Getting Testy

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Unassisted by Ambien, I slept for 11 uninterrupted hours and I am still tired.

I went to the ITHC for my medical test. The thing was a joke. I had to get five different tests: ECG, Height/weight, Blood test, eye test and blood pressure test. All you do is take the test and they sign it saying that you took it. They didn't even write down the results. The only thing that really seems to matter is the blood test. Since I have no infectious diseases, it's no big deal.

The lines were quite long. Most of them were outlined, but a couple were your Chinese trademarked clusterfucks that seem to be quite common here. See, they don't have one doctor that does all of the tests. Rather you have to go to a separate room for each test, meaning you have to wait on 5 lines for the tests. They normally require you to go to a photo center for a picture, but some last second packing at home added those pictures in. So, I was able to skip that step. It was an all-morning affair.

I was able to see some more modern areas of Wuhan. The city is by no means clean and you don't have flying cars or anything like that. It just looks slightly more civilized than the suburban areas do. It's just weird to see brand spanking new apartment buildings right next to abandoned construction areas and dumpy, shitty places. I guess a decent view is not something particularly important in China. I think this is because there aren't any.

I met two different foreigners. One is a foreigner who I will call 'British'. The previous teacher (the one I replaced) spoke of him quite negatively and referred to him as a weirdo who made female students feel uncomfortable. I did sense some weirdness about him. He was wearing a tacky, warm-up suit and just had a weird disposition. I mean, he seems like a nice enough guy. So, I am not willing to judge a book by its cover. But poisoning the well didn't help much in character development. The other foreigner I met was the other Japanese teacher (Japanese #2). She was short and mildly overweight. However, I still found her to be much more attractive than Japanese #1. I didn't speak to her much because I had to leave with D. West for my medical test . I saw American there again and coincidentally we are both from the same state. I feel that he will be closest friend here.

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