Know what I hate?

I hate roommates who are immature and unstable.

I hate roommates who stomp around and slam doors and snarl.

I hate roommates who put off all their work to the last minute, allow themselves to be intimidated by it (although, may be in this case, it is over her head but only because this ranting of her's has severely changed my assessment of her academic ability) and thus put it off even more.

I hate roommates who expect me to put up with it.

I loathe roommates who expect me to sympathize with them over this.

I abhor roommates who think that they have the right to affect my living environment so drastically because they can not deal with something as little as a 10 page research paper. Really. Grow up, you are in college now.

I do like the fact that knowing I have all of my papers done (and turned in) must irk her.

It is a small victory.


*preens*

As an addition, I am SO glad I was out with my hanyuke for most of the evening, hence I am only catching the tail end of this crap.

America, I love you!

So, just got back from America... And by that, I mean Allie and I spent the afternoon in Xingba -- Starbucks!!! It was like a mini-vacation. We have to write them to let them know how much we appreciated the experience.

It was spaced out like places in America and no one gawked at us... and we were even able to help them learn how to pronounce the new lattes (Gingerbread and Toffee Nut, both of which we ended up getting). One of the servers was wearing wings, which was interesting--clearly we were still in China, but it was a very realistic simulation of America.

Part of the greatness of the experience was that we got lost a billion different ways trying to get there. I'm so glad that we did not give up (we ended up asking people if they knew where the American Coffee House was. heh)

However, now it is time for some real studying--break neck studying. I'm not leaving my room type of studying.

Laoshi, I hope that you are fucking prepared to mark me at least a 90 on this chapter test.

No internet...

Duibuqi everyone--our internet has copped out.

As it is, I am across campus, at 9:34 pm, holed up in an office building, leeching their internet. Unfortunately, this building has guards and they will kick me out. Plus, I'm not feeling so hot--or rather, too hot (feverish) so my bed is looking pretty good.

In other news, I have come to the very important realization that... "wait... I am studying abroad in Beijing and I need to keep my GPA up to keep my scholarships... I don't think NaNo-extreme is a good idea".

So yes, for the time being, NaNo is on hold. I have a long plane ride back, maybe I'll do a CRAZY mini-nano then... Whoa. That would be wack. Hm....

Additional news: yours truly joined a soccer team (a we-only-speak-chinese soccer team), but I am currently on the prowl for a field hockey team. I've heard rumors that they do exist...

*sigh* sick.... *whine*....

HANNAH WILL YOU JUST COME ON LINE, ALREADY!!!!

Nano

Wow.

Nano is trippy.

Because, when I write really quickly, sometimes things come in chinese

Damn...

Look who died up in China

Sorry for the massive block of radio silence. Shit kind of hit the fan with Chinese class (I still only got a fucking 89 on my chapter test this week!). Even my fracking Laoshi has started using me as examples for... things like... nerd. I want to lay open his neck with my mechanical pencil.

Wrath.

Anyways. Good news! Looks like my research next semester will count as my Honors Capstone Thesis. Good to get that out of the way AND do chinese (ahem, China) at the same time.

Something's got to give. Things are going too well...

Oh, my neck went out, so I'm on a diet of oatmeal and whimpers.

But! The reason for this post!

NaNoness...
So, I am doing NaNo this year, despite getting off to a late start. I cranked out about 7,000 words this weekend alone, which was nice because now I am up to speed and intend on keeping it that way.

Because blogger sucks balls--I am lacks a lj-cut-type device, I will not be slapping my nano on this bitch because, lord, that would involved a crap load of scrolling.

So, anyone who want my nano is welcome to it; shoot me an email and I'll deliver unto you installments. However, I do ask for something in return. I do not need bait, cheerleadering or threats (this realization is courtesy of Lee-lee). I am a disciplined soul and will write as I should. What I would like, however, is little helpful tid bits. I am writing very quickly so very little of it is good. What I would like from readers is to tell me little things that I could manageably improve on while I write quickly.

Something as simple as, "yo, you need so much more description it aint funny," or "harden up so-and-so, I don't get what they are about yet". This is also probably help jack up my word count, yo.

Alright -- off to Chinese homework, BoB and then NaNo.

Loves!

What up, bitch!

(read all of this with a Gangsta!tone in mind)

Uh!

Yeah, so, I can write a 7 page report in 2 hours. What up now, bitches?

(..okay, so the paper is about acupuncture and science philosophy... not too gangsta, I guess. But I did think that my speed at it was rather good. I think that the only paper I've ever written faster was about pandas... and really--who can't write a paper about pandas quickly?)


[/gangsta]

Anyways - I really want to go out tonight because there will be Halloween craziness but I also want to push out as many papers so I have the month of Nov to NaNo and just study Chinese. And work with fungus... But really, that's nothing.

I just hope that my new job doesn't think it can cut into NaNo time. Worse comes to worse, I just wake up at 5 to get my hour of writing in.

Victory!

Got a job... Sweet!

Had a wonderful dinner. We went out with this Chinese couple to this chicken place; it was very good. And we played some Chinese table games. And we played truth or dare. I had to tell the waitress that I loved her. She said "thank you..."

Came back, had cookies and milk (out of a bag... both cookies and milk.. each had its own bag) for desert.

Went back to my room, watched Gossip Girl with my roommates *mhhhrrrr*

Took a shower, and wrote some of my Science paper!

woot. I would really like to get at least a draft of my science paper out this weekend. It only needs to be 8 pages and it's about acupuncture. It shouldn't be that hard. And its not really due to the middle of December, so I'm not concerned. But all the same. It would be nice to have it done.

Simile Time!

Thought of the Day:

Living abroad is a lot like being pregnant -- its just a series of strange food cravings.

Craving of the Moment: Olives. omg. Want them so badly. An olive spread on toasted French bread...

Laboratory Stories!

The day was off to a rough start today. We've lost our meal card, so breakfast was botched but at any rate. We biked to the laboratory and did a lot of preparation of cultures and fungus (yay).

We got really bored waiting for the pressure steamer to get up to par and do its job, so we took to reading Chinese newspapers (hard for us, amusing for Yang), trying (unsuccessfully) to do Chinese crossword puzzles--I know! It blew my mind, too! Finally (and my favorite) we made paper hats out of newspaper and wore them around. Then we started with the cranes and fortune-teller-thingies.

Then we realized that someone (some JERK) had turned OFF the pressure steamer.. and we had been sitting about for more than an hour... for nothing. So then we spent the next hour thinking of punishments (many involving interesting stabbing devices) and talking about Chinese zodiac signs. Yang kept calling Allie baby rabbit and me boring tiger--she meant bored, because I kept yawning, but it was funny all the same.

We were going to try and calibrate the pH tester, but they've gone and broken the membrane (China...) so there are bigger issues at hand.

Then we went for lunch (... MacDonald's....). Allie spotted a Kaodegui seller on the way: think... old man with a bicycle and a huge roaster machine on the back, piled high with sweet potatoes. When she went to pay for it, Yang bent over the scale and we thought she was looking out for us to make sure the guy didn't jack up the price... Nope. When we're walking away she goes, "Interesting... I think that they charge you more because you are foreigners"

*headdesk*

We got to MacDonalds (I know she the only reason she was craving a Big Mac was because she was in the company of two Americans, really) and it wasn't too bad. It's a sort of comfort food. Don't give me that look. I know, I know...

We discovered that Yang doesn't know how to whistle, so we'll be taking care of that next!

On a science-y note, next week we'll be doing PCR and looking at RNA strains to see if DDT has any effect on the gene expression. This is the stuff that I am really interested in so yay!

Oh and I bought bananas and oranges today! Go me!

Post Marathon!

Yes, that's right. I've participated in a Marathon... In Beijing, no less. Rachael and I ran the 10 km (only 6.2 miles, bah) and we finished in 1 hour, 21 minutes and 52 seconds. I blame the bottlenecks along the course.

But really, who knew that running 6-something miles with so many thousands of Chinese people would be just a great time? I even got picked up, yo! I swapped cell phone numbers with this (cute) Chinese guy who is really South American because he grew up in... I can't remember. But it was so strange because I thought his English sounded funny and then I realized, duh, it's English with a Spanish accent. Who else did we run into? Oh, this 80 year old professor, who completely out paced us. But he was funny. A couple of Canadians... Oh! And we jumped in front of every news camera we could find.

Jiayou! ("add gasoline to it" -- their form of a cheer).

Duly noted, though: choose your marathon socks wisely.

Today wodeshenti buhao. My legs. Going upstairs is so much better than going downstairs, but I'm waddling around, essentially.

And lord, was I in a mood during Chinese class. I even look like a scary ghetto kid with my hood all up and a scowl. That and we only pulled off a 88 on the midterm. And I know that I got the highest score and mine was substantially higher than Allie's. I think some of the Denver U kids might have actually failed.

I really need to just... string up my professor. Yeah, that'd solve most things quickly. He tried to use me as an example with the text (because we are learning a lot of science terms now) but I was definitely not putting out. No sir.

Rural Economics wasn't so bad. I'm glad I choose to present first, because the professor essentially assigned the same topic, just worded it differently, so my stuff was "fresh and new" vs saying "Yeah, uh, mine was all covered...?"

I think tonight I am going to have to start in on my Rural Economics paper--at least getting research out. We only really have a month and a week of classes left and I have several long papers to write so I need to be on top of that shit.'Cause that's how I roll.

Yeah marathoners!!! Jiayou, bitches!

EDIT: oh, if anyone who reads this wants a charrie note/letter, just comment. I'm too lazy (I ran a 10k marathon!) to find the exact wording and such *loves*

Beijing Marathon

Tomorrow is the Beijing Marathon!

Woot!

I'm running! I'm running! I'm gonna die!

I should probably get to sleep, as I need to be up at 5:15

...

Woot!

We're back!

Midterms over. Thank god *growls* I don't even want to... *growls* I studied for that test for -literally- a week. And I still couldn't not do parts of it.

Laoshi and I are going to have to reassess his abilities as teacher. Because, really? China? You may think that you can tank my GPA but no. That's right. I said no.

And normally I would go about this by getting a good grade the old fashion way but I have run into a glass ceiling. I have finally started to get 10s on the quizzes and now he is docking me for character proportion. I am 100% certain that he is not that nit-picky on anyone else's grades. I've asked. And then shown mine and they were all floored.

Even worse? Allie and I are the only two taking this class for a letter grade and credit. The other kids just need a C or better. *anger*

In other news, my roommates just bought pot.

And, originally, I was going to say... I can't remember.

*sigh*

China! *shakes fist*

Midterms, Tea and Sexist Pricks!

First off, midterms are coming up -- meaning I have one HUGE ass test in Chinese that should be eating up all of my time from now until Wednesday. If you see me on line or have the inkling that I am online -- smack me.

Until then, I'm hopped up on my lovely jasmine tea (mmmm....crack....) and studying but first!

A Jen Story!!!

This morning I went to the speechcrafter's debate club try outs -- not to join, but to judge. Yes, yours truly sat, looking very official with a bottle of water and a notepad and was required to judge Chinese Beida students on their ability to debate using English.

The interviews went well until one of the other judges (and head of the club) asked a interviewee why she was on the premedical track because "isn't 8 years of schooling a long time for a girl?"

I couldn't help myself. I flipped my shit. Every chinese person in that room saw a full-blown angry American woman flip. her. shit. In all of her blazing glory:

ME: "Eight years has the same number of months, and the same number of days, whether you're male or female. Eight years of schooling is a long time for a boy too."

HIM: "Well, but then the woman will not graduate until she is 24..."

ME: "And neither would the guy!"

HIM: "But then it would just be late for her to start doing other things."

ME: "LIKE GIVING YOU CHILDREN?!?"

At this point, I realized everyone in the room was very uncomfortable because the foreigner was yelling. But, having felt like I made my point, I promptly turned back to the interviewees and continued. I finished up my rankings, turned in my scores and hoofed it like a race horse.

Every once and a while, China is very different from America (or, at least, the civilized, gender-equality sections that I'm used to). I literally feel like a bull in a china shop.

Bonus points to anyone who can find me the song "Goodbye Pisces" by Tori Amos, for the sake of the previous line up there *points*

Okay, enough down time! Back to studying *insert whip crack*

Whee!

Absolutely everything is well with the world:
- I have money to continue my education
- I have PLANS, big PLANS for my life -- that include graduating!
- I have new music (Fiona Apple's Tymps and O'Sailor; Carla Bruni's Quelqu'un M'a Dit and J'en connais; and Carbon Leaf's Girl and Her Horse)
- I just got to talk to my mom for 1 whole hour!
- My roommates are out partying so I have the room to myself!!!

Okay, big plans first! There are many options and I am tinkering with them all:
1. Go back to the States this spring and continue on Pre-Med track; be normal; graduate with Biology major.
2. Stay in China for the spring; continue research; return to the States during the summer; take summer classes and hit the books; graduate with a Biology major and Chinese minor.
3. Stay in China for the spring and summer; continue research; volunteer at the Olympics; return to the states, finish all requirements, graduate, take a year off to review for MCAT, work as EMT, take the MCAT and then go to med school.
4. Stay in China for the spring and summer; continue research; volunteer ar the Olympics; do two more years at university; graduate with a double major, Biology and Chinese: Language and Area Studies. Take MCAT; go to med school or graduate school.

Right now I am leaning towards #3... 'Cause I would make a fucking awesome EMT. And I would like to earn money instead of going to school straight for the first 1/3 of my life... Real life job experience? Often good.

This week we have our midterms so I need to buckle down and start to study -- but first I need to send out some probbing emails to get the jist of whether or not these plans are plausible.

Love, love, love

Scholarship

Wow.... I just received a $20,000 scholarship.

This opens so many opportunities for me, I just can't speak...

Memes and Class!rants

MEME 1: Writing
Taken from LG's livejournal....

1. Pick one of my characters, any one.*
2. I will tell you the origin of his/her/its name.
3. I will tell you five random facts surrounding his/her/its creation.
4. I will tell you his/her/its favorite color, book, music style, and/or movie/play (assume movie for my sci-fi chars and play for the fantasy ones).
5. I will give you a brief summary of his/her/its backstory, if you desire. Indicate yes or no.
6. You may ask me up to ten questions about the character.

CHARACTER: Oangi

1. Name: Like most of my characters, Oangi was a name generator product but I really liked it because it was a lot different from most of the name-styles I generally lean towards. It has a lot of vowels in it, for one, and I'm usually pretty religious with hard direct consonants. So it was different and just looked right when put in the company of the other two, Belico and Darper.

2. Five Random Facts: Well lets see... I remember that I was really just getting off of a Redwall book and loving the little band of evil dubbins, so that was what really struck up my "I want little ones..." thought. And of course, I already had Merlani established at Fort Terilani and a fort is hardly a fort without little army brats running around. Strangely enough, it was Belico who came foremost to mind even though I feel like he ended up the least strongest. He still comes through every once and a while, but I get the feeling that he had more interesting things to be doing. Oangi, however, was always game to be let loose so naturally she took the reins. If I remember correctly, I think the trio came out of summer, meaning I was also surrounded by my campers and I am that I borrowed a lot of ideas from those guys--not that any of my campers could even approach the level of horror that the trio managed regularly. And.... When Oangi first kind of appeared, I had no idea that she would mature the way she did--I think a large part of that was due to having Jier. Getting her placed with him really solidified the rest of the direction she went off into.

3. Color, Book, Music style and Movie/Play: Not that Oangi would stoop to admitting any preference for something as stupid as color... but maroon red--more with a brown tint. I can totally see her reading The Art of War but I'm not sure if she ever really becomes literate. Probably just enough to get by, but not enough to really enjoy reading. Music again is one of those unnecessary recreation activities but impolite bar songs, probably--anything to cause a ruckus. A movie or play? I can see her really getting into Othello, what with the rage theme.

4. Backstory: Oangi was born, like the rest of the trio, in the thick of the war between Devali and Sennor. Her father was a border soldier and her mother one of the many military wives who took up duties as a cook/laundress. Her father was killed when she was about 3 and her mother never really recovered from the loss--which probably explains why Oangi is so poorly socialized. Via the military's day-care style, she found her niche with Belico and Darper--each one was just different enough to not fit well with the main group of children but they did fine by themselves. Without any dependable adult supervision, Oangi and the two boys were more or less left to their own (meaning Oangi's own) devices. It wasn't long before the group established a reputation, with a surly Jier in tow. His arrival and bonding to Oangi was the last straw as far as her mother was concerned and it was unfortunate that no one seemed to noticed the long, long, consecutive hours Oangi was spending being "watched" by the older military children. Eventually Jier's ill behavior brought him across Merlani's path; it was love at first sight :P For reasons only Mer would be able to explain, she took a liking (more or less) to the troublesome group and made a habit of keeping up with them. From that point on, the trio were wards of the officer, and would remain so long after the conquering of Sennor. Oangi made a smooth transition from army brat to city brat and eventually to a gang member. At 16, she ran off to the border, plying her skills as a mercenary. One botched job, however, would see her tucking her tail and heading back to the capital city. Never one to remain humble long, she immediately set to imposing her own rule on the Undermarket and actually manages to usurp power from the Devalian Undermarket Boss.

MEME 2: Friends

Reply to this post (indicating you want to participate in this meme), and I will write at least one thing I love about you, probably more. Then repost to your own journal and spread the love.

LEE:

I love that you are small and easy to excite. I love that you're smart and academically flourish in areas usually dominated by males. I love love love your taste in music and admire your talent in performing it. I love that you think you're pessimistic and yet are more optimistic during the span of one day than I am in most weeks. You're crazy and energetic and hyped and I love how that sometimes (I wish all of the time!) it rubs off on me. I love that we've known each other long enough that I've been able to see you mature as a writer and person. I love that that change may still be imperceivable to you. I also love that it probably isn't. Mostly, I just love you because you make it so easy to *sqeehug*

RANT:

Oh my lord. My professor is killing me. All of us. Well, I'll only speak for myself because I am not sure how my classmates are doing poorly (I know that we are all doing poorly, but not why...). I only make the most marginal of mistakes. This is because I am an overachiever and that is my standard. So, in only making those most marginal of mistakes, I would like to have someone explain to me how my score hits a roof at 85.

I think Allie had a good point -- if he's taking -1 point for every wrong character, the whole sentence should be worth at least the number of characters in it. It does not make sense to have a 10 character sentence only be 2 points when you can lose the entire value of that answer with 4 tiny mistakes. What's worse? I'm not even making that many mistakes! -0.5 here, -0.5 there... Dude, how is this making sense?!?

Argh. And now in my anger I'm going to go and do my chinese homework?!? What is wrong with me!

Reporting

Okay, so feeling slightly better... TRIP RECAP TIME!

We left for Shanxi (Mountain West) Tuesday morning. We drove for 8+ hours to Pingyao. Pingyao is one of the 3 ancient cities that have been preserved with the original city wall and such. It was pretty cool. There were many little hole-in-the-wall shops and restaurants. We stayed at the Yamen hostel, which was pretty nice as far as hostels go. Three to a room, with a communal bed and sketch bathroom, but not bad, really! There was a pretty courtyard and extensive DVD watching room (Beauty and the Beast, anyone?)... and cats, but oh well! No rabies for me, please!

The city itself is full of museums and temples and sights like that. I've been in the first bank of China (not that impressive), the Martial Arts museum (also not too impressive) and all around the city wall (would have been more impressive if it weren't raining and foggy...). I'd say that the best part of the it was having Bailey's and hot chocolate at the international cafe/bar with Matt and Rachel.

After Pinyao, we drove for another couple of hours to Taiyuan. It was still raining and we had some strange Brazilian BBQ buffet--which was really an American buffet and so good. Lord. I think it just really hit the spot. We crashed right after dinner which was good because we had to get up really early. We headed to the Jinci Temple which was alright. The Flying Bridge was okay, but I really just liked the schools of koi underneath it lol. And the portal doors ways - -they are round and remind me of hobbit doors *squees*. I want them in my garden when I have enough land under my name to have a garden. After Jinci Temple we were suppose to go to another sight, but didn't because the roads were so bad and the weather was still raining...

Instead, we headed straight towards Datong. When we finally arrived, we were so hungry but dinner was so bad. Then, about a 1/2 hour later, I felt SO sick. So I went and did the fetal position and felt like I was going to die and faltered between napping and wanting to throw up. Finally at 1am I threw up like I meant it. Gah. It was so bad. That's what I would call being violently sick. Luckily I was done by 3am. Apparently about 1/3 of the group got really sick but most people didn't get sick until 3 or 4am... Some didn't start getting sick until the bus ride home which really sucks.. Meg and Ethan were both sick on the ride home. I'm just glad I got to barf in the privacy of a bathroom where I could brush my teeth afterwards.

Despite 1/3 of the group being sick, we still went to the Buddhist Grottoes. I'm glad for that, actually because I was feeling better and it was a marvelous sight -- some of the Buddhas were 17 meters tall, carved directly into the back of caves. It was really ornate and very majestic.

Afterwards, it was 10+ hours on a bus, getting lost in the middle of nowhere china... From this I have learned that China is a really poor, undeveloped nation with a very good mask on.

I was so glad to be back in Beijing... It was kind of bad. I blame the weather and getting sick.

Returned!

Back from northern china.

Was violently sick from food poisoning last night from 12am-1:48am.

Want to die; must go sleep.

Will give full report tomorrow.

HOUSE

IMPORTANT:

Does anyone know if:

A. iTunes will have House, Season 4?

B. If not, where I can download it? I really want it for this long as trip...

(No, I just really want it, but it would be orgasmic to have it for the 34 hours of bus ride that will be had this week...)

"What the fuck is a bizzle?"

Yesterday was so much fun. Except I woke up at 6:00am but that allowed me to get a good and early start to the day.

Allie and Ethan and I went to the Temple of Heaven. I'd already been there on my last trip to China, but it really is amazing. Unfortunate that we took the wrong subway there, but I let it go... Often times I end up traveling with people who just generally live their lives in a less prepared manner than I deem efficient but whatever.

The three of us explored the Temple for about 6 hours, finally ending up in this huge rose garden--it was so huge! And the flowers were so huge too! About as big as my head. Really!

All and all, that was a good trip. On the way back, we stopped by a bakery to pick up a cake for Jacqueline. God. I love cakes. But Chinese cakes are a little... eh. Anyways, we picked out our cake, headed back to BeiDa, grabbed some baozi for lunchers and then swung back to pick the cake up.

Then we headed off to meet the rest of the party group at the South Gate and walked to this really nice resturant (well, not nice in the sense of quality, but nice in the sense that it was perfect for our needs -- rowdy with lots of beer). We had SO much food! I loved the braised eggplant the best *mmmmm* I love eggplant. And duck! Kaoye, yum yum.

We taught our Chinese friends about Snoop-dog's "hua" (speech; see title) and just generally shot the shit. More or less a little buzzed and loud.

After that, we headed to Pyro to do the cake and continue drinking. We commandeered two tables (argh!!!!) and took that place over. We even had them turn off the lights when we started with the candles and singing. It really was a good time. And the cake was good -- not decadent like in meiguo, but it was chocolate *dies*.

After that, Allie and Tim and I headed over to propaganda to go dancing. At first they had really crappy music but then the rest of our group trickled in and things got a little better.

Unfortunately, clubs here all always filled with smoke and after about an hour, it kills your eyes. So, at about that time, we decided to bounce on home. Walked home from dongmer (east gate) in the rain (acid rain) and then immediately went for showers and the laundry room.

We ended up watching a Rescue Me episode until the laundry was done in order to stay awake because it was about 3am by then.

Thus I slept to 12:35 today *sheepish*. Ah well, today is my "I'm tired, dammit! I'm not doing anything!". Except pack...

HAPPY NATIONAL DAY, CHINA!

This week we have off so we are traveling to northern china, Shanxi province. So I'll be out of contact for a long while -- until Saturday, I think. But now I have to go and see if I can pack my backpack full of everything I'd need for a week... otherwise... I need to find a small duffel somewhere snappish.

Camping at the Great Wall? Check.

So Allie and I met up with Meg and we three took the 4 o'clock bus to the Great Wall. At the front of the bus is this crazy muscle man, dressed in form fitting black spandex with a crazy Norwegian accent (he had blond, blond hair and blue eyes, if you're wondering) and it turns out that he's, more or less, our group leader...

And he starts to tell us that the part of the wall that we are going to is not a public part, so we need to be quiet getting up there... And to be careful where you go because once he was run down by Chinese soldiers, kicked in the head, covered with a black mask and taken into interrogation for nine hours. Immediately, I wanted to go home, but it turned out all right in the end.

He had a thing against the States, though because he went through the whole bus (it was an international student thing, 200 foreigners and a crap load of a lot of countries) and just completely brushed the Americans aside. Now, I have an issue with that because, clearly, if I'm studying in China, I'm not the kind of american they generally think of. Jesus, I'm the kind that they should be interacting with for chrissake!

We finally get out of traffic and to the parking lot and its about 8:30... Luckily it was a full moon, so we walk up the mountain (I kid you not, mountain, I say!) for several kilometers. The path was fairly treacherous but the moon helped, as did my "torch" *dies*.

We arrive at the wall, this 8-foot wide (at best) ridge, with a 5 m fall to either side, drop our stuff and head off to explore. We explore up and we explore down. We found a ruined sentry post on the down side that was really cool because it was like our private part of the wall.

Eventually we meander back and are roped into helping--because we're helpful. So we head down the mountain to bring up more water and sleeping rolls and toliet paper--really important stuff, ya know?

We roasted veggies around the fire, made marshmellows... took marshmellow shots (we had not graham crackers, so it was "pop in a piece of chocolate and ripe that fucker off the stick and swallow, bitch"). It was so good. We also shared some beer with some Belgians.

Eventually it got really late and we all bedded down. Thor--the crazy Norwegian, as I named him--Meg, Rachel, myself and Allie... all in about a 4x6 square. We had to sleep sideways all together to fit and everytime someone moved, it was like the domino effect. But we had a really good view of the moon and the sun, after it broke the clouds in the morning.

The morning consisted for more scampering and romping, poisonous spiders, feral dogs, and me, making a mandatory "No, everyone MUST take one water or else someone--probably me--will have to carry the case down. And its heavy". I really don't get how some people think. It is some much easier for 10 people to each stuff one water bottle in a back pack than for one poor soul to have to have lugged it up and back down. Really.

The busride home was a nap-nap-nappy time. We showered, hit the noodle house (yumyum) and then I crashed like I died. I slept for 4 hours *sigh* Getting to bed tonight will be interesting... Although, I'm still really exhausted, so it might be easy.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

Make sure you all go and enjoy the moon sometime today! Zhen piaoliang!

Woke up early to go to lab; we ended up beating the graduate student there. Always a bad way to save face (for them). Did some basic preparations for the experiments on Thursday. Was treated like a talisman. Really, now. It was a little ridiculous.

Got four moon cakes, though: egg, ham and date! listed in backwards order of preference.

Thought I was going to kill Allie though because we were cleaning out flasks with this dry detergent-type solid and then after we put the flasks back, she flicks her soapy-water hands at my face.

Normally I am fine with this playfulness. Not in the lab. Never in the lab. And especially not in a Chinese lab. I pretty much sobered her up with a dead polite, "please do not flick soap water into my eyes..." Erg. Just frustrating. It was made even worse by the fact that AFTER we've washed these things, Yang goes, "Oops! We should wear gloves now!" Kill me. Because if you don't, I'll die a horrible death in this lab.

Managed to memorize almost the whole dialogue for the test on Friday. Generally I don't prescribe to the fact that route memorization is the best method by which to learn, but for China? I make exceptions.

Visited the BeiDa club fair and signed on to the animal rescue club. Accidentally, of course. I filled out all the information before I remembered that all the clubs here require deposits. Ah well. I got book marks and a paw-print pin out of it. Save the cats!

Allie is keeping a gecko in her room, hiding it from her roommates. I don't blame her; would much rather have a gecko than a solid bug population.

Celebrated the moon festival at the Old Summer Palace. There were lanterns and everything! It was very pretty. I'm going to upload my pictures shortly:

http://picasaweb.google.com/JennFantasia

Enjoy!

Is that all I am to you?

Please witness the sorts of emails I receive...

Jenn:

I am just about to mail you the laboratory work tomorrow. Well , I will do most of the tests at Thursday so for tomorrow I will do some preparative work, make several reagents and clean beakers, conical flasks.

I can handle it myself, but if you want to join , you can come around 9 am. I want to finish this as early as possible.

PS: One of Jenn's plate had a very clear decolor ring , that's wonderful. So I really want you to join my experiment on this Thursday. Cause it seems that you are very luck at experiment.:)

And wish you have a good day tomorrow~

Really, I'm nothing but a lucky rabbit's foot to them.

In other news, classes are boring as always but at least internship promises to be interesting this week, if the email is anything to judge by. Tuesday is the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, so I'm really looking forward to that... Hanging out by moonlight... Enjoying drinks and sweets... Yeah, I can do that.

This Friday.... guess... You won't be able to -- its that cool: I'M CAMPING OUT AT THE GREAT WALL!!!! Hell yeah! Its suppose to rain, but I better not hear any bitching from mah companions. My mom says that its probably horrifically haunted, but I don't care. Its going to be so damn cool to say, "Oh yeah, I've been to the Great Wall... Twice... I've even camped there, in fact." *dance*

Oh, awkward though? Today Allie brought up after class how she thinks our Chinese teacher likes me--the middle school kind of like... Which is uncomfortable because I thought I was picking up on something but decided I was just over analyzing my own importance in the universe. Apparently not. *sigh* Unfortunately, this also means that he hardly ever calls on me and rarely publicly corrects me and I know my Chinese is not THAT damn good. Meanwhile, he absolutely picks on everyone else in the class so they get to practice their Chinese more... Merf. [[CLARIFICATION: Because I assume that everyone knows as much as I do... Which you may not--this is not not too exceptionally creepy because our professor is all of 24 years old. Yeah... when I went back to re-read I was like, "crap... that makes it sound like some old man is hounding me". Anyways. Carry on...]]

Just my luck, right?

Random: yesterday, when we were running (did I mention that I'm training for a marathon? Kinda... I'm running the 8 km race *shudder*) at the track, we found lots of Chinese sporty soccer players and *squees* Chinese guys practicing acrobatics! They were holding each other's ankles in pairs and doing doubles somersaults! You'd never get to see that kind of thing at a track in America.

(If you haven't guessed yet, I'm never going home...)

Oh yeah, and then the gecko...

Heh. China is just full of people and animals. Whee.

Allie managed to catch a gecko the other day... And if you know geckos, you know what happens when you catch'em....

Their tails pop off!

So of course she wants to show me, so she runs up to my room and manages to hide it from my roommates -- they would have freaked out -- and we played with the gecko in a little glass jar for a bit, watching its tail (on a different table) wiggle and squiggle.

We released it of course, by our window sill. They have so many little lizards here about; better than bugs, I'd say.

Today I'm going to the military museum! Yeah! Guns! and also maybe a little down town vendor shopping. We'll see.

Oh yeah -- I can read comments via email, but China won't let me post replies to them or see then through the web site *painintheasscommunists* So.. sorry if you're hoping for replies -.-

Where the hell am I?

Okay, so Allie and I head out of the West Gate, planning to grab a taxi and go to her friends apartment to play Risk (sweet Friday night, right?).

We get out of the Gate, and on the side walk, I see a snake.

And this is not any snake. This snake is 3 feet long, with black and brilliant red stripes along the whole of its body. And its dark out.. and people are almost STEPPING ON IT.

Allie and I ran over, making huge "DANGER" gestures and save a few chinese people. This guy, seeing us, comes over from his car and, through sign language, communicates that if the snake bites us, our arms will swell up. I assume that to mean that this colorful, big snake is poisonous.

So I say, in my wonderful chinese: "I'll go and tell the guards. They'll help us".

Unfortunately, my hissing and mimicking a snake's movement and using the measure word for long and skinny could not effectively convey the fact that there was imminent danger nearby.

So we return to the guy with the car and he goes to his trunk and pulls out two things: a tennis shoe and a tote bag.

Of course, I tell him that he is not allowed to smash the snake, half in motion and half in chinese.

Dui, dui, dui, dui... Using the shoe, he ushers the snake into the tote bag and ties the handles.

Then he hands the bag to Allie.

Of course I'm yelling, "No! We cannot accept a big, poisonous, colorful snake!" Its 10pm at night. What would we do with it?

We ask if we could let it go but he's firmly against that. In the end, he threw it into the back of his honda and drove off.

wtf.

I still cannot believe that really happened.

"Are you married?"

Today was a good day. I got up early and we went running. Its officially one month (to the day) until the race, so... It was a good start. Expect for the fact that China likes to leave manholes uncovered in the morning. Yeah, definitely pulled an elegant leap for the sake of my life. But other than that!

Was very productive in terms of work today. Yeah, its sad, I still have classwork to do. But Allie and I took a nice break to go to lunch. We find the cutest little place called ... something Pin Xiao something.. I'll look it up because if you are ever by Peking University's southern gate, its right there. It had the cleanliness I would expect of a western restaurant but the prices and delightful food that are definitely both Chinese.

After lunch, I kind of, uhn, passed out for a while but I really needed to so it was okay. Then I tackled some Rural Economics homework (so long as you stay on top of things, it doesn't seem like much work.

Around 6:00, Allie, Jin Wei and I headed over to WuDaoKou to set up for dinner. We were meeting a bunch of people who were getting off of their internships so we could do some western food (I HAD PANCAKES!) at Lush.

omg it was so good.

*drools*

Afterwards, I walked back with Rachel, Allie's roommate, and some guy who was going to ball room dancing asked her if she was married. I was conveniently dressed in scrubs so I deflected all attention (sweet). I think that Rachel just looks too nice. And she does, unwillingly, play into it. She can't help but have conversations with people. Poor thing.

And I learned today that I will be handling my little brother's college applications from Beijing. Yeah.

But now? Bed time!

Wow, so this is trippy

I just realized this...

In class, my professor has been saying "yisi shi(r)" but I've been hearing "is assured"

What's weird about that? yisi shir means "meaning".

So for example, he'd say (forgive the shoddy english, I'm dealing with Chinese here..) " 'Am not one of the best students?' yisi shir she is one of the best students"

And I was hearing: " 'Am not one of the best students?' Is assured she is one of the best students".

Com'on. That's trippy like 13th Warrior language learning trippy...

Anyone?

Gah Wednesdays

It was really hard to wake up this morning. I have Taiji classes at 7:00am but when that alarm went off... It was tempting to hit snooze. Luckily, I've started to use my cell phone as my alarm clock and I don't know how to hit snooze yet.

Rachel was supposed to go to Taiji today. She got up, took 20 minutes in the bathroom and then waltzes out with, "Uhn, yeah, I don't want to have to get up this early. I'm not going."

... Meanwhile, I have to scramble to get dressed, brush my teeth and put my contacts in because I AM going. Some people.

I have little patience or sympathy for the lazy.

After Taiji, I wolfed down my breakfast (some soupy yogurt and a piece of bread) and headed off to chinese class. We biked there today; its not far but Allie and I had an errand to run (no pun intended, see below) during our class break.

Anyways, 3 hours of Chinese class is a long time. Sigh. At least my laoshi is funny if also very demanding and very... well... Chinese.

During our 20 minute break, we biked over to the auditorium to register for the *gasp* Beijing 2007 marathon! Well, kind of. Allie's running the half marathon. I wanted to run to the 5 km (approx 3 miles...) but the spaces were all taken. So I'm signed up to run the 8 km *shudders* We'll see how it goes. The most physical thing I've done since my back surgery was climb the Great Wall. I know that sounds impressive, but I'm not sure I can run for more than 5 minutes straight right now.

Plus, its hard in Beijing because, ya know, they don't have oxygen only pollution.

I had a stupid moment during class though. In general, I don't like to leave in the middle of any class but today I was just slinging back my entire nalgene and sure enough had to pee so badly. Now, part of my bathroom aversion is out of respect, part of it is out of not wanting to draw too much attention to myself and part of it is because I prefer my dorm bathroom to the public bathrooms here. Don't get me wrong, this toilets really have some things going for them.

Think... toilet bowl, sunken into the ground. And subtract any sort of sitting device. Thus, you have a chinese squatter. Now, its quite easy if you have a skirt or what have you, but--if you've ever done a lot of camping, you'll agree--it takes some balance to and self knowledge to not piss all over the back of your pants, if you happen to be wearing pants. Luckily this is something that I've done before and can do and probably will do often here, but its just different enough that I'm very eh about it.

I think part of my "eh" has to do with the fact that we are not allowed to flush toilet paper, so even though you are entering a seemingly clean, indoor bathroom, you get the out-house scent. If I were going to an outhouse, that would be fine but everytime it surprises me.

So lesson learned, I just need to regulate my fluid intake for those 3 hour long classes.

Tonight we are going to quiz night at Lush. Its a westerner style bar but they've made their quiz night into a chinese culture/language/music everything. We've tried to stack our team (I suggested having auditions) but we'll see how the evening goes.

Tomorrow I have off and I don't think we have laboratory--it'll be a pure work day.

Oh and a story from last evening:

Allie and I ended up going to the Medicine House for food. We're sitting, enjoying our meal and these two college age guys come in, sit down near us and light up. Despite the fact that there is a no smoking sign on their table... and the window sill... and, actually, 10 other no smoking signs around the rest of the room. All in pictures, English and Chinese.

So, being the asshole from Boston that I am, at the end of our meal, I head over to their table.
Jen: "Excuse me, guys? Can either of you read fluent Chinese?"
Smoker 1: "No, its one of my ultimate goals though,"
Smoker 2: "Yes, unfortunately, our speaking and listening skills are a lot better than our reading skills."
Jen: *long pause, cannot believe they buying into this so well* "Oh well, I was just wondering, 'cause the sign's also in English" *nods towards no smoking sign and walks off before they can turn around again*

It was perfectly played.

Victory!

Thanks to the fact that Rachel, one of my roommates, is a internet smart ass, I can now have a blog from China.

Sweet. I know, right? Take that, government censorship!

I'm about to head off to dinner, but thought that I would give a basic run down of the past couple of weeks:

I'm living in China at Beida university (Peking University). I'm enrolled in (stupid) english classes but also have an independent study project that allows me to work as a lab assistant for one of the research labs on campus.

So far, our program has mostly done larger tourist spots: Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall...

In two weeks, I will be camping out on the Great Wall (yes, I think that's a bragging right).

Until then, I'll be... doing the usual.

Expect numerous stories -- funny and "...eh" alike -- as I document my attempt to assimilate.