Friday, October 31, 2008

The Sigh of Relief

I slept in this morning. It was gorgeous. I set my alarm for 5:30, although I am pretty sure that I just turned it off and went back to sleep, and convinced myself that I had just dreamed that my alarm went off. I would not have gotten out of bed if my friend hadn't texted me "good morning" at 6. That dragged me out of bed.

This morning was a beautiful morning. I left home a little later, because I had no homework, and there was no rush. I got on the bus, and gave up my seat for an older lady. It's just the way that things are done here in China. My bus ride was uneventful, although I did catch up to my friend Rebecca right before the stairs to school. It was nice to finally walk upstairs with someone. It is always just me, myself and I in the morning. This morning, I even beat Julia and Chris to school, but like 5 minutes. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Chinese class was mostly uneventful. My friend Nick Sas made one of the greatest "That's what she said" jokes that I have heard in a long time (I forgot a word on my tingxie, and my teacher kept using that as an example for one of our new sentence patterns. So I said "Why don't you just rub it in my face a little bit?" as a joke. To which Nick responded "That's what she said." The rest was history.) My half of the classroom was just about pissing themselves with laughter for 5 minutes. My teacher didn't get the joke (thank god) but we were having problems stopping laughing.

For break, I was extremely pleased with myself. I didn't go downstairs to get a jian bing (the eggs here are apparently contaminated as well. It almost killed me to hear that. And now, the meat is going to be contaminated soon as well. Although that is where I draw the line. I will get kidney stones to keep eating meat. I mean, really.) Instead, I sat in my math classroom with Chris, and hoped that I would do well in math today. I didn't embarrass myself this time, although my teacher got a little rude with me over my "attitude."

After Calculus was history. We had a class presentation today (as we do every Friday now) from
Sterling on Hukou's, which are basically an identification card limiting where you can get an education. They are becoming a little bit of a hindrance in today's world, and it was very interesting to hear about. And it took the whole period, which is always nice. No long circular talks today, although it was a close call.

I was so hungry that I could have started eating someone, so as soon as the bell rang, I basically grabbed my wallet and ran. I went out to lunch with Chris at a restaurant a lot of people frequent, and we ordered one of the only things that we could read, which was some sort of beef dish (it actually turned out to be beef in a soup thing. We figure that if we just keep ordering things, eventually we will get it right. Hopefully.) I had the feeling that I was supposed to be doing something during lunch, but that didn't last long, because I went back downstairs (after walking upstairs to check my emails) to help a friend exchange money. What an adventure. Not really though.

English was a little useless. We just read ghost stories in different accents (the whole class) as a celebration of Halloween. What a way to waste an hour. I was free after that class though. After changing rather quickly (it was still bloody cold today) I tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my Friday afternoon. After weighing my options, I decided to go with Chris, Claire and Warren to the hospital. Only Claire and Chris had appointments (Claire has had a bad cold that won't go away, and Chris has a sinus infection) but Warren and I had nothing better to do. How pathetic is that? We are in Beijing, and all we do is follow our friends to the hospital. It does get better though, just wait.

I was planning on buying a new pair of jeans (I have a hole in an awkward spot in one pair) so after the suggestion of going to XiDan (西单) to go shopping, we all hoped on a bus to get to a subway stop so we could subway it to the shopping mall. This is the same underground mall that I mentioned earlier.

Once we actually got inside XiDan, I was on a mission. I started looking for a place to buy jeans, but quickly decided that I just was not in the mood (I did get some nail polish remover though, which is very important if I am going to be painting my nails now.) The theme for the rest of the night was magic, magic, magic. The next stop was the magic store on the 3rd floor to buy cards (Chris is a total magic enthusiast. It's great.) After buying an expensive (but apparently kick ass) deck of cards, we started looking around for something else to do. Warren told us about another place that we could go to, so off we went.

For the rest of the night, we just walked around different shopping malls, looking for things to buy. I bought a new battery for my phone (I had maybe 4 hours of battery life on the old battery) and a pretty semi sparkly blue scarf that I know realized I got ripped off on. We probably went back to the same magic shop 4 times, as Chris spent more and more money. I learned a stupid rubber band trick, but there is no way I will ever be able to do it fast. It's just going to be a disaster. I only learned it because Chris kept having to go behind the counter and behind a curtain to learn new tricks, so I stood at the front of the store with all the bags. One of the workers kept entertaining me. It was great. Free magic is awesome.

We all grabbed a small dinner of bing in the middle of all this, and finally decided to leave for the subway at about 8. We decided we had been shopping for long enough. We took the subway home, which really didn't take very long. Chris bought flowers, originally intended for his mom, but after second thought, I got one flower, and the other one I was told to give to my sister, because it is her birthday on Sunday. I bought her a nice jade Buddha necklace at one of the shopping malls while we were out. I hope she likes it. I feel bad because I am leaving for our trip on Sunday, and that is her birthday. I will make it up to her when I get back.

Now, I am sitting in bed, typing this, and trying to ignore the ache in my feet. I got through the week though, which is amazing. It was a pretty hard week to get through. I just need a vacation, and now I am getting one. I am so excited. It will be amazing. But for right now, I have to go to bed, before I fall asleep on my computer. Goodnight all.

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