Orientation day and "I'm not Vietnamese!"

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We finally had our first official orientation today after being here for 3 weeks now... and the President of the international students association was naming all the countries that were attending the university here. He mentioned Vietnam...and for some reason I was the only asian guy in the room, so there were heads turning for a while trying to find this Vietnamese guy until all eyes finally laid on me. lol. Then i realized what just happened...so then i had to say out loud, ummmm....im from chicago or en francais "Je viens des Etats-Unis"! After I said that, people had this look on their face like they were kinda confused. lol. And then they served us lunch. We went around introducing ourselves and then of course the first thing they said was "ah, tu viens de Vietnam/Oh you're from Vietnam"...and then I had to clarify and said "no j'habite et j'etudie aux etats-unis"/no i live and study in america). After a while, I just got tired of explaining and just went ahead and gave in and nodded if I was asked if i was Vietnamese. If you had seen the movie Mean Girls (its gay..i know) ...it's exactly like the scene where the teacher mentioned to the class there's a new student from Africa and all heads turned towards the black girl....she then had to say "um, Im from Michigan". HAHAHA.

Also, I FINALLY FOUND A GYM HERE!! WHOO!! After searching for so long...I FOUND ONE!! And I gotta tell you...it was damn expensive! It costs 121 euros per month for a student fare!!...no wonder the majority of the French are not into the working out!! Not only that, all the equipment are all circa 1970's. It was like entering a time warp the moment you enter the gym. Also, it's so petite...I think the locker room at the SDSU gym is much bigger than the whole gym itself. Regardless, I'm happy I found one (even if it's nothing like the gym at sdsu) after being out of it for almost two months now!!

OK all, I may not write again until I come back from Morocco...which is NEXT WEEK!!!!!

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