway, yesterday after classes were over, a few friends and I went out about town to scavenge for bubble tea. Laura and I seem to be obsessive over finding the best bubble tea in the city. We are actually planning on writing a book of bubble teas and we're going to "bubblish" it, I mean publish it. That word actually slipped out of my mouth as we talked about writing a diary of our bubble tea adventures. If you ever come to Beijing, and love bubble tea, we will have to show you around. I used to call it Pearl Milk Tea, but in a story-wise setting, Bubbles sound more fun, more EFFERVESCENT and EBULLIENT. I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we went to the bootleg dvd stores and I bought CJ7 for 8RMB (~1 USD). Eric bought The Dark Knight and Laura bought Sex and the City. We ended up having movie night and watching The Dark Knight, which was a pretty high quality bootleg, until the extreme end of the movie, where it started skipping as Batman rode out into the sunset. Haha. I have yet to watch Sex and the City, but I just hope it's of good quality, or else I might just have to wait until I head back home. I also have a picture of the Batman DVD cover. None of you in the states will have ever seen this poster. So I thought I might take a picture.

Well at least I thought it was awesome and I didn't see it back in the States.

This morning, I had my 25 minute one-on-one chat period with my Chinese teacher, as all of us students have on Thursdays. I got to talk about the differences between "de", "de", and "de". Of course in English it all look the same, but in Chinese, it's a nightmare of a difference. I had learned it before, but I'll just say I still can't remember it...I'll have to go look at it again. I also talked about my Capstone Project, and told my teacher how boring it would be if I wrote about Chinese economics, so I have decided to get deeper into the social realm of China, and seek out the followers of Mr. Mao. In the words of Ms. Z "Hee ish da Chairmans, yesh!". I actually bought Mao propoganda yesterday on the side of the road. It is up on my wall behind me as I type this. Perhaps a picture will suffice.

Hey, what do you know...Mao has two little followers in my very room. :)

Also, this morning, I discover my toilet is flooding and I speak with the housekeeper. She says its because I flush toilet paper down the toilet, not in the wastebasket. Ma'am, there is a reason why it's called toilet paper and not wastebasket paper. How unsanitary and disgusting is it to throw your poopstained paper in the basket next to you. Foul! She said if it ever gets clogged again, it's our problem. Vile! Enough about poopoo, even though you all know its my favorite "p" letter word. I joke again.

This afternoon, we have Sociology and are going to watch some sort of documentary, I'm actually not too sure. We still haven't gotten our reading packets for this class but I am a bit terrified to receive it as I received my film packets yesterday, and the both of them are not of slim size.

Tomorrow, all of us have tickets to the Paralympic track games at the Bird's Nest, so I will finally be able to see what's behind the prison gates! We don't have class tomorrow so we're heading out at 8 a.m. to watch the games. I'm pretty excited!

My ticket for tomorrow. Made en France.

I think that's about it for now.
All the way from the land of toilet paper you don't put down the toilet.