Thursday is my least favorite

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I've been feeling sick every day when I wake up. I think it is dehydration. And every morning I have more mosquito bites. They itch a lot! Many people have tried talking to the attending staff in the dorm about bugs, but they leave the doors open all the time and don't do anything to deter them really.

Basic class dragged on today. It was a review of grammar for me: 越来越。。。(Something becomes increasingly something).

I skipped Reading Comprehension. I decided that Reading Comprehension is the one thing I can do on my own, using the text/workbook for that class. If I took Reading Comprehension on Thursdays, I would have ten hours of class on Thursdays, so I think it is a good decision to opt out of this one. It will protect my sanity.

Maria, Kaia and I stopped at the corner store before walking across campus to run some errands. I bought a couple of moon cakes to snack on. They had veggies baked into them rather than bean paste. I am surprised that moon cakes are all over in China all the time. I thought it was just a holiday thing.

We walked all the way across campus to the west gate. I bought a university t-shirt at the 四川大学 gift shop. Maria bought about five after buying fifteen the day before. She is giving them as gifts to her friends and family, which is a good idea. They are only 25块。That is about four dollars US. Hopefully the washing machine doesn't tear them apart.

We walked toward North gate to find the library bookstore, which sells all of the student textbooks, school supplies, and like every other shop in China, bottles of coke and ice tea and fruit milk. I got Journey to the West in English. Kaia and Maria hit up the classics. They have copies with English on one side and Chinese on the other.

We walked back to the dorm. Kaia and Maria continued on while I stopped in the convenience underneath the old person, retirement apartments. And who should spot me there, but one of my friends from English corner. Ming Hedong was just about to check out when he saw me. "Excuse me, are you 那兰? I am Ming Hedong, from English corner.“ Not to worry. This is the nice one. He is very timid about speaking English, but offered to help me find what I needed. I got two power strips and a few personal boxes of walnut and peanut milk. Then I bought bananas at the fruit stand outside. I thanked him for his help and we went in opposite directions. Later in the day he texted me: It was nice to see you again at the Supermarket of Education. Good Luck!

I got to the Overseas Education building at twelve o'clock. Just in time to meet Clare, Audrey, and Jeff at Relish. Relish was all over the place today. The lady with the pink qipao who seems to run the whole place was not there. Instead there was a dorky looking guy in a striped button down and glasses. He did not know what was up. It took them twenty minutes to get our order from us, when usually it takes about 2. And they didn't have 米线, only 面 (no rice noodles, only wheat flour).

At the copy shop above Relish, Clare, Audrey, and I ordered business cards. Adam recommended us to. A man designed each one of the computer. They have the university logo, our English names, our Chinese names, phone numbers, and email addresses.

I dropped all of my stuff off in my room before turning around and going back to writing class in the Overseas Education building. But when I got to the fourth floor classroom, the door was closed. Apparently writing class is only every other week and it does not start until next week. I chatted with another girl from my class and found out that she has a room in the dorm without a bathroom. She also told me that the communal bathrooms are squatties. So I feel A LOT better about my room now.

At four o'clock our Culture and Society class was on the sixth floor of the Overseas Education building. The teacher is amazing! He goes off on tangents and says the strangest things. He had each of us give an introduction of ourselves. When he got to Mycal, whose Chinese name means flying black tiger (which is funny because he is muscular and black) the teacher shouted it at him. "Fei Heihu! Do you know what your name means?" And every time he talked to him after that he shouted again. It was entertaining, but the class was 2 and a half hours long. That drags.

At six twenty we all trooped back to the dorm. A big group went off to dinner out the South gate, but on Thursdays I have U.S.-China Relations at 7. Until 9:30. There are only four of us in the class: Robert, Bobby, Kristiana and I. The teacher mumbles, so I can't hear what he is saying at all, unless I strain and try to piece the few words I can hear together. Hopefully he always makes as detailed power points as he used tonight, because otherwise I will have no clue what is going on.

Clare brought me food leftover from dinner during the class, which the teacher was fine with. He is a nice guy. He just needs to project. So I had fried rice, dumplings, and spicy lamb kebobs. The whole lesson was just an introduction of what will be discussed during the rest of the semester. The syllabus calls for group presentations of four to six people, but since there are only four of us we are going to focus the class on discussions instead.

At nine (the class ended early, thank god), I went back to my room and finished my homework.

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Photos

The mommy cat
feeding the baby cats, in the recycling pile in our dorm.