Sleeping troubles

I watched the Bourne Ultimatum last night to help me stay awake a little longer. I want to adjust my timer to where I wake up between 6 and 8 AM. The movie didn’t help. My night, though much warmer and more comfortable than my first night, was full of vivid chase dreams. I’ve woken up twice now, both times because my dreams took a wrong turn (they were exciting, like the movie). It’s now 4 AM and I’m not sure if I can fall back asleep. Maybe I’ll study some Mandarin, or perhaps an early morning walk is in order.

We’ll see.


It’s now 8 AM and I never made it back to sleep. I read one of my travel guides enough to figure out what I’m doing today. You’ll get to read that as an afterthought. I then watched media on iTunes for a while, took a shower, and finally, went to dispose of my morning hunger. I went back to the same cafeteria after finding the inactive restaurant in my dorm building. I need to study food names so that I can vary what I’m eating, but yesterday’s breakfast was just as good this morning. And it’s true what they say- Shanghainese people really do smoke anywhere they can get away with it. There were 5 people smoking in the canteen while I was devouring my noodle-potato-broth-breakfast-soup. It’s not that I mind or anything; I’m just amazed because back in the States, everybody is against smoking and pushes the smokers outside. The only place around here that is non-smoking seems to be the elevators (which have English style buttons on it, btw. No understanding of the Chinese numeral system required.)

I’m going to spend a good portion of the morning studying, and then go out to Old Shanghai via the metro to practice. But one last thought- I went to an internet café last night to send word back to family and friends. The keyboard was a regular QWERTY like I am used to, but all of the wording was in Chinese Symbols (I’m sure there’s a more technical name, but I don’t know it yet). I’m really glad that I know computers as well as I do because I would have been seriously lost otherwise. It was cool.

My next update will mostly likely involve the economics of living abroad in a foreign currency system. I made my first exact-change purchase this morning and I was darn proud. More to come!

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