Break

I'M ALIVE. I survived my first semester in China. I came out with a few bumps (a B in history) and bruises (a C in math), but I nevertheless gained a lot of experience and insight into life, I hope. Here are some things I've learned over the past three months and three weeks:

• Money isn't the most important thing; happiness is
• making friends from different countries gives you perspective on different cultures
• it's better to stay indoors starting mid-November or you'll get frostbite
• endure the hot, crowded bus during the summer because you'll appreciate the warmth by December
• wifi isn't that important either, apparently
• Home Plate is the best Texas BBQ restaurant in the world

And that's all I can think of at the moment. Home Plate is really amazing. Upon interning at Nice HQ, I've been eating a lot of Western food because the company reimburses our lunch and dinner breaks. This probably isn't good for my health, since all I eat is french fries and greasy hamburgers, and the gym has been closed for renovation for about a month now and will be closed for two more weeks. I've decided that I'm going to let myself go until the gym opens so that working out will be more of a challenge for me.

First semester is over, which means all the semester kids are home, or in Isabel's case, are going home. This also means our class schedules are going to be completely arranged, which is nice for me because I'm moving down in math, AGAIN, and I won't be the only one with an out of wack schedule. Having nine people go home is a weird thought. This journey, adventure, trip of a lifetime, whatever you want to call it, is over for them. They may never see the gates of Erfuzhong, buy fried rice from down the alley, study at Cafe Bené, or ride a taxi across the city for ten US dollars ever again. Saying goodbyes at the SYA Christmas party was very sad, but I'm sure we'll all see each other again at some reunion in the future. Oh and I played the Chinese banjo at the Christmas party for the music recitals. It was scary and my hands were shaking and sweaty and I hope I never have to do it again but it was kinda fun.

A few days ago, while I was eating breakfast, my mom came up to me and said she was going to send me a picture on WeChat of some medication that she wanted my dad to get from the states. The picture was captioned in Chinese, and I think that because of that, she expect me to be able to understand what the medication was, despite the fact that the box in the picture was labeled "PRENATAL MEDICATION". So, yeah, my host mom is pregnant. You may ask, what about the one-child policy? Is she going to be fined? Is her husband going to be kicked out of his commune? You also may not ask these things, but I will answer these questions because there is a lot of American ignorance centered around the infamous policy. My mom does already have a 13 year old son, but his father is not the father of the fetus currently baking in my mom's uterus; her boyfriend is. Because her boyfriend doesn't have children, she won't be fined or be forced to get an abortion, and he won't have to lose his job. Oh, and also, you can have two kids in China as long as you and your spouse are both only children! Yaaaay!

By the way, I FINALLY got around to posting pictures on my photo blog. These pictures consist of those from the sports event, my trip to the countryside, Shanxi, and some random adventures around Beijing. If you happen to read this post on the day that I post it, you'll only get to see half of the pictures I've been meaning to post, because Tumblr won't let me post more than 100 pictures a day, so I recommend you check them out tomorrow, unless you're so impatient that you have to see them today.

There's four more days till Christmas, but I wouldn't be able to tell if it weren't for calendars. The Christmas spirit here is pretty bleak, but at least my dad will be here in less than a week!!

It's freezing

It's been more than a month since I've last posted and I've never felt guiltier about it. My lateness is due to a combination of busyness and laziness and trying to get over the cold. As a child of California, I believe that the cold part is a solid excuse. The weather has officially transitioned from sweating weather to sweater weather to three layers of sweaters and pants weather. It is currently 28 degrees with windchill and the only other time I ever felt weather colder than this was the one time I visited Cory's parents and extended family in Indiana five years ago, and the weather was 5 degrees for one day, so I guess you could say that the weather here is preparing me for what's to come next year. Despite this adjustment and the fact that bus on which I am writing this post has a woman standing in front if me whose hair is statically attracted to my face, I'm starting to see myself live in this city in the future more and more over time. I guess I really do belong in major East Asian cities after all. 

Speaking of living here, I might have a potential career opportunity! Well, probably not, but the thought is promising. An SYA alum came to talk during our weekly Wednesday assembly. He started by talking to us about his experience as a 00' graduate of SYA China. The six floored Erfuzhong building wasn't there, and he had to be in classes 1/2 the size of most of our classes. He said that at the time there was only one Starbucks, which was 40 minutes away from school. This would have been a nightmare to me, as I find myself at the Starbucks in Sunlituan every Sunday in order to study and do weekend homework. Very un-Chinese, I know, but I get a lot of work done that way. Besides, I get to see fun things like a man discreetly spitting on the floor and wiping it with his foot. Anyway, after SYA, he came back to Beijing on vacation and, for whatever reason, found himself staying here. He now works as the head of the international part of the headquarters (I think) of a photo sharing app called quite similar to Instagram called Nice, and he came to SYA to recruit young, hip interns who spoke at least a little bit of Chinese and. I emailed him my application, which he requested to be in the form of an app in the App Store. Here was my application:

I know, I'm unbearably, side-splittingy hilarious. I assume that he received my try at comedy and liked it, because he emailed me and two of my peers this afternoon letting us know that the headquarters of Nice are "very excited to have [us] come and join the team," and for us to come in on Saturday at 11am, free taxi ride and food included. I'm doing things for teenage diplomacy, America! In case the term "teenage diplomacy" doesn't ring a bell, it's referred to in the CNN interview with SYA that took place about a month ago. You can watch the video here and watch me eat noodles at 0:41.

My mom told me that I have significantly improved at speaking Chinese. Before, she had to repeat herself multiple times and I had to fight to get a sentence out. Now we can easily have conversations. Today, we had day one of the notorious yanjiangs, which are these speeches that SYA students have to do every year, twice a year, about the topic of their choice. I found myself able to get through the 3 minute speech pretty easily and confidently aside from a bit of stage fright. To add onto small victories, I am able to appreciate crowded buses because they are much warmer than standing outside.

A few of my less narcissistic moments come from my experiences with going out in public with Lizzie. This girl draws in the Chinese like honey and bees. One time, we were on the bus to school when the bus came to a lurching stop, and the man in front of Lizzie grabbed ahold of her in a hug-like fashion for about 10 seconds longer than necessary. A few minutes later, I caught him taking a picture of her. I gave him this "Really?" sort of look and he smiled sheepishly. Last weekend, Lizzie met up with me at Starbucks and a photographer parked himself in front of us, continuously taking pictures of her. She literally had to put her hand in front of her face in order for him to stop. I feel like I'm friends with a celebrity. China, man.

Christmas is three weeks away. You may think that I'd be pretty sad about it, since I live in a country that doesn't exactly celebrate the holiday, but you are WRONG. There are parts of Beijing that really emphasize the Christmas spirit, and I think I feel the spirit more here than I ever have in California, probably because of the cold. Sunlituan is one of these parts. They actually have a Christmas tree! Well, a Christmas trees composed of Swarovski crystals, but I'm pretty sure that that's just as festive.

Besides, Father comes on the 27th of December for a week, so all will be well!

I've still been going to the Deshengmen community center to tutor the elderly. I went to dinner at a restaurant with a hasty woman who rushed me through my meal and took me to her house for just 15 minutes in order to get me home early enough to do homework. Her house was proabably one of the fanciest I've ever seen in Beijing. Well I've only actually been in about 5 different houses in Beijing but this one was pretty dang fancy. Here's a picture of the woman, in her somewhat humble abode, who insisted that the chandelier made the photo:

We sang and played a few songs on the piano together and she served me coffee after insistently asking "coffee or tea?" in adorably broken English. On our way to the bus stop, as she clutched my arm borderline painfully so I wouldn't end up in the street, we talked about Chinese history to study for my history test the next day. Experiences like those are some that I sometimes keep forgetting that I will never have in the US.

DOG UPDATE: I keep getting the question "How's Alex?" Unfortunately, we had to give Alex away. We all agreed that the poor dog peed everywhere and cried far too much for any of us to keep our sanity. 

If anyone from home has any more questions, feel free to contact me and I will compile answers for these questions in my next, hopefully soon post!

Shanxi

I'm back in Beijing. I have been since Saturday, but I haven't found time to write about anything until now, sitting in the fishbowl, which is the only room in SYA where students can eat, among my fellow students, who are either eating, doing homework, or yelling stuff at their laptops. I guess I'll talk about my trip now.

On Sunday morning at 8:30 AM, SYA students met up at Erfuzhong and got on a bus to the train station. We were handed our tickets, and we received ominous lectures and stories about students who lost their tickets and held the group behind, which proved to be effective as we loaded into the station without a problem. Me and a couple of other students watched a mound of bags while everyone else went to get food, and then we piled onto the train. The train ride took 7 hours. It was a lot like the plane ride to Beijing in that it seemed to take about a year, but in the end it was still an entertaining, bonding-ish experience. After we got off the train, we headed towards our hotel and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. After dinner, all students were free to frolick around the city of Datong, but many of us just stayed in a room and talked and (I think) bonded. Curfew was at 10 PM every night.

On Monday, we got in our uniforms and headed to Datong High School, which is a school attached to Beijing Normal University. We were to spend a day with the high school students. The students greeted us with so much excitement. It was quite adorable. I was put in a group with two of my fellow students and three Chinese students who at first said "this is so awkward" in Chinese, but in a half hour were linking arms with us. I gave autographs to about seven middle schoolers, and we watched the basketball game where SYA played Datong. It was a tragic loss of 3 points for SYA. Afterwards, the small groups of 3 SYA students were led to their homerooms, and in our homeroom, our group stood in front of the classroom and sang "I'm Yours" and "What Makes You Beautiful," and we received flowers from our adoring Chinese fans. I sang "What Makes You Beautiful" once again during the talent show, in which both SYA and Datong students performed. After we said our goodbyes with the students, we went back to the hotel and ate dinner again.

The next day, we went to an inactive coal mine converted into a museum. It was a fairly realistic experience, as we had to put on a helmets, rain boots, and entire jean on jean outfit that was about 10 sizes too large, and we had to make a 100000 stair descent and ascent down a freezing--literally, there was ice on the steps--cold tunnel in order to get into the mine. After the mine, we were all exhausted and hungry and hoarded this place that sold food. Then we went to see gigantic buddhas carved into rock walls. Here are some gigantic buddhas:

It was a pretty spectacular sight, as you might imagine. Those guys have been around for awhile. Not exactly sure how long, though. I kinda forgot what the tour guide said... but it's been awhile since they got there. 

We took a 6 hour road trip to another city. On the way, we stopped by the hanging monastery:

Another amazing sight. Except for the fact that it was 3.5 times colder than the coldest place I've ever been. The wind was unreal, not just for the Californians and Hawaiians, but for all of the east coasters too. Not to say that people from the east coast are immune to cold weather. The point is, IT WAS COLD. Then we hit the road and after about six hours of listening to music, playing would you rather, and sleeping, we arrived at Pingyao, another city in Shanxi. The hotel we lived was probably the most Chinese place I've ever been. This was the outside of our rooms:

The inside had bathrooms where the showerhead was between the sink and the toilet, and the beds were wood with a couple inch-thick mattress pad. It was actually a fun experience, and humbling too. I'll be looking forward to sleeping on my memory foam bed in the states and remembering the bruises that some people got from sleeping in the hotel rooms in Pingyao. We spent a good portion of time in Pingyao shopping and bargaining with sellers. I bought a bust of Mao Zedong and a bronze sculpture of Buddha. 

Our last night of our six day long trip was spent in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi. After settling in our rooms, Ms. Turner had the APES students do a lab involving blowing bubbles. Chinese people surrounded us, taking pictures of us blowing bubbles and chasing them around. Afterwards, a few students and I went out to eat dinner at a not so Chinese restaurant, Papa Johns. Having a real piece of pizza was quite heavenly. I also bought a pair of pants at a not so Chinese clothing store, H&M. Not to worry, though rest of the night was fairly Chinese, as we went to the night market to bargain. Lily, Jing, Nadia, and I bought these ridiculous long-sleeved shirts that said "CoCo" in the front and all down the sleeves. Many people stopped and pointed at us, being waiguoren and all. We don't get a lot of that in Beijing, since there are a lot of waiguoren living in the capital of China, so that was fun.

Our trip home took three hours, because instead of taking the regular old train, we took the bullet train. We really ought to have some of those in the US, because they are quite convenient. It was nice to be home, even though I dreaded going back to school, because I missed my mom. She let me sleep as soon as I got home, which I was quite good at, because I slept for 2 hours on Saturday, and 4 on Sunday.

Despite the freezing weather, it was a fantastic trip. For future SYA students who are reading this, and maybe having a tough time with the mid 2nd quarter academics, just know that this trip will make up for school. I do think that a lot of people got closer and new friendships were formed because of this trip, and I'm looking forward to the next 16 day trip to the Yunnan province in February.

Changes

My hair is the shortest it's been in six years. That's right, I decided to cut my long, beautiful, flowing hair. I should actually describe it as hay, because that's how dry and yellow it was after bleaching it. This is something I would have never done in the states, because the last time I cut my hair this short was in fourth grade, and I vowed to myself that I would never do it again. Here's a picture of the result of the bravest risk I've ever taken because I know you're all dying to see it:

I broke my promise with my 10 year old self only because I have really stopped caring about my appearance in this country. Something about wearing a shapeless tracksuit almost every single day of the week does that to you.

Before I cut my hair, I found a place to develop the film that has been sitting in my camera for about two and a half months. Just another comment about how much I love this country: It costs 40 kuai, or $6.66 to develop 24 pictures, whereas in the states it costs twice as much. Expect to see some film pictures on my photo blog!

The APEC (asia pacific economic cooperation) conference is today. Well, I think it's today, because we don't have school because of it. I'm not sure exactly sure why, but I'm not complaining, because I know that the US would never ever cancel school because of a government event. Anyway, because of the conference, China wants to make their capital look appealing, so it made people leave the country and stop driving and turned off the factories in order to get this result:

That's right, it's a blue sky with REAL clouds! Why would Beijing clear its skies for some dumb conference? you might ask. Well, I'll have you know it's probably cause the guest list includes Barack Obama, and you wouldn't want Obama to be talkin smack about your smoggy capital in your superpower country. Well, that's what I think. SYA won't be seeing much of Obama, though, because we will be leaving for a week long trip on Sunday to the Shaanxi province. We will do some things. Like visit the hanging monastery and go into an inactive coal mine. All the while carrying one bag for an entire week. It should be quite an experience, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Don't expect any posts or pictures until I get back, because we ARE NOT ALLOWED to bring our computers.

A couple Saturdays ago, I went to the silk market and bargained for the first time. I bought a light down "North Face" jacket for 300 kuai when it was originally 1150 kuai. 300 is not very impressive, but I took the deal because I had a lot of adrenaline because Angela, the sales woman, was getting me riled up. I shot for 150 kuai and she kept saying "Give me SERIOUSLY price!" The combination between her bad grammar and outrage made me give up at 300, even though I could have brought it down lower. I'm going back today with some friends to get a heavier coat, so we'll see how that goes.

The convenience of living here is something I'll miss going back to the states. When I'm done with homework, my weekends consist of going out basically whenever I want within curfew. When I go to dinner with friends, I never really end up spending more than the equivalent of $7. I can take a bus to the subway stop (.4 kuai), get on the subway (2 kuai), get off the subway (2 kuai), get dinner (30 kuai), and the same way back. Public transportation needs to spread more in the states, because not only will it save people a ton of money, but it will also be much more environmentally efficient. I won't go into an APES lecture but that's just my little blurb about that.

One of the places that I like to go on weekends are the hutongs. Hutongs are these alleyways that are filled with restaurants, clothing and convenience stores, bars, and other random stores. A more modern hutong has many restaurants with foods from a bunch of different ethnicities, ranging from Greek to Italian to American to Indian. In the same hutong, there are cat-themed pottery places, restaurants, cafes, and bars, where you will see cats randomly walking around the place or sitting on the tables. At an older hutong, there are a bunch of chinese restaurants lined up, one after the other. Last weekend, Miles, Lily, Nadia and I went to a restaurant where we could cook our own food on a metal pan which was heated up by hot coals. Lily had overheard a group of waiguoren making a language pledge to only speak Chinese, so we decided that for the rest of the night, we would only speak Chinese too. We lasted an impressive 2 hours!

It's almost unsettling to think that nine weeks have already gone by. One fourth of this insane trip is over. The semester students will be going home in less than seven weeks, and our group will be reduced to around 35 students. Hopefully some of the semester students decide to stay because it'll be hard to say goodbye.

By the way, check out SYA China's campus photographer page on flickr and see some of my pictures there!

Puppy!!!!!

I know it's been three years since I last posted, but don't worry, I'm alive and well and surviving despite the hazardous levels of smog sitting outside the apartment. This won't be too extensive of a post, as not much has happened in the past two weeks.

Soo my host mom did up getting me a dog, for some godforsaken reason. Well, a good reason is that she knew that I liked dogs, but she sure as heck doesn't and neither does Billy. Fortunately, they seem to like the little Jack Russell terrier, which Billy named Alex. I had JUST sat down to do my homework when I heard my mom repeatedly calling my name, telling me to come out of my room. Annoyed, I opened my bedroom door only to have turned my mood around and see little Alex resting in my mom's arm. When I held him, he was shaking a bit, but as soon as I put him on the ground, he started manically dashing about the house. Here's a picture:

This was one of two pictures that turned out well, because the energetic thing could not seem to hold still. Here is a series of the graceful attempts:

He's three months old and kind of precious. He sleeps with me on my bed, because if I put him anywhere else he creates shrill yet heartbreaking noises until I cuddle him again. I really can't complain.

Last weekend, I went to the Bird's Nest with my family to watch one of the more unusual gargantuan mechanical animal performances I've seen. It was called "French Mechanical 'Longma' [dragon horse] Performance in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of China-France Diplomatic Relations." It was right outside the Nest in the Olympic park. Hundreds gathered to watch a giant mechanical spider walk through fake snow which battled a mechanical dragon horse for about 5 minutes. I didn't exactly see the significance of the two animals and France and China, but it was somewhat entertaining. The dragon horse disappeared and we mostly saw the giant mechanical spider doing weird things with its legs while it snowed bubbles for about a half hour.

I don't think the French nor the Chinese thought the performance out too well because, to the horror of many Chinese people surrounding me, the fake snow started seeping under the banisters and many people left halfway through the performance in hopes of keeping their feet dry.

I stayed a little longer because I didn't care about getting my feet a bit damp, but we left early anyway.

I also had my first solo excursion to a different district. For history extra credit, students were to go to the place where the last Ming Emperor hung himself. It sounds eerie, but it happened around 300 years ago so anything that happened that long ago isn't scary. I had to find my way from the subway to the park where the memorial was. It took me 45 minutes to walk a distance of about 2 miles. I couldn't have done it without the help of the 11th person I asked for directions, a middle aged Chinese man who happened to be going the same way as I was going. He didn't really understand that I knew how to speak Chinese until about five minutes into our walk, when he figured it out and stopped silently pointing where to go and started enthusiastically telling me about the history of the area where we were walking by until he sent me off into the park. 

Every year, SYA students have a tones competition, which is this competition among all the students to write the correct tones on phonetic Chinese words. This year, me and four other students wrote all the tones perfectly. I wasn't that surprised about winning because of my incredible advantage over everyone as being a native speaker without an accent. I'm still happy because we got cool shirts that we can wear with our uniforms, as well as an unspoken superiority over everyone else because of our shirts.

Jon and I wearing our prizes. They read, "Zhùyì shēngdiào," or "watch your tones.

By the way, my hair isn't that long anymore. I got a haircut and cut off about four inches, which, in my mind, is basically the equivalent of a foot. It was a 68 kuai haircut, or a little over $11, and I got my own private room which had a tv in it.

I think I'm going to try out for the cheer team at Westfield High School next year. The tumbling is significantly more serious than it is at Salinas High, as at SHS I was the only one on the team who had a back handspring while everyone on the WHS team has a back handspring, the majority of them having a back tuck. If those terms make no sense to you, just google them. I would try out by sending in videos of me doing whatever they want. I hadnt practiced any tumbling in the past year or so, so Jon (who is extremely enthusiastic about me trying out and decided that he is going help me practice tumbling with me whenever I practice, as well as learn the routines I need to know for tryouts) and I went to the soccer field to practice. We practiced on the turf even though there was a full blown soccer game going on with the Erfuzhong students, who never complained once.

I can officially say that I'm happy here. The ache of missing home has dissipated, and I've found the good in this place. I've embraced the bus rides to school. The convenience of this getting from place to place in this city is something I will literally never find anywhere else in the world. Hua Hou Gou Apartments and Xinjiekouwai Street are now my home, and I feel more independent here than I ever have. There's something about not having to ask for a ride to go places and only having to pay a few cents for easy and reliable transportation that is comforting. Sure, I'm a little paranoid about having my belongings stolen, but it's highly unlikely that it will happen now that I'm aware of what I need to do to protect them. Also, I've gotten in the groove of schoolwork. I can now do all my Chinese homework and studying done on the way to school and still get 90% and above on my tingxies. As for the rest of my classes, it's been pretty easy to figure out a schedule.

The puppy is crying for my attention now, so I've got to go. Yeah, that's right, I have priorities! 

How am I not dead?

Leaves are ominously falling from trees, thick, grey, hazy smog is filling the air, and people are starting to layer clothes. That's right, it's fall in Beijing!

It was a measure of 470 on the pollution scale yesterday, the max being 500. Here is a series of pictures depicting this absurdity:

The view from our apartment. At first, I thought that the window was just fogged up from condensation, or something. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

You may or may not know that this is the view from the math room. You also may or may not know that beyond the building with the red roof, you can normally see the towering Puslation building. I think that with that information, you can figure out how bad it is.

Apparently the smog gets worse in the winter, too. I can actually smell it. I tried wearing a mask, but I started to feel sleepy which I believe was as a result of breathing my own air, so I'm just going to take the risk of getting pneumonia instead of suffocating. In case my lungs shrivel up and shatter into a thousand shards, it's been nice knowing you all. Thanks for reading my blog. Write your condolences in the comment section. Write comments even if I don't die, though.

It's been over a week since I last wrote, so this might end up being a megapost.

I believe the last place I left off was my day in Shandong. Mom, Shu Shu, and I went to the cousins' house and we all hugged goodbye. I enjoyed getting to know that family, even though I only understood 2/6 of them.

After that, the three of us and Shu Shu's mom went on a two hour drive to the Anhui province, where his sister and her family live. I liked this visit more because everyone spoke the normal dialect, the bed in my hotel room was soft, and because there were dogs!!! In the grandparents' neighborhood across the street from Shu Shu's sister's apartment, there was a friendly golden retriever named Lucky and a German shepeherd named Dian Dian. They were the first dogs that I got to pet since I got to China, and I was ecstatic about it. I also liked this visit because Shu Shu's sister and her husband were easier to talk to, not just because they spoke the normal dialect, but because they didn't act like I was a deaf-mute, like mostly everyone else there. I went to a park with them at night with their precious one year old son. Every night at this park, there's a huge group of women who do synchronised dance routines in rows. It was entertaining to watch these women whose ages ranged between 45-80 dance perfectly in synch to pounding electronic music.

We also went hiking on a mountain, where this time, I was the second most athletic, right behind Shu Shu's sister's husband. I never got the name of the mountain, but it was where an emperor was being hid from being kidnapped some thousand years ago. It was a pretty hike, but not pretty enough for me to ignore the amount of stares and "HALLO"s I received. A little girl ran up to me and walked beside me for a few seconds, never taking her eyes off me. I gave her a little wave and heard delighted laughter behind me, and I turned around to see her mom pulling out her iPhone to take a picture of us. "Qie zi", I said, which means eggplant and is also the Chinese equivalent of saying "cheese", while simultaneously throwing up the peace sign. The mom giggled even more as her daughter scampered off to her side. I felt like a Kardashian! Famous, but for doing absolutely nothing besides looking a certain way.

The 10 hour drive home wasn't nearly as long as the opposite way there because I was thrilled to be going home. Is it weird that I felt homesick not for the U.S., but Beijing? I missed the apartment, and Billy, who was with his dad, even though Billy hardly ever talked to me and still doesn't. I also missed school and all of its stress, riding the crappy bus with Lizzie every day, and having to sit out in the living room in hopes of absorbing wifi. I'm already developing an attachment to this place!! What's going on with me??

Strangely enough, the day after we got back, which was Tuesday, I felt a huge bout of homesickness and a colossal craving for American junk food. I ditched the white rice for a night and walked to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet with Lizzie. I'm not sure if they have any of those in the States, because I think the phrase "all-you-can-eat pizza buffet" is a gold mine in itself, but as soon as I get back, I better see one on every street corner. Seriously, that place cheered me up so much. Sure, it was 60 kuai, which is about 50 more than a typical Chinese, but I simply had to get my fix of Italian cuisine. My homesickness was cured with a full stomach of chewed up bread, cheese, and pepperoni.

The next morning brought forth a brief rainstorm, the perfect recipe for a terrible bus ride. It was the first day back to school. Some weren't thrilled to be back, because no one loves getting up early to walk up six flights of stairs, but I think others, like Lizzie, who went all of break without wifi with a 5 page essay to write, and Sam, who didn't know her parents were taking her camping for all of break therefore only bringing the clothes she was wearing, were happier about it. It was also nice to come back on a Wednesday, because on Wednesdays we only have Chinese class and a math test. I did a horrible job on my tingxie, dictation tests we have every other day in Chinese class, but our history class that was the next day was cancelled, so that was somewhat of a balance.

After lunch, at 1 PM I had my second music lesson playing the Ruan, the Chinese guitar. My teacher is a bubbly 28 year old woman who looks like she's 20. I got her WeChat and she said she would take me out to lunch on the weekends. PSA: PEOPLE DON'T ACTUALLY EAT DOG IN CHINA. My Chinese teacher told me that people are just as freaked out about eating dog as they are in the States. Except in the Guangdong province. The "they eat anything with four legs except a table" rule applies there. After class, Miles and I listened to some Mariah Carey to prepare for the concert because we only knew about 4 of her songs.

I taught my second class at the Deshengmen community center, which is the teaching old people English thing. So far it's been really fun. Christina and I had a class of four students and eventually we split them into two. The younger of my two students was physically incapable of pronouncing her "R"s and "L"s, and it was entertaining to help her try. Does that make me evil?

The women have our next three Wednesday nights planned; we are to go to each one of their houses every week. This Wednesday, we went to Alice's house. Christina and I had dinner with her and her husband, who took out his Canon 5D Mark I, the exact same camera that I use, to take a group picture of the four of us. Alice told me that she is a retired elementary school teacher who taught math, and her husband is a retired calligraphy teacher. He wrote scrolls for the both of us! I have yet to figure out what they say, but I'm going to assume it's something cool and insightful. It was a pleasant experience getting to know the two elders and Christina, who has the same birthday as me and also lived in a foreign country, Brazil, for a part of her life, and speaks a second language fluently, Portuguese. We did have our differences, though. I'm obsessed with pop culture, and she doesn't know who Mariah Carey is. Alice walked us all the way to the bus stop, which was about a mile away from her house. On our way to the stop, we passed a couple grocery stores, a park, and a row of people selling clothes on the street. There was a lot going on where she lived, but in the most pleasant way. I look forward to seeing a different neighborhood every Wednesday night.

Thursday was the due date of the dreaded APES essay and Unit 2 test. I felt nervously while taking it because it was so hard, but I ended up getting an 85%, which is better that I expected, and we get to make test corrections, so I'm not complaining. A lot of us tried speaking Chinese for the whole day for  an SYA immersion challenge, but I think only a couple people lasted.

Yesterday, while I was studying for the tingxie that I failed, my Chinese teacher called me into the office where 3 other Chinese were waiting to tell me that I am being moved from Chinese 2 to Chinese 3. This is a bit nerve wracking in that they know a lot more characters than I do but also a relief because in Chinese 2 I just sit and braid my hair and draw to keep myself awake because the discussion part of the class is far too easy. The Chinese words for Chinese 3 is San Ban, which the teachers kept saying and is also San Benancio Middle School's nickname. Bits and pieces of Salinas seem to follow me everywhere...(shoutout to the SBMS Clutch Crew and Fran, Jordan, Alex, and Sofia, if you're reading this I love and miss you all ok I'm done).

The Mariah Carey concert was at 7:30, but I got to the stadium at 8 because I was rerouted on the subway (okay I got lost). The concert was really fun, despite that our group of 11 knew a total of 5 songs. The concert was the weirdest experience. The stadium was about 1/4 full, and our group was without a doubt the loudest people there.

The pollution made it a bit difficult to see the stage, and it was just about impossible to see Mariah's face because the screens weren't big enough for us to see from where we were sitting. Nevertheless, Mariah was as good at singing as everyone says she is and we had about six rows to ourselves. Yesterday was also Jackson and my 11th month of dating. It's hard to be happy about it when you're not physically together but it's so worth it. It really is

I took the SAT with 5 other fellow students this morning. It was my first time taking the SAT, so I don't think I'll be sharing my scores with anyone else who I took it with, as they all have already scored above 2100. I imagine that that was the most relaxing environment for taking the test. With hardly anyone else taking it, not to mention the people in the room were all people I knew fairly well, I didn't feel as much pressure taking it as I probably would have taking it with 30 strangers. I thought it was easier than expected. It was basically a 4 hour long, more challenging version of the state testing that we've been doing from second to ninth grade. But at the rate I scored every year... that means I'll be scoring around an 1800. I'm choosing not to think about it until I get my scores back!

You know how I said people here don't eat dog? I was wrong.

At dinner tonight, my mom put a mysterious plate of bones in front of me. As usual, I dug in, only to find that it tasted a little strange. "This takes kinda weird, what is it?" I asked.
"I'm not gonna tell you what it is," she responded.
"Is it dog?" I asked, panicking.
"How did you guess?" she said.
With that, took 10 napkins from the napkin holder and grabbed the chunk of meat that was still in my mouth and scrubbed my tongue. I sat there in shock. Before coming to Beijing, I had vowed never to eat dog, and it happened. It was the first time I was angry at my mom. "I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you wouldn't eat it." I kind of just stared at her with my mouth open and ready to throw up. She tried covering it up by telling me it was horse like animal meat. I asked her if she was kidding about it being dog and she just started saying bushi bushi bushi! It's not, it's not, it's not! But the bones were far too small for it to be any type of horse bones. I've officially eaten a murdered dog. I've eaten man's best friend! I'm practically a cannibal. I think I'll go die now.

Who knew I was athletic?

Correction: I didn't actually go to the countryside. Currently I'm in a hotel room what I'd like to call the suburbs of the Shandong province, which basically means that the buildings aren't as tall and there are probably 25% less people. I did end up going to the countryside, but more on that later. Tomorrow we are headed for the Anhui province to visit Shu Shu's sister's family.

I managed to keep track of everything that has been happening over the course the past three days in Notes, on my phone. I also jotted down some thoughts in the car ride to the Shandong province. 

I found out that my HOST mom's dad was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. He didn't kill anybody, though. He realized that it wasn't a good thing to participate in the destroying of Chinese culture after the revolution was over, but I guess at the time he got a bunch of free stuff.

Pictures from the Great Wall are on my photo blog, which, if you've forgotten, is linked next to my bio. It took me almost a week to finish posting all of the pictures because people kept asking me to post them and for some reason that always makes me lazier about it.

I'm pretty sure I could become a millionaire as a translator here. Not like a political translator or anything like that, but one that could translate English words or phrases on t-shirts or mugs correctly from Chinese. Really though, how hard can it really be to get someone who speaks good Chinese and English, at least good enough to make a few English words make sense or have correct spelling? Just this morning, I saw a sign by the elevator that said "IN CASE OF FIRF DO NOT USE ELEVATOR." Yes, firf. Someone did not know how to use Baidu (the Chinese version of Google Translate) or was in a rush. Then again, there is virtually no reason why anyone would need to read that sign, because no one here needs to speak English or is an English speaker. Based on the amount of stares I have gotten, I am probably the only white person that half of the people here have ever seen. Still, I might consider starting a temporary translating business while I'm here just so I'll have a few extra kuai to spend.

OCTOBER 1ST

After a twelve hour car ride that was made up of napping every other hour in the half packed back of a compact Mercedes, we arrived in Shandong. I get my own hotel room here! This is my first experience of living alone, and it's been great! I can play music kind of loudly and watch as much television as I want, both at the same time. I must say that the television here is awful. Well, maybe not. Maybe I'll be able to find myself relating to the characters of Peking operas and Chinese soap operas someday. As of now, I'll stick to translated Spongebob on channel 25, which somewhat compensates for the lack of good cinematography. Once we were moved in, we went to Shu Shu's brother's apartment, taking my laptop with me because Mom insisted that I did because she was paranoid that someone might break into my room and steal it. This became a common thing during the trip. When I walked into the building, everything was dusty and seemingly falling apart. The inside of the elevator was constructed of wood and advertisement posters. That's something else I don't really understand. Every elevator in China has advertisements in them. The 13th floor, where Shu Shu's brother lives, was no better than the first. Mom knocked on the door and a tall, pretty Chinese woman welcomed us into what was the total opposite of what I had expected. Their apartment looked like it came out of a modern magazine, and it was completely spotless. Just another thing to add to the list of things that I don't get about this country.

Shu Shu introduced me to his two nieces, who were around my age and painfully antisocial. I sat on the couch with them and his great aunt, who spoke the Shandong dialect which prevented much communication between us. Actually, everyone here speaks the dialect. So not only am I illiterate, I also cannot comprehend the language. During dinner, I was surrounded by about seven other aunts and uncles who were all trying to speak with me while I sat there helplessly. Fortunately, the cousins warmed up to me and were able to translate, since they learn putong hua, or the normal dialect, which is the primary dialect of China and the one that I speak and understand. 

I'm going to refer to the cousins as "the cousins" throughout the rest of this post, because I find it impossible to remember Chinese names. I feel bad because they treated me so well. They even took me out to the night market and bought me ice cream and some greasy stuff that tasted good, as greasy stuff usually does. I also finally found earrings that I had been searching for, and they insisted on paying for them. The lady who sold me the earrings was giggly, probably because doesn't see many white people, or at least any that speak decent Chinese. It's such a humorous concept for them. Twice that night, I heard "HALLO!!"s followed by guffawing which was directed towards me. It was weird because I had never received that kind of attention before. It was bound to happen sometime.

OCTOBER 2ND

I spent the morning writing one page of my APES paper, which doesn't sound like a lot, but a Chinese standard paper is about 1/4 longer than regular paper. Okay, that still doesn't sound like a lot. I was distracted by the cultural beauty of Chinese Spongebob. Before we left the hotel to go back to the apartment, I Facetimed with Cade for about 20 minutes. That was the first time I had heard any English for 36 hours, and surprisingly, I was doing fine. I think my Chinese has gotten better while being here, or I've gotten good at tuning people out. Me and the cousins went to the mall, where the only money they spent on me (they really wouldn't let me spend any money) was at the arcade, where they bought me tokens so I could play a car racing game. Then we walked to a beautiful garden which had a pond and a large statue of Confucius. Shandong was the homeland of Confucius, okay that's the history lesson of the day.

After the garden, the whole family drove to the countryside to meet up with even more relatives. I slept on the car ride there, so I was a bit disoriented and startled to wake up to the sight of piles and piles of corn. In front of each house was mounds of yellow corn to be sunned and sold at a market somewhere in the city. The cousins took me down a long dirt road to look at the scenery, of which I will post pictures when I get back to Beijing. We stopped at a flat area where instead of crops were large black patches scattered around the fields. I asked the cousins why we stopped, and they explained that the patches were where bodies were buried and the black was where money was burnt as offerings. They felt too uncomfortable to continue on, so we headed back to their grandparents' house. Mom explained to me that in Chinese culture, honoring the dead was more important than marriage.

OCTOBER 3RD

There is this song called "Little Apple" that plays constantly throughout China. It's the on the top of the charts here, and Shu Shu has played it in the car repeatedly throughout this whole trip. Here is the music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d59boCs31uM

Skip to 1:18 if you care enough to watch and if you don't care for the intro. It's pretty entertaining in that it's just about the most Asian thing you'll ever see.

Today I went on the shortest hike of my life. I am assuming it was supposed to be longer, but my mom and the cousins realized that they do not have the athletic ability they thought they possessed. For once, I was the fastest in the group! Hearing them beg me to stop hiking was music to my ears, as it is usually the other way around with me. People here wear the most inconvenient stuff to hike in. Mostly everyone on the mountain was wearing jeans, and I even saw a man in a dress suit. The hike lasted about 20 minutes, and we spend a good 5 minutes resting. These are my kind of people.

The cousins. They aren't as formidable as they seem in this picture. They are, in reality, very adorable.

One of the cousins has a two year old brother who is almost three. He reminds me of Will and Wyatt, in that his cute, charming side is like Wyatt, whereas his butch, violent side is like Will. Because of this, I constantly felt a sisterly instinct to be around him and act as I would around my brothers, scolding him when he hit me and holding his hand on the street when the whole family went out.

After our hike, we went to go pick fruit. The uncles and one of the cousins were jumping to reach for persimmons, which reminded me of the Thomsens' dog, Ruby, jumping and grabbing persimmons from the tree with her mouth in their front yard back home in California (que homesickness). After, I was dropped off at the hotel so I could work on homework and was then picked up to go to dinner with the family. It seems that people do not realize that I can use chopsticks and that I have been using them since I was three years old because they continue to insist on getting me a fork at every single freaking meal. Tonight I refused to use it and took extra care not to drop any food when I used the chopsticks. My mom complimented me when I was able to pick up a quail's egg, because everyone else had been struggling to pick them up. I pretended to shake off the compliment when on the inside, I was like, "yesssssssss". They also think that I can't handle having spicy foods, but little did they know, I ate Extra Flaming Hot Cheetos before every cheer practice during freshman year, meaning that I can kind of handle spicy foods here.

After dinner, the cousins and I walked about a mile to go to a seasonal carnival. It was 8:45 when we got there, and as soon as we step foot in the place, the lights went out and the music turned off. We were the last people in there, minus the staff, who were riding around their mopeds and closing up. One of the cousins convinced a carny to turn on one of the rides for us. It was one where people were strapped into chairs at the bottom and were vertically sent around and around in giant circles. The staff said they would only allow us three rotations. As we were coming around on our third rotation, one of the cousins started screaming bloody murder and told the carny to stop the ride or she'd throw up!!!!! She got off, and the carny asked where I was from. I told him that I was from the U.S., which I think helped with the fact that we got to have three extra rotations. As we were getting off, he tried convincing us to let him lead us through the haunted house as a bonus treat for the American, an offer that me and the cousin that didn't get off the ride immediately turned down, because we are both terrified of scary things. I think it's funny that the carnies were willing to let us go on a ride even though the park was almost completely closed. They were even making sure we didn't want to go on other rides before we left. This is the opposite of what would have happened in the U.S., where the answer would have been a big fat NOPE. Although when the carny asked if I liked China or America better and my response was America, I think the generosity and sense of community is much better in this country.

Goodbye Beijing

At 12:00 AM tonight, my host mom, her boyfriend, and I leave Beijing for Anhui, a province of China which takes about 10 hours to arrive at by car. We will be staying at a hotel part of the time, and at my mom's boyfriend's house half the time. By "time", I am referring to the week long break that all of China has for Liberation.

QUICK HISTORY: The fall of the Qing Dynasty was officially declared around 1912, which is when the Nationalistic Party was established. Foreign nations took hold of China and China became really poor and awful until Mao Zedong fought off the Japanese and forced the nationalists to flee to Taiwan and thus officially fixed everything on October 1st, 1949, where Mao announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China, or the PRC, and China officially had "Liberation" from foreign powers and nationalists and Communism was established. October 1st to October 8th is celebrating China's emergence from its North Korea-like (the way my mom described it) state, as far as peoples' living conditions, into one that was much better, economically and health wise (until the Great Leap Forward where approximately 40 million people died of starvation but that's irrelevant in the purpose of this QUICK HISTORY).

I'm not exactly sure what to expect of this trip. All I know is that we will be hiking the best mountain in China which is somewhat cool, I guess. I wish I could sound more enthusiastic about climbing the best mountain in China, but I really hate hiking.

Today was our last day of school. It doesn't really count as school, because it was actually the 69th BNU #2 sports meet, but any time I have to show up on a school campus at 7:15 AM and stay for more than a couple hours, I count it as a school day. I participated in the jumprope game, which was a team game. Two people would turn the rope while twelve people jumped through in a line, and the more jumps the better. SYA did a great job in the race. We earned 3rd place in the 11th grade, which had twelve classes total. It was quite the accomplishment, considering that the Chinese students supposedly practice for half a year, while most of us spent two days practicing our events.

After completely bombing a practice Calculus quiz, getting 3 out of 20 correct, Mr. Chen, the most enthusiastic math teacher and borderline one of my favorite teachers (so far) of all time, approached me suggesting that I drop Calculus and take Honors Precalculus instead, which is what I am now doing. This alleviated the pressure I was experiencing after getting back that practice quiz. I felt like crying more than usual once I got it, and I think I'll feel that way less with Precalc, which is a class I already took over the summer. On top of that, our APES teacher decided, on a whim, or maybe because every other student had been feeling the way that I was, to pretty much cut our workload in half. Our bi weekly papers are no longer expected to be 5-6 pages, but 3-4, and our assigned reading has been decreased greatly as well. So far, things have been improving on the education front.

As for the money situation, the school gave me ¥3000 in cash, which I currently keep in one of my six subject bags (students in China uses these flat plastic bags to hold papers for each school subject), a subject which I will not name in case for some reason one of you SYAers is reading this and is a kleptomaniac and finds it. Basically what I'm saying is that I need a wallet.

I've already spent some of this cash for a ticket to a Mariah Carey concert. I'm going to this concert with about eleven other people who know just as many of her songs as I do, which consist of her rendition of "All I Want for Christmas" and "Obsessed", which came out in 2009. Despite the our lack of knowledge of her music, seeing one of the most materialistic people in the US perform in this part of the world is up there on the list of the most entertaining concepts to process. Besides, tickets were only ¥280.

Outside the living room balcony currently reveals a view of the Olympic Park, which is colorfully lit for the national holiday. I wonder how much energy it takes to light up that place... Sorry, APES is, in my dad's words, "brainwashing" me. Another thing that has changed about my perspective on life since being in China is that I am very environmentally concious. Stop complaining about how ugly/overpriced Pruises are! They cause less fossil fuels to be extracted from the earth, people!! 

Anyway, my mom is pestering me telling me to go to sleep because of our departure in four hours, even though it's only 8:43 PM. Goodnight!

EPIPHANY TIME

"Money on My Mind" by Sam Smith came on just as I began to write this post, which is appropriate because of what I am about to write.

I think that China has already influenced my career choices quicker than I had expected. Before I came here, my plans were to become sophisticatedly fluent, enough to communicate in the business/politics world, go to college and major in economics, get a master's degree in business, and become an international businesswoman. The main goals of this career choice was to make a million dollars per year, have three mansions/penthouses around the world, and to be able to travel around the world as much as I did with my dad when I was a little girl. Since I became freshman class president, I started to become transfixed with this idea of having a lot of power over people (not to say that I had any power over anyone whatsoever during freshman year. I just liked to pretend that I was in charge of all 660 students in my class), and I became very competitive about my grades, which turned into a subconscious desire to be the best of the best not necessarily just in school, but beyond. That all changed the day after my mental breakdown.

There are some things that China has taught me about my previously established goals. What had kickstarted my epiphany is what Ms. Becker told me during my flurry of emotion. The thing about my goals is that it's not that they were unreachable, but that I was setting myself up for misery in the sense that any time I have a setback, I will become stressed to a point of breaking. Another thing is that I realized is that being the smartest person in the world is not only impossible, nor will it make me a better person. School Year Abroad is ridden with smarties whose intellectual capacities greatly surpass mine, which means I have to accept that I am not going to be near the top anymore, as I was at Salinas High. Having to accept this fact forced me to think about what else I have to offer. Athletic ability was most certainly out of the question, as it has always been since day 1. Of my life. I thought about the defining factors of people, and I realized one of the main factors was the way that they treated others (to sound as un-cliché as possible). Even though that does sound cliché, it is what makes them who they are (oh god so cliché). I decided that I am going to take my extreme level of competitiveness and aim it towards being a better person (I CAN'T STOP), because I would rather be known as a good person rather than the girl who can't control her emotions because of the pressure she puts on herself to succeed therefore causing her to take it out on the people around her.

A second factor in my change of heart was that calculus made me realize that I am not good enough at math to become an economics major. I had to reevaluate my purpose. What was I good at? What do I like to do? What do I actually want to do in life? After several minutes of thinking on the bus home, I came down to the answer that I've had all along (well, since seventh grade): photojournalism. Photojournalism has the answers to all of the questions which I had stated above and thought about while holding my rolling backpack for balance on the bus. 1) I believe that I am good at photography, and writing. I believe this because people tell me that I am, or else I wouldn't say so. 2) I absolutely love taking pictures, and I have for the past four years. Ever since my dad gave me his old Canon 10D during October of seventh grade, I fell in love with the art. There's nothing better or cooler than capturing moments that can't always be remembered by memory. In just a fraction of a second, a piece of history is saved forever. How much cooler can that get??? Probably a lot cooler to many other people but let me have my moment. I have also loved to write since 4th grade, when I got a journal for Christmas. Ever since then, I've gone through about 5 journals, but until now I haven't really been able to express my writing to so many people, and I like writing even more than before. 3) What better career choice than to combine the two together? And as I stated before, the main goal was to travel, which is something that is basically in the job description of photojournalism. The other part of the original plan was to make a ton of money, which is highly unlikely. But that leads me to my third point.

The third way that China influenced me to change my goals is the lifestyle of people here. One night, I went out to dinner with my mom in an outdoor restaurant. The floors were dirt, the chairs were of cracked plastic, the tables were all a little bit dusty, and a couple of stray puppies were running around. The people, men wearing dirty white tank tops and slippers telling stories and laughing and their children, who were chasing each other around in their underwear, seemed as joyful and happy as they could be. It was the opposite of glamorous, yet the humble lifestyle of those people, and many others in Beijing, is what made me realize that being able to go out to five star restaurants every night clearly isn't the key. Making millions did not seem as important anymore after that night. "I don't have money on my mind" anymore, as Sam Smith stated (I'm sorry that the way this portion ended in relation to the beginning was the most anti climactic way possible for it to end but it was too perfect to pass up).

Now that that's over with, my style of writing will now become just a tiny bit less self-centered. As I stated before, our class went to the Great Wall. Quick fact about the Great Wall: it is not one continuous wall. There are several sections of it. The section that we went to, of which the name I already forgot, had very few other tourists. There's not much I can say about the wall itself besides that it was incredible, just as I suspected. Our group was pretty spread out for most of the time, but we managed to get the official class picture of SYA China 2015. For half of the time, a female seller, a short, pudgy woman whose tanned skin was wrinkled and looked like she was in her mid fifties followed me and only me around, insisting that I bought some of her paraphernalia all because I showed a little bit of interest in a t-shirt that she had. She tried selling it to me for 80 kuai, which is incredibly overpriced. I told her I'd take it for 30, and she was exasperated at this. I had originally planned on not getting anything at all that day but she finally brought it down to 30 and in admiration of her persistance and me thinking I got a good deal and also because I simply grew fond of her, I bought the stinkin shirt, which says "The Great Wall of China" in Chinese and English. My American naivety made me think I had gotten a good deal because I then found out that someone had gotten one for 15 kuai. 

I got home at around 5 PM and took the subway to meet some friends for dinner. The subway was a little bit scary because I had never ridden it by myself and I had to make 3 stop changes, but everyone around me was able to easily point me in the right direction. It was right before I got off the final stop to Sun Li Tuan, which is where the restaurant was, when I checked my purse only to find that it was about .5 lbs lighter. My body temperature dropped and my heart started racing and tears welled up in my eyes when I realized the fact of the matter: I had been pick pocketed, and my wallet was gone forever. That morning, I had withdrawn Y1000, or $166, too. My debit card, school IDs, drivers license, and 3 gift cards which all have less than $2 left on them are in the possession of a thief. My friends offered to cover me for dinner, but I had lost my appetite. It was about time to get a new wallet, anyway.

In other news, I started my English class on Wednesday. I taught the first 12 letters of the alphabet to some hilarious old ladies, which I guess is good enough to get me in the newspaper.

In case you don't know what I look like, I'm the one on the far right. I know I'm not wearing the SYA shirt like everyone else but that's because I went home before they took pictures, so they asked me to send in a headshot. Now all of China knows an alumni from Charles E. Teach Elementary. Go Tigers!

It's 1:49 am, which is a good time for me to sleep since I took a 4 hour nap today. We only have 1 day of school this week, because our school wide sports day, sports meaning track and field and the jump rope game, in which I am participating, is on tuesday, and our week long October break starts on Wednesday. Hooray for being Chinese.

good news!!

As the title of this post states, good news!!:

• As I got to school this morning, I received my history quiz back and saw that I scored a 98% which means I probably don't have a D anymore and my desire to jump out of the balcony has slightly decreased!
• The 6 page synthesis paper that was due on Monday is now due on the day we get back from October break, which is in about a week and a half from now!
• I now enabled the comment section of my blog to allow comments from EVERYONE which includes people who do not have google accounts so for those of you who have been struggling to leave a comment, struggle no more! You can now give me as many compliments as you want!

I'd just like to say thank you to those who gave me feedback on my sorrowful previous post. You all make me happy to be on planet earth. Okay now this is getting corny!! (But really I love you guys).

An interesting fact that I learned today: During Chinese class my teacher explained to us that Erfuzhong, the five stories underneath SYA, is one of the top high schools in Beijing. She said that virtually every single student attending Erfuzhong, which consists of around a thousand students, goes to a top tier university in China or elsewhere in the world. This was eye opening, as I had no idea that the giggly, shy students who I try to make conversation with on the soccer field and pass by going up and down the stairs are actually a mass of geniuses. Last year, there was a student who attended Erfuzhong who was the best student in all of Beijing. I'm not exactly sure what factors are considered in determining the best student in Beijing, but from what I've heard about the Chinese education system, this kid must've studied literally 24/7 or had an extra brain or was a prodigy or who knows what.

I've decided to spend the rest of my friday watching a few hours of Netflix for the first time in a month while eating the dark chocolate that I received in the mail (thanks Uncle Sean and Aunt Jean!!) and hopefully getting to bed at 9pm because I deserve to treat myself. Peace out.

warning: sad stuff

I could be spending this valuable time finishing math, Chinese, APES, history, or English homework, but I realized that if I didn't take a break anytime soon, I'd jump off the balcony that's across from my bed. As I've said before, this is an honest take on my time in China. So far, I have gotten used to everything culture-wise (except for on the bus, I was looking over this lady's shoulder to see if my stop was coming up and she pushed me away, but I don't think that's a cultural thing. I think that's just plain rudeness), and my friends are great, but the fact of the matter is, my grades are plummeting and I'm not okay.

Besides the pushing lady incident, everything today was going well. The history quiz we took was a lot easier than I had expected, and I understood the calculus lesson we were being taught. Then I was called into Ms. Becker's (our Resident Director and my advisor) office during class and she gently told me that she is going to have to write a letter to my parents saying that I have a D in history. At that point, I sort of broke down and cried. It was around two o'clock in the afternoon at that time, and since then, I've been crying on and off throughout the day. As I am writing this, I actually realizing how pathetic I sound but the truth is that I've never let my grades go below a B and I have no idea how else to handle it but to have random sobbing sessions. Oh and I haven't told my parents about the D yet either, so... surprise dad! Happy late birthday (his birthday was on the 24th so be sure to say HBD).

I have a 6-page synthesis paper due on Monday which I haven't started, too btw. Just another item on the stress agenda that I thought I'd add because it's subtracting years from my life.

Anyway. This post is going to be fairly short because I do have to get back to homework. I don't have anyone to talk to about my problems because everyone I know and love is either in a deep sleep, doing homework, or doesn't speak enough English, so I figured, why not tell the entire world? Thanks for reading about my woes. Time for me to go back to mental labor.

rolling backpacks are universally ugly

Pictures from the Olympic Park and Tianenmen Square/Forbidden City are finally on my photo blog, in case you were wondering. Shoutout to Miles for lending me his mini USB cord for his calculator. Right now I'm sitting in a room that smells faintly of urine with my mom waiting for Billy to finish English class. He goes to school on Sunday to learn English, so that means school 6 days a week. Today he went from 10-12 and 4:00-7:10, which means we will be sitting here for another hour and ten minutes. Earlier we went to a market and bought a hula hoop and a rolling backpack for me. My mom thought the hula hoop would be good exercise for the family, and decided to get a rolling backpack because I was sore from carrying 200 lbs on my back every day. It was originally 150 kuai, and my mom was in disbelief about how expensive it was, so she told the seller she saw it for 70 kuai at the grocery store (which it wasn't). The seller scoffed and insisted his was the best price, so my mom took me by the arm and we started to walk away, and the seller ran after us and said "fine! Seventy kuai." It's pink and has a large Hello Kitty on the front. Super cute, I know. It'll look really good with my uniform. I'm expecting a trend to start. My mom made fun of me for getting one because it's fit for more of a first grader, but I would rather have good posture than care about backpack fashion.

As we were walking through the market, we saw a really tiny adorable toy poodle. Mom offered to buy me a dog, even though she said she and Billy are scared of them. Of course I said no, because that would be absurdly nice of her, but I secretly would love an animal to cuddle. I'll settle with staring at the koi fish in the living room.

Tianenmen Square and the  Forbidden City were  pretty fantastic. When we arrived at the square, herds of sellers immediately flocked towards us and started to sell us Communist hats, Mao's  red book, maps of Beijing, and more miscellaneous China-related thingys. I gave in and bought a hat for a staggering 10 kuai. The city itself was huge. There seemed to be an endless  amount of temples, but for some reason, the group I was with got to the end about an hour before everyone else. We sat down for a moment and sellers once again saw their opportunity to make some money, even though there were just four of is. One tried getting me to buy a rickshaw ride, but was dejected once he realized I spoke good Chinese. Another seller thought our exchange was humorous and he took a picture of us on my phone. When we got back to school it was around 5:30, an hour later than expected. I was also surprised to find that I was supposed to go to dinner with the old ladies in charge of the tutoring program for retired intellectuals. So me, three other students who volunteers, and the ladies went out to get baozi, which has become a staple food in my every day life. They bought plenty of food and were sweet and adorable, but we all ended up leaving the place at 7:00 and we all still had loads of homework to finish and all of the Chinese provinces and capitals and surroundings countries to study for a test the next day.

I've been slacking on homework, only because for the past two school nights I didn't stay up past 9:30. My plan has been to go to bed early and wake up at 3:30am to study or do homework, but it hasn't worked out so well since each time I studied for about an hour and decide to go back to sleep. This is nothing like I've ever experienced before, but I'll force myself to get used to it.

I just had a staring contest with a baby until his mom noticed and I felt awkward so I came back to writing this. I'm obsessed with the babies here. Every one I have seen is adorable and round and soft and I want to squeeze their fat cheeks!!!

Well, that's it for the week-ish. So much has been happening, yet nothing has, because I'm getting used to everything. This is my life now!

I don't have [chinese] friends.

Right now I am writing this at the kitchen table, the primary place for good wifi connection, where out of my peripheral vision I see the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten in Beijing and maybe in the duration of my life.

It isn't your average, unfamiliar, wrapped up Chinese food item. During breakfast a couple of days ago, I took a bite of it, not knowing what it contained. Many who know me well can say that I am not a picky person, and even if I encounter a food that I generally don't like, I will still be able to eat it. But upon encountering a bite of this atrocity, I had to fight a gag from coming out of my throat, which is something that probably has never happened to me from eating a food. It was a moon cake stuffed with flower petals. There's a first for everything, I guess.

In other news, about 5 minutes ago, I was listening to music in the dark (because yesterday, my mom frantically informed me that our building switched to this system where we have to conserve electricity or else we will not be able to have any until this weekend) when the intro to "Team" by Lorde started playing, and I almost had a heart attack because I thought it was someone coming up from behind me and trying to scare me. Thrilling, I know.

My nose is also running more than I ever have in my life. I did end up getting sick, like I predicted. I also have a cough, but it's hasn't gotten to the degree of Lizzie's, whose coughs echo past the mountains of Mongolia. Every time I sniffle, which is about every 7 blinks, my mom asks me if I need to go to the hospital. I'm okay, really! is my response every time, but maybe she has short term memory loss. Either way, I appreciate her concern.

This Saturday, Hugh, Tim, and I went to an EDM (electric dance music, for those of you born before 1990 or so) festival. Below is a beautiful portrait of me in the front row during the first set:

It was really fun. I didn't know that many of the acts that were playing but the music was energetic and exciting. The only set I knew was Sky Blue from LMFAO, and the last set was Dirty South, who apparently has won two Grammys. There was a large crowd of people there, about half Chinese and half Caucasian. The Caucasians consisted mostly of European high school students living in China. We ended up meeting a few girls from France, Germany, and Russia. One of the Russian girls spoke good English, with a little bit of a Russian accent, but her first language was Chinese, which was impeccable! It is always really strange to me when I see a white person speaking perfect Chinese. I feel guilty that I didn't make any Chinese friends. I still need to make Chinese friends at school. Hopefully when badminton club starts I will have that opportunity.

I really have been missing out by going to large schools my whole life. During free period, I can talk to any teachers I want during the day because they have a lot of time during the day to help students. Today, I had to go to Mr Chen's office twice during free period to ask him questions about the calculus test tomorrow. It only took 15 seconds to walk from his office to the library, and he was able to quickly answer my questions because he was sitting at his desk. Last year, it would take me 2 minutes to walk to math class during lunch to ask questions, and often times I had to wait to talk to my teacher because he had other students to speak with. Once, I waited 20 minutes outside of his classroom and had a nice conversation with Kapil, Salinas High's notorious Class of 2016 designated valedictorian since freshman year, only to find that my teacher was absent that day. At SYA, it's easy to be helped as soon as possible and it seems that everyone's questions get answered immediately.

Tomorrow, we are going to go to the Tianenmen Square, which is an important place in China for those of you who aren't history buffs. Expect pictures on my blog soon. As soon as I get my package in the mail, actually. When my parents at in the US asked what I wanted in the mail I didn't even know what to ask for besides a mini USB cord. I have lost all my appetite for junk food, an anomaly that I never imagined occurring in any lifetime or parallel universe, for some unfathomable reason. But in case you want to send me gift cards or books on how to bargain at the Silk Market, here is the address:

My self-declared educational break is over and it is now time for me to memorize all of China's provinces and their capitals and surrounding countries for Chinese History. ttyl