First Week of Classes, and My Birthday

Wow, so much has happened this week. Where do I begin? Well, let’s start off with Monday. That was the 9^th of September, when I began classes. I have two compulsory classes, and one elective class. I am required to have 18-20 hours’ worth of class work per week; my hanyu class (writing), is 8 hours, and my kouyu class (speaking), is 6 hours. My elective that I got to choose on Friday the 13^th is an intermediate Chinese writing class. Judging by the textbook I had to buy for the class, it’s going to involve lots of reading and answering questions about passages.

For my schedule, I now call Mondays and Tuesdays “The Days of Doom and Despair.” On Monday I have two morning classes, one which is in a classroom close to my dorm near the southeast gate, but the other which is on the other side of campus at the west gate. And since there is only a short break (20 minutes if you are let out on time, but usually more like 15 or 10 if you need to talk to the teacher, have to deal with cars and bicycles trying to run you over on campus, people jostling this way and that EVERYWHERE, etc. I think you get the idea), you better run if you don’t have a bike (or in my case, can’t ride a bike very well). I have a similar problem for Tuesday, because even though my first class and second class are very far away, I have about a 2 ½ hour break between them. However, the 2^nd and 3^rd classes only have the 20 minute break, and the building I have to go to is almost as far away as my first class on Tuesday. In short, I will have very strong legs by the end of the semester (and if I learn how to ride a bike by myself, perhaps I’ll have even stronger legs).

Speaking of bikes, a couple of my friends are helping me learn how to ride a bike! I still have to practice a lot, but I’m beginning to get the hang of riding without people standing right next to me in case I topple over (I haven’t had any accidents yet, YAY!).

Back to my schedule. I’ve got 8 am classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but on Thursday I have two afternoon classes, and only one class on Friday at 10:10 am. Tuesday is when I have the most classes, starting at 8am and ending at 5pm. Friday is my best day, but then Wednesday is the runner up because I only have one class on each day, but like I said before, Wednesday is one of my 8am days (8am is an evil time in the morning…).

 Here’s a map of our campus (If the quality isn’t very good, here’s a link to where I found it  http://kiaa.pku.edu.cn/~disk2010/live_in_pku_map_small.jpg)

My classrooms are in the Russian language building, Shao Yuan #3, and #4 classroom building (It’s between #3 and Natural Sciences Building #5 near the Southeast gate)

 

I really like my teachers for both my hanyu and kouyu classes, and since we just chose our elective classes this Friday, I won’t meet my teacher for that class until Tuesday.

Since then I’ve basically been sorting out where I need to go for classes, doing homework, all the responsible things good little students do.

The 10^th was teacher’s day (教师节快乐) there were lots of people selling bouquets, I think mostly carnations. Some were quite beautiful, and some were very large bouquets. I didn’t buy any for my teachers though because at that point I’d only had two days of classes, so I don’t know them well enough to give them flowers (and I didn’t realize it was this festival till I looked at the Google art for the day).

On the 12^th I celebrated my birthday. I went out with some of my friends to a restaurant (I forgot the name though), and we ate some very delicious food. There was chicken with peanuts, liver, two mushroom dishes (one was a mushroom soups with thin noodles while the other was cold mushrooms), fried eggplant, and a huge bowl of white rice. It was so good to eat. My friend also got me a small chocolate cake! They really are wonderful people.

 

 (Above: Kim, Anna, Wanda)

(Above: Jule, Me, Teresa) 

(Delicious Chocolaty Goodness!)

I also splurged and got myself some chocolate to eat, and I also opened the presents my mom and dad sent with me to China. One was a beautiful bracelet and the other was a pack of Uno cards! They made me really happy!

 

 I also finally got the package of books I left at home by accident. One was a pocket dictionary, and the other was a Chinese slang dictionary (because whenever you study a foreign language, you need to know the words that aren’t always taught in the classroom). They also packed my purple raincoat and a shirt I ordered but didn’t think I would get to wear till I got back from China. Getting this package though was a real ordeal though. My roommate told me that she got a phone call from the front desk of building 4, and that they said there was a package for me. This was weird because we had been told that someone would slip a notice under the door saying that there was a package, mail, etc. that arrived and that you would have to bring that with you to prove you had a package. Despite this we went to building four and said that someone had told us I had a package. The people there looked at us as though we were crazy and said that we had to go to a different building and that we were wrong. But my roommate Bam and I adamantly said that we were specifically told to go to building 4. Eventually they asked to see my passport, but since it is being processed along with several other documents because I’m a foreigner, we showed them my Beijing student ID. Then they showed us the package, which had my name and current address, looked at me very suspiciously, and when I read my name in English, they finally believed it was mine and let me have it. Good grief! Isn’t it irritating when one person or group tells you to do one thing, then tells you that you are wrong, and then tries to make you do something that obviously isn’t right? At least I got my package from home though.

Today I also went out to Carrefour, the large supermarket which comes from France, but is really popular here in China. I bought a lamp and a thermos that isn’t made of cheap, unsafe plastic (YAY)! I also got some small snacks to eat in the morning with me because I’ll need the energy to run to class.

Well, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Here’s a video of the bridge I cross to get to the campus,

 

 

and a video of some scorpions on sticks that I forgot to upload (it’s from when I went to buy a dictionary with Bam and her friend).