La Vie Quotidienne

I am getting used to my daily life here. School is SO much work, but I enjoy it. My favorite class is my 9:00: it's just four of us and a teacher. In my opinion, it's the most relaxed/helpful. I despise 单班课- my one-on-one class. My teachers (they change every day) smile and stare at you with the expectation that you can recite the entire lesson of the day, aka you have to remember ridiculous sentences like "This kind of fool, in order to protect his innocence from pollution, will, without hesitation, light a fire to burn his inherited mansion." Considering that I screw up the tones for things like 我 and 现在, one can imagine that this hour is 难堪死了. Also, I need to find a word in Chinese that means introverted but doesn't have an especially negative connotation, otherwise my teachers will just think that I'm a misanthrope.

Basically, I work my ass off everyday and subsequently have my ass kicked by my teachers. As far as grades are concerned, however, I've been pleasantly surprised. I am really enjoying it here so far. My first test is tomorrow; wish me luck!

-Megan

Shout out to my flagship 同学们：We know more chengyus than anybody in the world. Fo realz. I feel like my teachers are going to die of excitement/surprise every time I use one. Our lin laoshis should be super proud. (I, on the other hand, feel like a creepily eccentric old man.)

Oh. My. Gawd.

I tested into the highest level in the program! My classes are Chinese 400 (Changing Faces of Modern China) and Chinese 420 (Modern Chinese Literature and Culture). I'm a bit terrified, as half of the people in my class are, in fact, Chinese. This will be the hardest three months of my life. My first lesson (we do one each day) has 111 vocab words in it. The first lesson, they say, is 比较轻松...kill me. Each morning I have one hour of a "drill class" (8 people) where we do dictations followed by an hour of discussion (4 people), followed by an hour of debate (2 people), followed by an hour of one-on-one time with a teacher. Every Tuesday, at 7:30 pm I meet with a Chinese teacher who hands me a passage to read aloud. She is paid to correct me every time I make the SLIGHTEST mistake. "Oh no! You use third tone! but it is actually second tone followed by fourth tone!" Fifteen minutes of me repeatedly and incorrectly saying the first sentence on the page, and then I'm out.

I swear I'm the only non fluent student in my class. ^_^

Oh, all you flagship kids out there would have appreciated the HOUR long conversation concerning 拉肚子during our painstakingly slow general orientation to the program. "You see, it is a Verb+Object la is the verb you see? Duzi, your tummy eez the awbject."

Wish me luck. :)

School

Sorry it's been so long. I have the worst internet connection in my new dorm, and I have to buy an ethernet cord. Despite shitty internet, however, my dorm is wonderful! Check out my desk and my REAL shower! (It's almost worthy of multiple exclamation points). We even have a maid service every other day. I gave my maid a box of chocolates from America to apologize in advance for any mess I make :)
My roommate is great. She is from North Carolina and goes to Yale. She's Taiwanese though...so she already speaks Chinese with her parents all the time. It's a bit intimidating. I've met a bunch of the other students, and I can already see that the state school kids (Amy, myself, and the kids from ASU and Indiana) get along quite nicely and have similar Chinese backgrounds. I took a diagnostic essay test this morning, and I had a twenty minute diagnostic interview in Chinese right before lunch. Things seemed to have gone well. I find out which level I will be in later this afternoon. (Apparently the highest level has on average 200 vocab words per day eeek). I'm looking forward to being productive though. Language pledge starts tomorrow at noon!

As far as this area of Beijing goes, I am totally ignorant. Cab drivers certainly have NO idea how to get to my dorm. I imagine tonight will be an adventure. Hopefully I'll get to meet up with Evan and Jessica sometime soon as well.

I'll update when things get more exciting. City tour etc... tomorrow. Beginnings are always so awkward.

-Megan

Qingdao

I know it’s been a while since my last entry, but the internet can be a very tricky thing in the PRC. I was supposed to go to Xi’an a few days ago, but Air China is officially perhaps more evil than Dick Cheney. Long story short, I am now in Qingdao with my mother. We got in at dinner time, and I, of course, took her straight to 拉肚子饭馆儿 (la duzi fanguanr, literal translation: diarrhea restaurant). It was given the name by a flagship cohort years ago and thankfully (for the most part) no longer lives up to its pet name. How I have missed eating feasts of Shaanxi food for less than two dollars!

We ran into Dr. Lin, and she told me where to find Tori and Jessica. The members of this year’s flagship cohort in Qingdao are staying in nicer dorms than ours from last year (the dorms where we had our classes last summer).

Last night I took mom to May Fourth Square followed by drinks at Le Bang, a great French restaurant/bar near the school.

I'll try to be better about updating!

The Wall

Today, Mom and I came to our beautiful hotel in the mountains near the great wall. We hiked for an hour or so before coming across the most beautiful sight ever.
My only complaint is that there weren't any signs directing us where to go, so we, of course, went in circles for a while.

If it weren't for my cynicism, my mom and I may have been brought to tears by the sight. These two photos, btw, will be our funeral photos if anything weird happens any time soon.

I had the first massage of my life tonight, and I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. Tomorrow we're off to Xi'an, and I cannot wait!
-Megan

pearls pearls pearls

Yesterday I went back to the happy lemon and made the mistake of asking one of the employees to make me her favorite drink. It was disgusting, and I never want to talk about it again. I also have been pondering the fact that I am unable to have dairy queen when I'm at school at home, and yet it is a mere five minute walk from where I am staying right now.

We walked through a typical market where people were waving sticks of live scorpions in our faces, trying to convince us that scorpions are god's gift to the snacking world. I, of course, found a stand where I watched a woman chop up a piece of watermelon and turn it into juice. Watermelon juice is one of my favorite things on earth.

After lunch, mom and I met with a friend of a friend named "Joe" who has a beautiful stand in the pearl market. I am now officially the most spoiled person in the world. Joe treated us quite nicely. After the pearl market, we went to the hotel bar where I had a kiwi daiquiri.

The most exciting part of yesterday, however, was dinner. http://www.thebeijinger.com/directory/Pure-Lotus-Vegetarian The Pure Lotus is a vegetarian restaurant whose waiters and waitresses are decked out in gold and silver sequined tunics. For my drink, I ordered kiwi pineapple honey juice. They didn't really ask mom what she wanted to drink, and she received some concoction to relieve the symptoms of menopause. We ate vegetarian "sausage" known by the glitzy waiters as Buddha's finger. The presentation of each dish was breathtaking- and usually included a lotus flower. For dessert, we were served watermelon on foil in a driftwood bowl filled with water and dry ice. It was beautiful.

Today we are going to do real tourist things. :)
-Megan

First Day

I arrived in Beijing at 4:58 AM Beijing time. Shortly after I arrived at my hotel, room service brought a beautiful breakfast to my room. I am tired. Memphis-> Dallas -> LA -> Beijing isn't the best of itineraries.

However, my first impressions of Beijing are wonderful. After breakfast, I slept for five hours and began exploring the neighborhood. I stumbled upon one of my favorite parts of China that I had completely forgotten about: http://www.happy-lemon.com/ . Happy Lemon has every bubble tea, milk tea, etc... that I, as an American, can imagine, and a small costs just over one US dollar. I thought the guy behind the counter was going to kill me when I had to break a 100 kuai note for a 7 kuai purchase.

I also bought a sim card for my international cell phone and was probably ripped off, but at least I no longer feel like I have no identity.

The pollution here sucks, but I am pretending it's actually just fog- like in Qingdao.

I'm predicting more exciting entries in the near future.
-Megan

3 days

I wouldn't count on this blog being some witty form of entertainment, unless you just really have no life. I leave for China with my mother in three days! We'll be in Beijing for a week or so, Xi'an for a few days, and Qingdao for four days. Then I'll be in Beijing until September 1st when I will head to Kunming for the fall semester.

!!!!!1