ABROAD IN
Friday, July 14th: Like usual, I woke up tired today but I had some of my mom's fried rice for breakfast, so I ate some good food. For the first part of class we watched a movie that Sam wanted to watch because it was his birthday! Sam chan the man. It was this film about the three kingdoms of China and it had a lot of violence but it was still kind of interesting. For the listening part of class we talked about climbing mountains and if we would rather climb a mountain or take a cable car up a mountain. It was kind of a boring class and our teacher gave us an assignment over the weekend to write an essay on whether memorizing things is a good way of learning. She's giving us so much homework. The other classes don't get a lot of homework. Oh well, I guess I'm learning more. For lunch I went out with Justin, Anushka and others to the cafeteria (our cards are now filled up!) and I had some really yummy 凉牛肉面 cold beef noodles that were kind of expensive? It was 12 yuan but I guess that is only a little less than 2 dollars USD. After lunch we headed back early to celebrate Sam's birthday and to finish up some IOPP presentations. I am lucky - my presentation is not next week but the week after. But because it was sams birthday, Margie bought a hello kitty cake. After presentations we had culture class which was handicraft, or paper cutting. We cut paper and put candles on our paper, and with all of the lights off it was really pretty. We got Sam to blow out 18 of our candles like it was a birthday cake and we all sang happy birthday to him :). Class ended early at 2:30 and because I had to teach English to some Chinese kids at 3:30 I made a quick trip to the gym and got in a couple solid miles. At 3:30 I headed back to the university where I met Margie and 2 Chinese 5 year old kids. Because every NSLIY student is required to get in 10 hours of community service, each NSLIY student has to tutor these kids at one point during these 6 weeks. The kids were really off task though and it was so hard to keep them focused. I don't even know If I made any real progress. After an hour, the parents came to pick the kids up and Ines, Helena, Margie and I all met up before we headed our separate ways. It was a little creepy because this older Chinese guy was following Margie, and as we went outside he came outside also and stood a ways away watching us. Some Chinese people can be creepy to us foreigners. As soon as we left though, he left too. It was weird. Anyways, we all took the subway and then went our separate ways back home. As I was coming home my mom called me and told me that no one was at home and because I didn't have the keys, she asked me to wait on the bottom level if he apartment. So I sat down on a cement ledge for a few minutes to wait for her. 5 minutes and 6 mosquito bites later, I saw her car pass by. When it stopped,I knocked on the window. It turns out that 2 of her work friends were also in the car. It's a little confusing because she calls her friends her sisters, so I can't tell if they are her real sisters or her friends. We all went to this hotpot place where we met up with my sisters and her friend. The hot pot was good, but I think I like the hot pot that my mom in America makes better. I thought that Chinese style hot pot would include noodles but it was mostly meat and potatoes and vegetables. My host mom's friends are really sweet and the first thing they said to me after hello was that I was pretty. hah. At one point during the dinner though, all 6 of the people were on their phones. It's different in my household, and I thought it was a little sad? When they get bored, they go on their phones. After hotpot, we walked home and my sisters and I bought some ice cream. I got Oreo ice cream :) At home, after we relaxed and my sisters finished their homework. It's my last few days with my host sisters and I'm kind of sad. They are super cute and sweet. We are definitely going to meet up again because we have already planned to go swimming later in the month :).
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Andrea 施安雅17-year-old XC runner and boba tea lover living in Seattle but studying abroad in China. Also, I have a cat! Archives
August 2017
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