挨功课

hello everyone. i am feelin the schoolwork this week. we had our first of three unit tests, which covers 3 chapters of vocab. you don't want to know how many words that is. and we also had an essay due. XD to add to that, ive been going to taichi class at 6:30a everyday and the painting/calligraphy class after chinese class ends. and let me tell you, it is really tough. ive never been so tired in my life. well, at least thats how it feels like it to me. after doing taichi for an hour, you just want to fall asleep and so... you do. but in class. not exactly somethin you should be doing esp since you cant hide amongst your classmates in the big lecture room cause first of all, we have a small little cramped classroom and second of all, theres less than 20 people per class. so yeah, the teacher can see you drooling as you're nodding off. so i decided to sleep in today and just go to class and skip taichi and oh man, i feel like a new woman, i actually have energy during the day. im not a walking zombie anymore. it feels so much better. but alanna is mad at me. lol so far, only stuart and alanna have been to every elective class, everyday. props to them but i want to be awake and present, man. the taichi teacher was even like, if you guys come everyday, mr. gui will give u a reward at the end. lol he's trying to keep us in the class. i also got keith from 10BX class to come to taichi. he doesnt come everyday but he likes it, since his eap program doesnt include these fun electives we have.

we have painting class every other day and calligraphy class the days we dont have painting, except for fridays, theres no electives. we've had i think 4 classes of each so far. in calligraphy, we're tracing in pencil and going over in ink to help us learn the form. its nice and relaxing in that class, the teacher put on some classical chinese music as we were writing. she also knows me by name. in painting, we've done 4 chinese paintings- ive done 3: fish and bamboo, waterfall, and lychee and a couple of birds. sean did such an amazing job at the waterfall, the teacher scouted him out and held it up for everyone to see. the whole class went OOOOOOOh lol and embarrassed the hell out of poor sean. but seriously, that sean has talent in painting. so now, the painting teacher knows him by name and by association since i sit next to him, and he says my painting was not bad, and he knows my name too. XD

on monday, we went to shabu shabu. it was terrible. the menu had no pictures and we couldnt read anything. plus the service was so bad, they bascially left us there and didnt even give me back change, or our drinks, or paid us back for the things they ran out of. they bascially knew we were foreginers and cheated the hell out of us.

theres this pancake place near the baozi place and we went there for lunch. you tell them what you want to be put into it, its basically like a crepe. i got the works- everything they had including duck, chinese sausage, bacon, ham, egg, meat floss lol, it was so bad for you and the guy was laughing as he was making it, it was humongous compared to everyone else's crepe. it was interesting flavour tho, the meat floss kinda runied the whole thing, plus it was orange and weirded me out.

on wednesday, we had kfc. it was ok, kinda weird. the burger was really plain and empty. instead of cole slaw, they had bits of vegetable, like the frozen kind in mayo. weird tasting too. thank god coca cola is the same everywhere. we had to get kfc cause we wanted something quick since clerc was taking us to see a kung fu show. it took the bus an hour to get there because of the perpetual beijing traffic. on the way there, the conversation was the nerdiest ive ever heard. alanna, chris, and gandhi was talking about star trek. like seriously, about how cool spock was and how natasha yar was such a bad character, how the romulans were the best kickass villans ever-well, that was debated over length. man, i love these ppl lol. it brings tears to my eyes now that there are some hardcore trekkies in this group lol. and then the converstation turned to computers and hwo to write viruses. lol anyway, the show itself was pretty bad, the kungu wasnt even that good, the actors kept messing up, the story line was laughable and i felt overly stimulated by the whole spectable. it was also targeted for foreingers and we even saw our tour guide from tiananmen, miguel. the whole thing was in english and when we left, we felt like we wasted 2 hours of our lives. on the way back, i talked to alvin, who is from the phillipines. his wife and 2 kids are at home and he kept saying how good i was at taichi and we talked about our lives and stuff. but honestly i was falling asleep cause its been a long day, esp with that taichi class in the morning.

thrusday, in kouyu class, the cute korean girl, sorae said they went to the pekin opera last night and pam from the office sat in front of them!! apparently jenna fischer is on her honeymoon in beijing and they got a picture with her and even got her signature! i am sooo jealous, they didnt even know who she was, only that she's an actress. omg how lucky of them!! celebrity sighting!!

painting class was alot of fun yesterday. theres barely anyone who goes anymore so it feels very intimate and social since everyone knows each other. we joke around and even had an improntu KTV session lol singing from an ipod. the teacher was so happy we were laughing so much and enjoying ourselves. he was like, your words are funny, but i dont understand them. we like him alot, hes so cute. and hes like everyone is tired from class, this painting class is time for you to relax yourselves. very true, we use this time to just relax and have a good time. everyone loves painting class even tho the paintings are so hard to draw! sometimes he comes around and looks at your progress and just laughs and walks away! lol! that happens to jessica alot lol.

so yesterday ppl were singing kesha, nsync, journey, beatles, all these random songs and the 4 guys in the back were in perfect harmony, everyone just looked at them, amazed lol. we didnt realize there was a boy band up in here haha. so we're planning on doing KTV (karoke) tonight, after we meet with out language partners.We went to one near campus, called 17 Miles. It was really nice, expensive but there was free hard liquor and snacks included. SCORE. we had such a good time ^^ That's everyone  including Magic Chris and someone's language partner lol oh except for Stuart.

today for lunch, me, sean, alanna, stuart, ken, matt, mark, chris, and cody went out for all you can eat korean bbq, above the terrible shabushabu place. you pay up front first, it was 300 something yuan, so came out to be less than $7 american. soo cheap!! it was really all you can eat, buffet style. you cook the food yourself and the best part was, they had soo much alcohol in the drinks section omg. we found a little bottle of 100proof wine. i smuggled it out and keeping it as a souvenir. its such a cute little bottle, old school chinese jug lol. anyway, i ate so much, food coma now. XD