So this is another mass e-mail that I am sending out. I also am still having problems uploading photos. As soon as I get that figured out I'll post photos to these.
"Yesterday was a very big shopping day for me. I literally bought 150 dollars of stuff. I got towels, a water boiler, detergent, a power strip, a cell phone, and most importantly a bike that is so pink it matches my hair. Patrick helped me a lot. I definitely would not have been able to buy the bike or the cell phone without his help. He also gave me a map of Beijing, so I'll be able to get around easier. The first two days the air was very thick. Heavy pollution combined with the moisture creates what Patrick calls sauna days. Hot, stuffy and gross. There is good news though. It rained last night. Raining makes all the difference. The air is clear today, you can actually see the sun.
"Yesterday was a very big shopping day for me. I literally bought 150 dollars of stuff. I got towels, a water boiler, detergent, a power strip, a cell phone, and most importantly a bike that is so pink it matches my hair. Patrick helped me a lot. I definitely would not have been able to buy the bike or the cell phone without his help. He also gave me a map of Beijing, so I'll be able to get around easier. The first two days the air was very thick. Heavy pollution combined with the moisture creates what Patrick calls sauna days. Hot, stuffy and gross. There is good news though. It rained last night. Raining makes all the difference. The air is clear today, you can actually see the sun.
Last night one of the professors Kyle took me out. He's got two kids, and we picked up his daughter from day care. She was stunning, she switched between Chinese and English without a problem at all. It was beautiful. Also they showed me a place where I could start studying martial arts three times a week, in the evenings. I might do it, I just want to wait till I get my school schedule down. I'm also a little intimidated because there is no guarantee that anyone there would speak English. This is both good and bad, forces me to practice my language, but also might make me miss some important info.
I'm still not signed up for classes. I believe that Rose Zhang (my Chinese professor in the states) was supposed to be responsible for that. She's in the hospital right now, having stomach problems. Hopefully she'll get better soon!
Breakfast was a roll thing with meat and green onions in it. It was yummy, and it only cost 30 cents. It was my first time eating in the dining room. I still haven't gotten a food card yet, but its ok cause I can pay with cash. This morning I got up and went around campus taking photos of everything. I'm a little concerned though because I took about 20 photos and they are no longer on my camera. Like the first half of my photos got deleted and I'm not sure how. I'll go back out and take more of them, at least to replace the ones that got deleted. I think they might....victory is mine. ^_^ I just figured out what happened, I was fiddling with my camera and dropped it. It wasn't damaged at all, but it loosened up the memory card enough so that it wasn't registering. So after that point any photo I took was saved to the camera's memory, not the card. So I took 59 photos/videos this morning all around campus. After lunch I'll wander around inside the buildings so I won't be lost finding my classes on the first day of school.
The campus here is a little different than colleges in the states. When auraria was becoming a campus, everyone who lived in that neighborhood was forced to move out. That is not the case here, so there are all sorts of apartments and people of all ages running around campus. Also the campus is surrounded by a fence, with gates. There are guards at each gate, but they pretty much ignore everyone. I think they are only really there to monitor cars coming in and out. Patrick informed me that the classrooms that my classes take place in will change from day to day. Again this is good and bad because I'll definitely get lost, but that means I'll be forced to ask for directions.
I spent a couple hours watching the students marching. At first when I saw it I thought it was dumb, but the more I watch the more impressed I am. I'm guessing that it promotes unity, and discipline while also forcing every student to get exercise. The students probably don't like the tans they are getting though. It really reminds me of marching band. You can tell which students take it seriously and which don't. They are separated in groups of about 50 and they are organized by height. There are two extremely large groups (one boys one girls) who practice martial art forms. It reminds me of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. I met two other Ex-pats (Ex patriots, people who live or study abroad for a long period of time). They were from South Africa and spoke 9 languages. They haven't learned any Chinese yet, but with that many languages already under their belt they will definitely be able to pick it up quickly."
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