It's finally happened

考effing完了! And I have the mother of all cricks in my neck.

This afternoon, the great plum Liwei and I are off to Xihu to treat our roommates to a nice little lunch at the Qingteng Teahouse. Then an afternoon of massages and maybe some English. Haolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Jieshu le!

Things are starting to wind down...

Classes are done as of this morning
Business and Newspaper class oral exams have successfully been presented
The 24-move taijiquan sequence has almost... almost been mastered
All of my new dvds have been viewed at least once
Hanging clothes, sheets, underwear on the balcony to dry has become natural
Baozi and malatang have become cravings
And, according to Chen Laoshi, Autumn has arrived.

Now all I have left is to memorize 2000 vocab words and grammar structures and prepare 8 potential oral exam topics and... and then "graduate"... and I'm DONE.

I think I'll do a little jumping around in celebration now.

This is my mom

It is her birthday today!
Happy birthday Mom!

She is in Switzerland. This is her view from the Champery chalet.


Wish I were there, and not here. This is my gorgeous view. Oh, have I not mentioned the 24-hour on-going construction?

Music

There's a funny thing about China... well, there are many funny things... but what has been catching my attention most recently has been the ice-cream-truck-esque music that comes in and out of earshot approximately 50 times a day. The funny thing is that it's not just music.. it's Christmas carols. Christmas carols in August? WTF?

My mom explained to me that China likes to be able to "show off" how Westernized they have become, and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," played on repeat, is a preferred vehicle for their message.

I finally asked Caili if she thought it was strange that every now and then trucks would drive by school (remember, the main road outside the back gate, or "houmen" as we lovingly call it, is more of an 6-lane highway that leads into one of Hangzhou's massive ring roads) playing Christmas music. She looked confused at my question, then explained that in China, only certain trucks play music. So, in response to this music (the fact that it's actually "Jingle Bells" on repeat is unbeknownst to them) they've basically been classically conditioned to think, "garbage truck's coming!" "street-washing truck's coming!"

I guess it's not much different to our Western "ice cream truck's coming!" reactions. Only they don't start salivating in response. Here's to hoping.

APFG

It's really such a shame that you guys can't meet Antony. His isms are priceless.

On China's massive firewall:

i really don't see how my life could be much worse

i mean, kids in africa don't have to deal with blocked internet access

On Marina helping me download a song that said firewall is blocking:
ur friend is amaZING

i asked my friend to do that and he was at work

and said he couldn't

so yeah i am not friends with him any more
(me: well yeah she's also in Panama with nothing to do)
well my friend is working in a lab that is performing groundbreaking cancer research. i just told him that he needs to get his priorities straight

On friendship:

I mean, suck it up. Isn't that what being friends is about, buying things for each other? I mean, that's what I do for all my friends. If I didn't buy them presents I wouldn't have any friends. You guys don't do that? I guess it's a Northern thing.

The Next Stage

So, I have officially been accepted to the Beijing Language and Culture University 北京语言大学. My plans are slowly but surely falling into place, and I will be spending the fall "semester" studying even MORE Chinese in Beijing. It's bound to be a completely different experience from CET in Hangzhou, and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. The weird thing, though, is that the semester goes until January 25th, with no break for Christmas and a day for New Years.

In other news, I've climbed out of Monday's hating-on-China haze relatively unscathed. Thanks to everyone for your love and concern, though, you don't know how much it means to me.

You know you've been in China too long when

... you pick a fight with the street vendor who tries to charge you 7RMB instead of the published 6RMB for your chicken/vegetables over rice dinner. That's like bargaining a 60 cent dinner to 50 cents.

Spent another fantastic weekend in Shanghai, but again the transition back has been tough. I haven't had a good night's sleep in over a month, and it's starting to get to me. I'm sort of at my wit's end with Hangzhou... being forced to speak Chinese is so frustrating especially when you can't find the words to express yourself - still - and the people you're trying to communicate to speak even less of the language... so recently I have just been keeping to myself, which is starting to take a toll. Today I read Harry Potter and took a 5 hour nap. I only just left the dorm to pick up the aforementioned food. I only come into contact with my roommate, who is glued to her chair and still stares mindlessly at her computer screen all day long. Now I feel feverish.

What I really need is to move, exercise, breathe some fresh air. But it is either too hot or too enormous of a downpour (as my dear friend Julian says, the rain in China does not fuck around, it's all or nothing) to spend any time outside. To make matters worse, we've been warned that the temperature for the rest of the week is going to reach "dangerous" highs - 107 degrees and counting.

Every night I cross off another day on my calendar. 13 days until I'm back in Hong Kong. The sick thing is that I know that the more time I spend thinking about how little time I have left here, the longer it's going to feel.

Class

Our Princeton University Press textbook prides itself on evoking student's interests and increasing conversation by covering some controversial topics.

Haha, controversial, indeed. Monday's chapter was, "The President has a Girlfriend" 总统有了女朋友, yesterday's was a psych-ish piece on lonely children in China, 寂寞的孩子...

Today's was: 中国大学生对性的态度......Chinese university students' attitudes about sex. Basically, the overarching theme was, sex is absolutely forbidden. Ha - but at least I know how to say "premarital sex," "self-protection," "venereal disease," "knocked up" (aka being pregnant before tying the knot), "virginity," "abortion," and "morals." If that doesn't give you an idea of what the lesson was like, then I don't know what will.

I am so not looking forward to our practicum on Friday when I have to ask my dear, precious, innocent, and extraordinarily naive Caili about her attitude about..."it"