Do Homework? Not When I Could Have Dinner!

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Hello again everyone, so last week I pinged some pong, I lost my marbles looking at some embroidery, and then there was that Shanghai place, but the embroidery! I mean it was so fantastic …

July 25th:
So class happened or something, and then instead of doing homework, I went out to dinner with my good friend Zishu, as it was her last day in Beijing, and I won’t see her till next year at the earliest – so I think that takes priority (and I think means it does. Cause I’m a boss.) So me, Zishu, and friends went to some Japanese place at a mall (with a subway stop continently located in said mall) and enjoyed my time ragging on Zishu as she ragged me back. And then I think we ate for free. We all put down money, but then she said it was way too much, so then we took some money back, and after our fuwuyuan’r (waiter – and if you’re wondering about the –‘r, drop the n and put an r there instead) left we weren’t sure how much we took back, and there was some confusion as to who got their money back and who didn’t. And then the waiter went to another table, picked up their bill, and then brought back both tables change. So at this point we figured a) we did pay and no one knows who’s out 100 kuai covering everyone else or b) the restaurant messed up big time. Seeing as we weren’t sure whether a or b was correct, didn’t want to pay double when being able to count $ is the restaurants responsibility, and my food was really late, we said screw it and hoped everything worked one way or another. Afterwards we went to a desert place, where I had durian for the first time. It was…I don’t even know honestly. It wasn’t bad, but I would never order it again. But now I know, and learning is half the battle (that joke isn’t even in my generation!) Then I said my final goodbye, and then felt like a jerk when Zishu got my a small present and I got her nothing. Darn you Chinese manners! And then I was behind on my homework.

July 26th:
So class happened again. And then it was my friend David’s last day in Beijing (though he’s working in Taiwan, so he’ll come back up again later) So Tucker, David, and I went out to near where Tucker lives, which is no where convenient to a subway. But forget taxis, they’re expensive, and I’m a baller on a budget, so I used that subway anyway, and then walked for 20 min to the street. And only got lost for 30 seconds. So then we found a Mexican restaurant (which I didn’t think existed in China) so then I was super happy. Except they didn’t have cheese, and that made me a sad panda. But then I got over it. But the area where tucker lives is rather cool, slightly touristy, but also what seemed to be a bunch of cool little-hole-in-the-wall places. More on that later. So after dinner, I went back home, cause you know, that homework thing.

July 27th:
So class happened, and then the impossible happened. My ego got inflated. Booyah. So One of the requirements of CET is that at the end, we have a China night, which is basically a bunch of skits where we “prove” what we learned and have fun, and sing, and other frivolities found in most Disney movies. And our teachers sprung on us that today we’d decide our skits. Since our class was so big, we split up into two groups, and guess who got chosen as a leader for one of them? THIS GUY. Again, Booyah. So we decided to do a skit about pronunciation errors (cause I’m sure no one has thought of that before) and the teachers seemed ok with it. So then I gave everyone a roll and then we did homework or something. After dinner.

July 28th:
So montage of studying. Before dinner (gasp!!!!).

July 29th:
So I had a test, and rocked my oral section, cause I’m at that next level (so I keep telling myself). So then I was going to eat lunch, but then my nap said otherwise. So I awoke around 5 to meet up with my peers (though if I’m the leader, are they really my peers?) to write our script, but when I walked in the room, there was a borderline intervention. And no haters, I didn’t mess anything up. Basically everyone felt rushed on Wednesday to come up with a skit idea, especially with the teachers hovering around us, so we went with the first thing people thought of. Afterwards, my peers thought of a better idea and wanted to see if we’d rather do a skit about a dating show. Which was a no brainer, cause now we get to be ridiculously funny, and use more grammar points we’ve learned over the past few weeks. Thank you Kristina for the awesome-sauce idea (even though I’m 99% sure you don’t read this, but whatever). So as a group of 10, and knowing that there were 2 other groups in our class level, we decided to be smart, and have 2 “rounds” of our dating show – one to start the class, have a tragedy (I’ll explain that in a second) go to “commercial break”, do the other skits, and then come back and finish ours (and btw, my idea. Leading by example.) so after some planning and a frick-ton of jokes, here is the general outline of our skit.
We’re going to have my friend Ian host the show and Robby the dos will be the first contestant, with three ladies to choose from. The ladies will be (in order) a bookworm, a feminist, and a disgruntled waiter. We’re going to have Robby the dos choose the feminist (because that’s really funny) and among other things, say “I want to take your independence” (which none of us can say with a straight face right now and we thought of this 5 days from typing this blog). The feminist is then going to slap Robby the dos, and we cut to commercial break. When we come back, there will be a new host, cause Ian got fired after the incident. We then have Kristina choosing between a playboy (who has by far the best lines ever), a ping pong champion, and a famous UNC basketball player (guess who I am?). After we say our bits (and try not to cry from laughter after the playboy’s bit) we’re going to have Kristina choose LiXuan, our assistant student director, cause he is awesome.
So after creating a stoke of genius, and has to be the best China night skit ever, Ian, Tucker, and I went out to dinner. Ian took us to a local restaurant that we’d never been to before, because you have to pass 2-3 other really good restaurants to get to it. But oh my god was it worth it. This took about 1 second after trying to become my favorite dish ever, and I’m not exaggerating. In 5 days, I’ve had the dish 3 times, it’s that freaking good. Imagine a French baguette, a little too crunch on the outside, and a little too chewy on the inside, but the flavoring is fantastic. Now imagine you chop up this baguette into oversized crotons. You then fry this baguette with slices of beef, peppers, onions, and fairy dust. The new crotons are now the perfect level of crunch on the outside, soft on the inside, slight tint of spice – it’s just the best. I officially have no more reasons to eat any other food. Ever. I’m going to try to figure out how to make said dish before I leave CET. So after the best food ever. Of all time. So then we went back to CET where some local singer was playing his guitar, and we joined the mini-party that was going on.

And now I’m going to stop this blog here, mainly cause I have a theme for my next blog, so some things to think about.
How big can one’s ego get? Is there a world record for it? Have I broken it yet?
It’s weird I have to keep saying goodbye to friends. Wasn’t that suppose to be taken care of in ‘Merica?
Where do I buy fairy dust to make the super crotons?
--Robby

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