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Published: August 21st 2012
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Guys, I'm going to die.
And I don't mean that in the stupid way where "we're all going to die eventually" and all that nonsense. I mean in it in the way where I'm going to China tomorrow.
We all know that I was scarred for life in the 4th grade when China was all over the news because everyone was dying from SARS. That's when I vowed I would never go to China. Ever.
But life is all about facing your very rational fears, which I am. And I was actually doing OK with my rational fears until my Chinese father started telling me how I was going to die over in China. And OK, while he didn't say this directly, he told me I couldn't drink tap or bottled water, which does not leave me many options for staying alive, as I've heard that you cannot last 5 months without water (Jesus lasted 40 days without water in the desert, and that's the longest I've heard of someone going without H2O).
In addition to not being able to drink tap or bottled water, my dad has another long list of things I am not allowed
to eat. And for personal reasons, I am very against eating dogs and horses (we have a pet dog and a pet horse). On top of that, McDonald's is supposed to be very bad over there.
What made all of this worse was that I went to the travel clinic last week and the guy gave me a prescription for when I get SARS. Not IF, WHEN. Thanks Doctor.
But you know me, always looking on the bright side of things. On the bright side, I'll lose the freshman 15 and sophomore 150 I gained at Babson because I won't be able to eat or drink anything. Also on the bright side is I am going to get rid of my Facebook addiction as I won't have access to it for 5 months. I know what you all are thinking--I'm going back in time to the B.F. era (Before Facebook). I'm also going back in time to the B.Y. era (Before Youtube) and B.G. (Before Google). How am I going to get any homework done without being able to Google things every five seconds? I haven't quite figured that one out either. It makes me wonder how my
parents used to do their homework before Google was invented on the typewriter.
On a more serious note, I don't actually think I'm nervous about going to China. I do wish I knew a little bit more about China besides the fact that it's in Asia. I don't even really know what I'm going to be doing over there. I'm just kind of going with the flow at this point. I am glad that I studied abroad in London first because I had to learn how to live in a different country, but it was easier because they all spoke English. Now I am a certified professional at living in a different country. We'll see if I still think that when I get 500% culture shocked tomorrow. Honestly I didn't really experience any culture shock in London or in coming back to the states, which everyone seemed to think I would get. I think I had more culture shock going to Babson and coming back home for the first time than at any point in time in being in Europe. I have a funny feeling "culture shock" is about to get redefined for me though...
While I've had
an entire week state side, it feels like I've been home for less than 24 hours with everything that's been going on. Rachel, Paige, and I went on a 12 mile hike in Big Basin the other day. The Big Basin website said it was a hard hike, but I didn't really believe them, and decided to drag Rachel and Paige along. And it wasn't all that hard, until mile #8. It took us 4 hours to hike 8 miles and then three hours to hike the final 4. I'm not sure why. After the hike, my family went wakeboarding this past weekend. And of course, throughout all of this, we had a lot of good food. Mostly steak. But we also had ribs, tacos, sushi, and cheesecake. That's all of your major food groups right there. Basically I tried to cram an entire summer into one week. Typical.
Anyways, if you had to ask me where I was on a scale of 1 to packed, I would have to tell you I am currently at a -5, considering I'm only half unpacked from London. Being a world traveller is rough because I am the worst at packing. It
really is a rough life, but someone's got to live it.
Also, just on a side note. I won't have any way to tell the world when I have new blog updates since I won't have Facebook so you can either subscribe and get an email whenever I update my blog, or you can just check back here every Sunday (I'm going to try and update this blog once a week at the minimum).
Anyways, my mom has started withholding food until I am packed so I'd best get started. With any luck, I'll be in China within 24 hours!
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Wally
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AHAHA. Okay funny thing. So before I came to Beijing, my mom also gave me a huge list of things I could/couldn\'t eat or drink (tap water being one of them) and I was literally paranoid when I got here. I can say that bottled water is okay (not environmentally friendly, but I\'d rather live ya know?). There\'s actually a lot of GOOD and CHEAP (it\'s quite ridiculous how cheap things are) food.... but I\'ve lost a lot of weight since being here haha. I\'m sure you\'ll survive fine, and maybe you can give me tips when I go to Shanghai next year xD