Welcome to ICLP

Today was the day. The day we were supposed to meet our fellow classmates, the day we were supposed to be welcomed to ICLP. And I slept in, until the beautiful, glorious time of 8 AM. What more could you want out of a day?

I had a nice lazy morning for a while, having breakfast, and attempting a failed phone call with my mother (Mexico's internet is even worse than China's. Who knew?) The static on phone calls is so distracting. We ended up IMing instead, but I had to get ready to go meet everyone that is also on my program. Orientation started at 9:10.

In typical fashion, I didn't get there without a glitch. I was riding my bike past the 7 Eleven, went over a bump, and the chain promptly fell off my bike. My rusted old bike was finally falling to bits. I didn't have enough time to walk to Orientation, so I had to try to fix the bike. An of course, the bike chain was rusted over. COMPLETELY rusted. That made trying to pull the chain back on course extremely difficult. By the time I got it back on, my hands were covered in rust, and I was wearing a white shirt. Fantastic.

I almost fell over when I walked into the room where Orientation was, because there were probably about a 100 students already sitting there. I was one of the last people to arrive. Front row seats for me! The awkward game of "Kind of look people in the eye, kind of avoid other people" had begun. All of us wanted to look at each other, but no one wanted to be caught doing it.

The actual orientation was so very Chinese. It started out with introductions by the main person in charge, and she kept going on and on. And then she invited each person from the office to get up and say a few words about what they did. And it was pretty useless, because lets be honest, most people here (who don't live in the dorms) don't give a shit about all of the dorm policies that one woman stood up and talked about. And then there was another woman that basically wasted 20 minutes reading off of a pamphlet that all of us had been given. We can indeed read by ourselves, no need to do it for us. And all of this was of course interrupted again and again by the head woman, who was clearly ego tripping, to talk about how fabulous the course is, and how it is the only one of its kind (incidentally, it is not, but that is the Chinese for you. Modesty is not in their vocabulary.)

This lasted for 2 hours. I could have said all of it in 20 minutes. But what are you going to do? There was also a guy who did the program last year who was translating for us. This is going to sound really egotistical, but just go with it. Maybe it was because I could understand what they were saying in Chinese, and didn't need a translator, but his translating skills were really bugging me. He would emphasize somethings, and completely leave out other points that the teachers had made. And he talked really slowly, in a gravelly voice. I had to resist the urge to jump up and grab the microphone from him, and do it myself. I can't believe I just said that.

Sitting through this did make me really something kind of important. I think I am done doing language programs. At least for Chinese. I think I have finally hit the point where I am not sure if it is going to do me any good anymore. I think it is time for me to find a job working in China. That might be better for me.

After the orientation, I left as quickly as possible. I didn't want to sit through another half an hour of "etiquette class". That just doesn't sound like a good time. I had to grab a bike sticker (so my bike won't be towed. Because I am pretty sure if it is, I will never get it back again.) But lunch got a little screwy, because I ended up going to the supermarket, and losing the people that I was with for lunch. I bought Yoshinoya, but it looked so unappetizing that I couldn't get myself to eat it. So I ended up going to a small bao place with some other people for lunch.

I regret to say that the rest of my afternoon was rather uneventful. I had a long conversation with one of my friends from back home, and then I fell asleep. I meant to just take a nap from 4- 6, but I forgot to set my alarm. So I slept for a little bit later. Basically, I woke up at 8:30, with no idea where I was, or what day it was. I thought it was the next morning, but then I realized that the sky was too dark for it to be morning. So I didn't know what time it was, until I looked at my clock. It was a very confusing time.

I realized I have 3 unread texts from my friends, telling me to come out to dinner. So I literally rolled out of bed, put my hair up in a ponytail, and tripped out of my room. I was still very groggy, and not too sure what was going on. I was suprised to realize that the rest of the world was still moving. I had slept that heavily.

I met up with some of my friends at the bar across the road from the dorms, with the terrible kabobs that we swore we would never go back to. We ordered some drinks, and then decided to send a scout back over to 7 Eleven to bring some stuff over for us. I tried so hard to get into the conversation, but my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Which is hard to get around when you are trying to have dinner with people.

So what did I do? I went back to sleep. I came back to my room at about 10, finished writing my blog, and went to sleep. It seemed the thing to do. So I regret to say that I slept through most of the afternoon. Either all of the mosquito bites have finally given me something terrible, or the humidity is getting to me. Let's hope it is the humidity.