Monday, Monday

This is my last full week in Suzhou (ah!) so I thought I would write a post about what I do each day this week so I can remember the details of my life here. So it's already Thursday and I'm just posting what I wrote about Monday, but hopefully I'll get the other ones up soon. Here goes:

I stayed up really late last night watching the Bachelorette season finale (thank God for whoever illegally uploads the episodes to the internet!), so I slept until 9 this morning. I love Mondays and Wednesdays when class doesn't start until 10. I caught up on some email and then started going over my one-on-one lesson for today. Monday is usually the day the laundry people open shop for our program, so before class I lugged all of my laundry down there, but they were closed. Then I had to carry it all back up the four flights of steps, then go back down to go to class. I guess I shouldn't complain though, since climbing steps has been the extent of my exercise for the summer. I was a little late for class but reading & writing class is usually boring so I didn't mind. And today didn't disappoint...it was pretty boring. I was so tired from the weeknd I don't think I said anything all of class, which is unusual. Our chapter this week is on China's economy. ok so macro was my worst class in college, so I'm obviously not excited about trying to learn economic terms in Chinese. She went on and on the entireclass about foreign investment in China and all these other things I don't even think I can explain in English very well. Finally that class ended and speaking class started. We got our teacher to talk to us about our weekend at the beach for like 15 minutes so that was a good tangent. Then this chapter was on housing reform in China. Whoa even more boring and complicated than China's economy. It's too bad I picked a language that's Communist so all of these types of topics are super confusing to learn about.

After we listened to her explain Deng Xiao Ping's hosuing plans and I got distracted thinking about how his wife died last week at age 93, class finally ended and we walked to the restaurant across from the main campus gate for our Chinese table program. Every Monday the program pays for us to eat lunch at this restaurant with all of our teachers so that we can practice our Chinese with them outside of the class. And surprise surprise, the food was the same as every other Monday this whole summer. Monday's lunch for me = lots of eggplant and rice. Have I ever even eaten eggplant in America? I don't think I have. After lunch we bought ice cream cones and then I went to my room and discovered our dorm's internet was broken. Not okay. I was upset because internet is the only way I can communicate with anyone and without I really feel like I'm on the other side of the world. The internet truly brings our world closer together.

At 1:00 I reluctantly walked to one-on-one...not my favorite class. For the first 25 minutes we talked about our trip to the beach and just chit chatted. Talking about random things is the only redeeming quality of one-on-one, because the textbook is lame. The lesson this week is on "Chinese flavor" aka Chinese souvenirs that are either 1) ugly or 2) useless. But that's just my opinion. I guess they might be exciting to some people. Once that class was over I went back to my room and got a lot of studying down for the three quizzes I have tomorrow. Not having internet makes me more productive.

At 3:20 Melissa and I walked to the other side of campus for our taichi class. This is our last day of extra curricular class!! Last week we finished learning the routine he was teaching us, so all day today we kept repeating the entire thing to practice since we have to perform in front of everyone next week at our graduation ceremony. It was so hot out and no wind, so thankfully our teacher gave us lots of breaks. I just get so hot and sweaty while we're doing taichi, which is weird since taichi is probably the slowest thing I've done in my entire life. I really do like our teacher though; he's laid back, amazing at taichi and kongfu, and really enjoys talking to us. Finally at 5:00 we finished practicing and Melissa, Rachael, and I met up with Jocelyne, Jenni, and Meg to go buy 病沙 [frozen fruit drinks that are perfect for hot Suzhou weather...and they only cost $1]. This is the highlight of Mondays for us, especially since we're so hot from taichi. Passion fruit is my favorite. Then we walked to Yang Yang [one of our favorite restaurants here, coincidentally also recommended by Lonely Planet] and ordered a ton of dumplings, broccoli, and sweet & sour pork. It was so good and I ate a lot, as usual. After dinner we went and bought some DVDs and I went to this Indian store and bought some pretty jewelry.

Then I walked back to my room and talked to O Ye [my roommate's nickname] and studied some more for my quizzes. Melissa had a really bad day today because she spilled water on her computer and it broke. So she came into my room around 8:45 saying she needed to get out and do something. I agreed because sometimes I feel so cabin feverish in my room because it's either hot or raining so that rules out going outside, and I always have homework and studying to do. I am a prisoner of my room. Actually that's a bit dramatic, I do enjoy being in my room. But anyway we decided to go to the Drunken Clam to study for our quizzes. But the gate we needed to go out closes at 9 so we had to halfway run across campus to make it out in time. The menu looked really good so we ordered sandwiches and had a second dinner. Whoops. But we saved half our meal for lunch tomorrow. We had enough of studying after a while, so we walked all the way back to campus the long way and on the way I convinced Melissa to buy ice creams with me. 越来越胖 [as time goes on I get fatter]! But really Melissa and I talked about it and this summer has been so hard, so we're okay with maybe gaining a little weight as a result of taking breaks to eat Western food. Or ice creams.

After we got back I showered and was feeling tired so I actually went to bed at 12. The past four weeks I've gone to bed at 2 or later every night. Not a good idea. I'm so exhausted. From Chinese and this summer and this experience and from the past three years of trying to work 15 hours a week and take 18 credits at the same time. Whoa I need a break. And it's coming soon! Only one more Monday in China!