Resolving Conflicts

---

The day began with another outing for 包子, this time with Clare, Audrey, and Maria, and Gossip Girls. I had a red bean paste baozi and half of Audrey's meat and veggie one. She didn't like either, so got a piece of chocolate cake at a bakery instead.

We watched several episodes on Clare and Audrey's wooden couch, which isn't too comfortable after a while.

At four we went to the classroom building to check out our complete schedules for the semester, and once more found everything in Chinese. And only our Intensive Chinese language schedules-- nothing about our elective classes. Maria and I went back to her room and she interpreted the whole schedule for us. It involved some sort of strange key... and who knows what else. But I think we figured it out. If you take all of the classes, Intensive language is a twenty two hour a week course. But I have to take general culture classes as well, so I can't go to any of the extra classes. I was a little annoyed about the schedule confusion, until we went to dinner at Relish. We have been there three or four days in a row now.

Food in Chengdu makes everything better. Sichuan is the stomach of China. (Says our Xi'an tour guide Henry 😊 And it is so true. I could eat noodles and dumplings and baozi for a long, long time. The only thing I miss is cereal.

I felt so much better when I got back to my room, I was determined to make the internet work. I started pulling furniture away from the wall so that I could find the plugs and the switches and whatever makes internet work. Behind Sara(h)'s desk I discovered a grey box, and pulled the ethernet cord out of the router so that I could stick it directly into the wall. I tried to open my computer, but realized it had to be charged, so I hooked up the charger. I clicked on the Internet Explorer icon, and it was as if light shone down from heaven. My home page popped up. I typed in a different url and another page popped up. And another url, and that one worked too. I was ecstatic!
I like to think that I am the kind of person who could take or leave technology, but I felt so disconnected from home, and I couldn't look up anything in Chengdu... I love the internet!

At seven we had our final group meeting before Professors Johnson and Youtz leave. Here we received our schedules in English. Youtz went over everything we will need to know this semester. He gave us a bit of a pep talk about problem solving. We got phone numbers for Adam Cathcart, our site director, and the women in charge of the International Students office. So I am in a very good mood.

Tomorrow morning I have to wake up at five thirty to interview with the Pamplin Society at Lewis & Clark by Skype. Strangest interview I have ever had. Hopefully I won't be too tired to sound smart.

---