5:25. That seems to be the new wake up time for me, no matter what. Although I don't actually get out of bed until 5:30 or so. It is hard to pull myself out of bed in the morning, no matter how much I know I have to. I probably only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, but that doesn't matter. I had to finish my history reading this morning, and so I got of of bed, grabbed my textbook, and started reading about the first Opium War. As luck would have it, I finished reading just at 6, which is the time I was planning on getting out of bed and getting ready for school. There is no reason to mention that part of my morning in my blog.
For some reason, I forgot that today was Thursday, meaning the day from hell. So when I walked out of my house at 6:30, I thought I would have a nice leisurely morning with plenty of time to study and prepare for class. Wrong. I held in my imagination that idea all through the bus stop and the walk to school. It didn't hit me that I had Taichi until I was halfway up the first flight of stairs, at 6:50. Typically, the only thought that flashed throuhg my head was "Bugger." Now, there wasn't as much time to do my homework.
For the brief interval of time (15 minutes) that I had to work on my homework, I reviewed Chinese, and history, although my heart just wasn't in it. I alternated between doing homework, and talking to friends. I hit a bit of a crisis when I remembered that I had to write a rough draft of my English paper for first period. That was when my computer came out of my back pack, and some hardcore typing started. There were a lot of people furiously typing away this morning.
I grabbed my friend, George, who was also doing Taichi, and we both walked down to our class. This morning's exercise started again with hip popping, and shoulder rolling. I was standing next to my friend Stephanie, and we talked and laughed through the entire warm-up, talking over the Samba music our teacher plays for us. I was told off as soon as the music ended, but still, good times.
We are using fans in Taichi right now, so there was a lot of twirling and swooshing as fans were popped out and back into formation. It was a blast. I am still not quite sure what I am doing, but I am having a good time trying to figure out. Besides, it is only 30 minutes twice a week, and that goes by rather quickly. Infact, when the end came, I just had to race back upstairs and do more homework.
Both of my Chinese classes passed without a hitch, and then it was break. For break, I set myself up in my English classroom, and kept working on my essay. I got through about a page and a half before deciding that it just didn't matter anymore (I already had a hard copy, and we weren't turning it in today) so I just shut off my computer, and went to find friends. They were in the history room, and I was social. When the bell rang, I made a mad dash for the English room, although I shouldn't have bothered, because my teacher is always late anyways.
In English, we talked about what makes a poem, and read the best line from our papers. He wasn't a big fan of mine, but I like it, and I know no matter what I do, I will never write a good enough paper. It is okay, I have accepted it. After English was my Chinese tutorial, which is probably the easiest tutorial I have had so far. There was only one other person with me today, Jeremy, because Elle was sick. Ma Lao shi, our tutorial teacher, said that she was going to talk to Jeremy for the first half of the tutorial, and me for the second half. So I just wrote characters on the board and practiced for my midterm on Monday, which was just sprung on us today.
As it turns out, there wasn't enough time for her to talk to me. I got the last 5 minutes of class, and then we went to lunch. (It was okay though, because I did some hardcore studying.) I was again hungry enough to eat a horse, but today we had to have Chinese table, which is when we sit with a Chinese teacher and only speak Chinese during lunch. I sat with Chris (Chinese 6) at a table, called Ma Lao Shi over, who was followed by James (also in Chinese 4 with me) and that was our table. It was a really fun table actually. James can't speak Chinese very well, Chris can, and Ma Lao Shi is always a riot. I love her, really.
After lunch, I had to go work on homework, again. I was still working on my English paper, but you have a computer out (that gets internet) and there are people around, it is easy to get distracted. And I started to surf the internet, and play songs, all because it was requested of me. Until it hit 1:30, and I had to make a mad dash for Calculus, and just cross my fingers that I understand what is going on. I am starting to hit the point where I have no idea what the bloody hell I am doing. I meet with my teacher in the mornings sometimes, but still. It is crazy. Who cares about logarithmic derivatives? I mean, really.
After Calculus was Chinese history, which is the worst class to have last. I don't know why, but it just is. It just consisted of yet another conversation. I forgot my notebook in my locker, but I will just copy someone's notes later. After history, my day was still not done. Instead, today we had Chinese history and Culture, again. And again, we had a guest speaker. It was the vice president of Coca Cola in China, who happens to be good friends with Mr. Bissell. He talked to us about when he came to China, and what he thought about it. (He and his family moved here when he was 14, and that was the beginning of a beautiful thing.) It wasn't until he started talking about the Olympics that things got interesting. He was talking about how they had to choose people to run the Olympic torch around, and then he pulled out this long box and opened it.
Inside was the Olympic torch. The real one, the one that went around the world and was on tv. No joke, this guy just whipped out the Olympic torch as though it was no big deal. Then, he passed it around. Seriously, we all got to hold the torch. Camera's came out, and it was great. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. How does this happen to me?
After Chinese Culture class, I headed out to go to WuShu class before I was stopped by Li Laoshi, who is our student activities coordinator. He wanted to get students to help him make a video for his best friends wedding. So 10 of us gathered in a room, put our arms around each other, and swayed to music that he had made, and sang "la, la, la, la, la." It was great. That was over in about 5 minutes, and then I had to run down the stairs to get to my WuShu class.
That class was a lot of fun. There is only one person who actually knows what he is doing (and is good at it) and the rest of us just fake it. I got lost half way through our "routine", many times, and the teacher had to help me. It was great. That was about an hour of embarassment, before the class was over, and we were free to leave. After a brief browse of the dvd shop, I hopped on my bus and went home. There were no seats, and I texted my friend while surfing the public transportation. Mad skills, that's what it was.
I had an insane amount of homework. It was literally so much, there was just no way I could finish it. First up on the agenda was my English essay, which took me at least 2 hours. By the end, I was so frustrated and confused (he wanted a lot of detail in 2 pages. It just wasn't happening) that I just wanted to cry. I think that I may have been hitting the wall for a brief momen, but I am not sure what hitting the wall entails, so I have no idea. I am just burned out, I think. I need a relaxing holiday, badly. Most of my homework got done now, although I am cutting myself off at 11. That is the latest I am staying up. And now I have to focus. Peace.
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