My roommate, like all Chinese males approximately my age, is an internet addict. Every time I return to the room, if he is present, he is in one of two positions. Hunched over his computer, consumed by whatever website his is staring at, or lying in bed. 99% of the time it is the website. Recently his soul was sucked into a website where if for ten days you neither eat nor sleep, nor rest nor go to the bathroom, but only fill out mindless forms you could win a trip to Africa. He got started two days late, but he surely made an effort in good faith, resting his eyeballs not once.

He's not going to Africa.

The Saga of Finals:

• Social Issues class--Oral and Written exam complete
• Literature--just finished 2 1/2 hour written exam
• One on One (Chinese Government for me)--paper written, oral presentation tomorrow
• Pronunciation Class--oral test Friday

Then

HOME 家 HOME

The China Southern Airlines stewardesses are all in love with me. I can tell by the way they furtively glance at me as they pass by and by how as they pass me my glass of orange juice they hope to brush my hand with theirs. However, what makes it most obvious is when their big green eyes look into my brown ones and they ask me "rice or noodles," they suddenly can hardly speak Chinese at all. Here is me holding them close to my heart, as they made me promise!

But the reason that I was on a plane at all was to visit a certain Ms. Christina Liao! (So there, MEIV--China has at least one benefit!:) She is in Lanzhou, China and has, if I do say so myself, a fabulous apartment/dorm thing. If she could somehow extricate the fact that it's China's most polluted city, she might be completely set. But it was a great time visiting her, she taught me Chinese chess and then beat me at it (which I am glad about!), and we even had blueberry milk tea to go with a lot of conversations. I hope to see her again, maybe in February.


Bamboo flute. My proficiency has not been increasing as much recently, mostly due to the fact that I have not been practicing. But as a man newly finished with class (only review and exams to go) I intend to redouble my efforts. Which would have me praticing at least twice a week. For your viewing pleasure, I want to present the Infinitely Talented Li Laoshi and his suspicious looking apprentice, Zongke.All in all, I have slightly less than two more weeks, then I'll be home to relax, visit, and mostly watch football. I have not seen a game since last January, so it's getting desperate. Zongke, out.

The Pledge reads that I will not speak English until "graduating from The Middlebury School in China." If I am caught violating The Pledge a letter is sent to Northwestern. If I am caught twice, I buy my own ticket home. This is a fine way to learn a language, but someone reported that I

"mumble English," implying that I violate the pledge. In short, somone tried to screw me.

Whoever you are, I don't appreciate you much.

In other news, something has happened. Something has flipped, and I suddenly enjoy China and am thankful to have another quarter here. This is remarkable, considering I spent the vast majority of the beginning hating my life. I think the switch finally went though when my roommate took me to a dance on campus. I met people, I learned Slow Three Step, and I felt like a normal person. A person that can interact and make friends and tell awful, stupid jokes. And that was the best I've felt since coming to China. Plus, I won a little stuffed pig to put on my phone. So I suppose my life is now complete.

Two things I like about China

• the music and annoucements broadcast from speakers around campus at lunch and dinner
• meeting people and starting to have friends and people that i recognize around campus
  

Home in 2 and 1/2 weeks.

Some observations that one might not make instantly about China

• Some people keep all of their fingernails trimmed. Except for one. Which they grow to a disgusting length. You might think the purpose is to gross out foreigners, but it's actually a status symbol. With a nail that long you can't do manual labor, and most of these people are from the country side
• High school in China is super intense. But once you get to college it's pretty much clear sailing because the classes are too big to closely monitor student progress and because everyone slacks together, so there is no pressure except for about once a month
• Long Jing Tea is Hangzhou's famous tea, but I am pretty sure that it tastes like tree bark. I much prefer Ou-Long Tea
• Nearly 1/2 of our program has been in the director's office in tears
• I am addicted to Sprite (雪碧). I have it at nearly every meal, using it to counter act whatever foreign food I am eating
• I have lost weight (but not much, Grandma!)
• Every Tuesday I go to 家乐福a combination mall/uber-Target to visit friends that I made that work in a Tea Shop. They give me free tea, but I try to avoid Long Jin!
• I ride my bicycle all around the city--it's really pretty amazing. The city is rather compact, so 20 minutes can get you most places, and the bicycle traffic is more or less undescripable. I was terrified of it for the first month and a half
• I had Thanksgiving dinner at Pizza Hut with the only other year long student

Hopefully you find these musings thrilling and wonderful. In exactly three weeks I will be on a plane to come home. Thank God for Christmas! Above is me with my roommate, Wang Guo Jiang

For your benefit I have fully researched all the possible situations and combinations of them that can occur when studying Chinese. They are as follows.

• recognize neither the character, nor its meaning, nor its sound
• recognize the character and meaning, but not sound. therefore, unspeakable
• recognize the character and sound but forget the meaning. therefore, unuseable
• somehow vaguely know what it means, but not know how to use it
• only know the word orally
• recognize both the characters in a word, their sound, tone and meaning. have no clue what they mean together.
  
• amazingly know the character, its pronounciation, tone, and meaning. This is approximately a 2% occurance.

One month from today, I am going to be getting off of the
plane in Chicago. Amazing.

Above a woman is lifting a wine cup that was floating down a river--the person who drinks it has to compose a poem or song. This was how some rich Chinese people amused themselves about 400 years ago. Now it's an activity at a famous park by Lu Xun's old home.

News from the Eastern Front

• The concrete guard tower and pillbox on campus were demolished this week. I am not sure what purpose this structure served, sitting in the middle of campus, but I suppose that it is a nice gesture either way
• I have four more week tests (and five more weeks!) until I get to come home for a while
• I am going to a lecture on senility today... we'll see how much I glean from that one!
• Last weekend we visited the home of Chinese author Lu Xun. Think Mark Twain.

And in the best recent news

I recently got a nice compliment from our Academic Director. She told me that they have had students come a year behind in Chinese and they have had students come alone. But they have never had one both a year behind and alone. She said that everyone has been impressed by my "extremely rapid progress" and how I have "held up emotionally." So that more or less made my day.

Above is me with my pronunciation class partner, Guang Da. I think his English name is Dan. Our dialogues are famous for "creativity." He's probably my best friend here.

You may be excited to know that I had my first really happy day in China. It was Sunday. I went with one of the friends that I made in the Jia Le Fu Tea Shop and we goofed around, ending up in KFC for dinner. And as she told me a joke that I actually understood, I realized that I was happy. And had been all day. And it wasn't because I had received 5 e-mails from home. So it was a remarkable day.

My break trip to China has established a few things beyond a doubt. First and foremost, China has way too many people. You cannot understand the sheer quantities. I went with my Uncle to Yunan Province and visited two towns. Yunan is the equivalent of Montana and the towns were, you know, only about 350,000 residents. It's like plunking Minneapolis in the middle of no where. My second conviction is that the entire country is currently under construction. I would say that it would be impossible to draw a circle with a 3 mile radius anywhere in eastern China and not include a construction project. Roads, buildings, and roads roads roads are constantly being built. My third conviction is that Tiger Leaping Gorge (pictured above) was taken directly from a Lord of the Rings movie. Probably as a tourism stunt by the Chinese government, but I can't be sure. I have created a photo album for you here :)

In China, an Injection cures anything.

I learned this truth on fall break in the tiny tourist town of Li Jiang in Yunan Province. Having eaten some particularly evil food, and having spent an extroadinary night, I stumbled into the little medical clinic and had the following conversation.

*let's hear it
*i ate my stomach wrong...I feel terrible
*did you throw up?
*yeah
*did you blah blah blah?
*i think so
*you blah blah blah blah
*what?
*blah blah blah intestine. blah blah injection.
*ok...

So that's how I got my IV treatment, which did actually make me feel a lot better, but I'm still in favor of going to the doctor in America. Or at least until my medical vocab has a lot less blah blah's in it.

In good news, parts of Yunan have been directly transported from the Lord of the Rings movies. I'll post pictures of Frodo-Michael soon.

With the risk of forfeiting every visitor's interst I've ever had, I present this post. While utterly unrelated to China, I did rediscover something I wrote a few months ago after reading one of those Christian dating books that are only applicable in a traditional New England church community. In my humble opinion, it is mildy humorous.

Before even considering having a crush on someone, a Christian must take a careful self inventory. A crush is a big decision in life. Crushes can lead to dating, marriage, children, death and divorce, listed in order of severity. So I have compiled a basic list of questions to be posed to oneself, before embarking on the journey of such seriousness.

First, are you at least twenty five? Do you have a well paying job? Are you an active church member? Have you ever had a crush before? If so, you should probably be married and ought to stop this program immediately. Have you talked to your pastor about this crush? How long have you considered having a crush on this particular woman? Again, actually having a crush is dangerous. How has the Holy Spirit lead you to Biblical passages that reinforce your sentiments? Do you have a dwelling of your own? How would your grandmother feel about this? If she is dead, how would the oldest and most respected church lady feel about this? Have you known your potential crush for at least ten years? Is your possible crush a devoted scholar of the Epistles of Paul? Are you prepared to talk to this person’s father, in order to obtain permission for this crush?

If you have answered negatively to any of the previous questions, you are clearly not ready for the seriousness of a crushship. But if you were affirmative, then you are clearly ready for your crushship, and all the responsibilities it entails.

Perhaps you found this mildly humorous as well. Perhaps I feel compelled to post this because nothing terribly thrilling has happened recently. Just the usual:

• a middle school introduced herself to me, and I stupidly gave her my cell number. Later I got text messages saying how happy she was to meet me and that her English name is Candy
• ended up on the back of a Shang Hai tourist's electric motor bike, went to West Lake
• saw one of my classmates eat Duck Blood tofu thing

the picture above is West Lake during the Mid Autumn Festival

Let's talk about that famous Chinese productivity. Studying 26 hours a day, striving for constant self betterment, and generally making Americans look lazy all come to mind. Are you ready for this? It's a myth. Or at least from what I have observed myself. But if you come to China for a week, you would probably think that I am crazy--the library is packed, roads are repaired around the clock, people study physics in middle school. But then you live with a Chinese roommate and discover that his behavior can mostly be characterized as lazy. For example, he just let his alarm ring for two minutes because he didn't want to get out of bed.

So what is actually going on? Once again, I argue that it is China's tremendous population pressure. The sheer number of people creates the most ridiculous Prisoners' dilemma (link explains it) that ever was. So when a Chinese person has something to lose, they instantly become extroadinarily dedicated. They'll study all night, operate a jack hammer all night, because they know that if they don't the next person will and will take their opportunity or money. But if their position is relatively secure, ie all of the American students' roommates, they suddenly revert to less than maniacal workers.

As for the packed library, it's worth mentioning that it's a school of 20,000 and the study room holds at most 200. So really, only .5% of the students need to appear studious on any given day!

Life in China is different. I am hoping to be able to capture some every day life and maybe make it a bit more real to you. Because let's face it, my major is China and I basically had no concept of actual life. This is a night bus, running from downtown West Lake out into the city's northern districts. When I first came, I wondered why buses often only had one seat on either side and the middle empty. That's weird, I thought. Alas, it is not weird but rather the only way to put 150 people on a bus. In fact, I think it could be reasonably argued that China's tremendous population pressure is the defining characteristic of their society. But on lighter note, a soft eyed nine year old girl recently used all her courage to ask me if, "America had Mai Dan Lao, too?" All I told her was yes, America has McDonald's too.

中秋节快乐！
Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

I am a shiney new Christmas toy in China, the Buzz Light Year of Zhe Jiang Technology University. But this is not a good thing. Because once my shiney blonde exterior wears off people start pushing my different "Talk" buttons, they realize that my memory chip is faulty. And they quickly tire of,

"I am from America, Infinity and Beyond!"

The phrase, "My major is Chinese government" is only good for a few run thoughs too. And then we quickly discover that there is nothing left to say, my Shiney Newness is gone and our so called friendship is not so everlasting as once was. I believe I am about a triple serving friend.

In other news, I am attempting probably the second dumbest thing of my life (the dumbest being riding a motorcycle down a winding sandy mountain road in Costa Rica with a crazy driving) by waiting in this Internet Bar for the Twins playoff game to start. It starts at 1:00am, so let's hope I am not rediculous enough to finish it!

The Twins clinched a playoff spot today:) You probably don't realize how happy this makes a random 21 year old guy in Asia. But I kind of imagine that I am like the Twins. They started this season terrible, but have stormed back to within 2 games of the best record in baseball. I, too, have started less than fabulously. But like Michael Cuddyer, I am going to find my swing as well. But for now I'll celebrate for my wonderful Twins.

Last weekend The Director declared group travel weekend, and the most important thing you can remember about this post is that I am not exaggerating. I think an annotated schedule will do best:)

• 3:30 pm depart school on bus and drive for hours over something like a road.
• 9:00 pm arrive at Rui An International Hotel, go swimming in outdoor pool
• 10:30 pm I had dinner with the Director
• 12:00 pm do my "pre reading" for my Monday morning 1 on 1 class
• 1:00 am go to sleep
• 5:30 am get wake up call from front desk
• 6:00 am stumble into breakfast, eat a bowl of zhou (cooked rice boiled in water) and a bao zi
• 6:40 am depart for coast
• 7:30 am board a terrible boat
• 7:30-9:00 am watch everyone around me throw up
• 9:30-12:00 swim and eat sea food (I felt terrible about picking a crab! :(
• 1:00 back on the boat
• 3:00 start riding bus up a big mountain
• 4:30 mountain road blocked by avalanche
• 4:30-7:30 hike up mountain road to "stairs to daoist temple"
• 8:00-9:00 literally hike up stairs in pitch dark for an hour. Use camera's for light to see
  
• 9:00 eat Monk vegetable dinner
• 10:00 discover Wen Zhou "party club" (observe here) has also hiked up the mountain and is blasting techno, jumping over their bonfire and roasting meat. Weirdest thing I ever saw.
• 10:30 I went to bed
• 8:00 get up
• 9:00 ride in pick up truck down mountain to avalanche
• 10:00 get in new bus, ride to Scenic Region
  
• 12:00 have lunch, hike into scenic area (more steps!)
• 1:00-3:00 go swimming by beautiful waterfalls in really cold water
• 3:00 nearly fall off of rock cliff thing to doom
• 4:00 ride bus to Wenzhou
• 6:00 have dinner and wander around their main street
• 7:30 get back on bus to drive home
• 1:30 am get home
• 8:00 am have my 1 on 1 Chinese government class.... ack!

The pictures are as follows: our sand castle creation of The Great Wall, fishing boats on the same island, the view from the mountain top,
the stairs we hiked in the dark.

Just a disclaimer: it may appear that my life in China is filled with one fabulous experience after another and this may cause you be filled with senseless jealously. I assure you, you can spend that emotion else where :)

Last weekend our Director decreed that this is "individual travel weekend!" So off I went as an individual to the small town of Wu Xie, a resort really, on the edge of a National Scenic Area. I stayed over Friday night and then hiked into Wu Xie Saturday morning. That's not quite true. I more hiked up and down Wu Xie more than anything else, but it was very beautiful. Living in the city in China you occasionaly wonder if the sun does exist (the locals all just claim it's "cloudy").

But in Wu Xie I found some beautiful country. But I also found some peasants and their villages,

as I hiked all they way out of Wu Xie and literally into the middle of no where. But I guess it ended well, because they told me to hike up to the next village, over the mountain (easier said than done) and then 3 kilometers to the bus stop. They also offered me boiled water with hair floating in it, but I turned it down. Thankfully, a random man from Shanghai had also wandered out there and we ended up making the trek together. He wanted to know what villages were like in the US. And so now, 3 hours before our Director decrees "Group Travel Weekend" where we don't return until Sunday midnight, I would kill for a "no homework weekend." But that's just not the way China is.

I hate the phrase "This is China's most famous _____." Unfortunately, this seems to be my roommate's favorite one. Every where we go, he points at things and says, "Do you have this in America? No? This is China's most famous steamed bun making machine." It makes me want to grab him and take him to Cub Foods and ask, "This is Green Giant. Do you know Green Giant? No? Really? This is America's most famous frozen green bean producer." In other news, I have started studying the Chinese Bamboo Flute. My teacher is this Chinese Yoda combo, and when I went for the first time yesterday all he said was,

"You have come to study the di-zi." I am so bad that when I practice I wear ear plugs.

Yesterday after class I had a terrible headache. We have been in class now for over a week, and I no longer respect 8 am orgo students at NU. I'm sorry, but try 8 am class except it's the professor and you. Then teach the class in Chinese. I am terrified of Mondays and Thursdays. In other news, people say that my Chinese is improving, but all I am is one huge ball of frustration. I suppose "slowly, slowly" as everyone except my teachers believes. This weekend I went to Su Zhou with my roommate. We visited two famous gardens, here is a washed out photo of me in the "Humble Administrator's Garden" and a picture of Su Zhou's main street at night.

List of things I have eaten so far

• sheep meat
• jelly fish (a very small quantity!)
• frog legs
• duck tongue (possibly, not really sure)
• mian tang (water from cooking noodles, awful)
• shrimp (ok, not weird but listable anyway)
• weird looking fish

List of health problems so far

• stomach problems
• stomach problems
• 拉肚子 （result of stomach problems)

Perhaps I need to reign in what my Chinese classmates keep ordering. But yesterday I did voyage to the supermarket, buy a frying pan, buns and meat and make some hamburgers. Best hamburger ever made. Flat out :) In other news, I met my penpal in real life today. Six months ago I just randomly clicked on her xanga, now here I am. What a weird world. She is very friendly.

A lot of people would like to lay claim that they have caused a traffic accident just by standing on the corner. But, few would actually be telling the truth when they say that their

dashing good looks (more likely, dashingly different looks)
caused a wreck.

Fortunately, I can not claim this either, but it was awful darn close. Being a White person in Hangzhou is interesting, because there are very few. So everyone stares at you, some come up and speak English to you, I am yet to have a photo request. My transition to life in China continues. I visited 西湖 （West Lake) the last two days. It is extroadinarily beautiful.

I can tell you it doesn't rain like this in Minnesota. I am pretty sure that the internet cafe is going to wash away. I have arrived after 20 hours total flight time (split up into 3) and am now literally living in a Chinese only environment. I am learning a new definition of privacy too. something possibly interesting things:

• Crossing the street here is like playing the most horrible version of frogger ever, except the prize is your life
• There is no line in the cafeteria. You just rush up and tell the lady what you want, hoping she picks you and not one of the 35 others.
• Nothing is easy when your Chinese is 1/2 there
• Accents know no ends

I will try to post some more later, including my very friendly roommate and me. 再见:)

宗科

I have accumulated a big pile of stuff on my bed. All right--that's not quite true. I have a big pile of medicine and a pile of trinkets--proclaiming Minnesota on them--to give to people. I figure that between my Cipro and my Minnesota Twins snowman Christmas tree ornament I am basically set to go. Which is a good thing, because I am on my way to the airport at 4:00 am on Monday morning.

The really important news, however, is that the Twins took over the wildcard lead yesterday!

They beat Chicago for the 6th time in 7 games and it was wonderful. And speaking of other wonderful things, Alice had a great visit to Minnesota. We went tubing, walking, and to the mall where we got a slightly fuzzy picture of us with a shark. I am a very lucky guy. Now, I suppose, it's off to China with me. Which is sort of weird, because it feels like I am falling into the middle of a history book--welcome to the Middle Kingdom!

欢迎中国！

The fact that I am moving to China remains a sort of shimery
image. I can see it, and look at it sparkle, but I cannot grasp it. Fortunately, because I leave in 3 weeks, the fact is becoming slightly more concrete. I have visited numerous doctors and been poked in numerous places. I have registered with the embassay and will soon buy a plane ticket to New York. My penpal in Hangzhou has offered to meet me at the airport (which is amazing). I am reading all my predeparture information. And now I am starting to realize what is happening. And the scary thing is, I'm ok with it.

When I was little, my parents told me "be good or we'll
send you to China!"

Well, I am sending myself to China and I think it will be good. I often wonder how I, as a White person from Minnesota, became basically a China studies major, and I really can't say for sure. Although I think it goes back to me not playing the piano in third grade:) However it happened, I can say that I am almost ready for it to happen. Above is a pagoda in Hangzhou.

Exactly one month from today, nearly down to the hour, I will board a Japan Airlines 747 and fly to Tokyo, then on to Hangzhou.

sure--why not?

The lady at the art store knows me. For those of you that know me, this fact alone may be shocking enough. But what shocked me today was when she asked, "Why do you always look so sad when you're here?" Of all the possible questions, that one cut straight to the heart of this summer. I have discovered recently that I appear to others as if not only my dog had just died, but also my parrot and hamster. In short, the expression that I wear on my face is not neutral or pleasant, as I thought, but actually sad or intense. This is disconcerting to me. It raises some questions. Why do people like to be with me if I am constantly raining on the party? Is it because, perhaps, they're afraid I will eat them if they're not nice to me? How am I going to appear in China? Does Botox work to create a smile? All of this I have pondered, and I have learned a lot about myself. I guess being bored a lot teaches you things, and I am not sure how to assimilate my new information. It's not as rosey as I would like. On a seperate note, have you ever just wandered around an art store? It's wonderful.

There are thousands of colors and hundreds of devices, none of which I can wield, to release their potential.

Dreamy music fills the background, singing about summer and witches and watermelon. And I am there, staring at paint brushes as if they're wilting flowers, while joking with the only art store employee on earth who knows me.

The Chinese must have a different definition of comedy. The last two Chinese movies I watched, which were billed as "tremendously funny" and "hilarious" respectively, ended with a blind girl heading into the city searching for her father and a couple passing out from a gas leak. That is not funny. And that proves worrisome, as it leads to one of two conclusions. First, it is possible that life in China is just so wrenchingly difficult that those movies are actually hilarious in comparison.

The second possibility is that the Chinese have
never actually seen a comedy.

Both of these are troublesome, so I will have to go with secret option C. It's a different culture. And while I currently find it mystifying, I hope that by the time I return I will have a small grip on it. And to be fair, The World was not really described as a comedy, but it did have the adjective "hilarious" on the back. I didn't laugh once. Hopefully, next July, I will laugh more. Above, a particularly comedic scene from the second movie, 世界 (The World).

Penguins really are the best pets. If you don't believe me, please observe this documentary footage obtained from a Chinese news service. Not only does the penguin wear a penguin backpack, but he walks to the fish market and consumes gigantic fish. And, evidentally, can also deliver things for his owners, a lucky Japanese couple. How they got a penguin, I cannot imagine, but I can only wish that I too had a penguin. Most of this is brought on by my recent visit to the Shedd aquarium in Chicago, which has more amazing fish and animals than you can shake a stick at. For example, chameleons! Who knew that chameleons actually change color to reflect their mood (not their environment).

Ideally, I would have a pet penguin that itself had a pet chameleon that would ride around on the penguin.

What say you? In a week attempt to keep this blog China-trip centered, I did recently take an Oral Proficiency Interview over the phone with my good friend, Hao Deng. The most notable feature was that I got the time zones confused and answered the phone having just left the shower, meaning, naked.

Who is in charge of pricing things? Yesterday I bought two seperate items (aluminum foil and a tastey vanila shake from Burger King) that cost exactly $2.06. Why the six cents? Both times I had conveniently emptied my pocket of change, meaning I some how lost six dollars from my wallet and not four. In contrast to annoying prices, somethings just have high prices, which in turn is annoying. I also bought some precooked BBQ ribs yesterday for dinner and they cost me an arm and a leg. That is better, though, than what they cost the pig--which would be half a back. But they were extremely delicious. Alice and I had a picnic.... man she eats a lot--look! (just kidding!) China keeps sneaking up on me. I am currently attempting to obtain proof of insurance and schedule an exam with Language Testing International (which is intent on me leaving messages). The MEIV trip leaves soon. I am excited for you guys! ps--i would also like to note that those are bottles of rootbeer:)

Having revealed my website to the world, I suddenly feel much more pressure to write clever, precise and witty things. Things are generally a lot easier when nobody's watching, I suppose. For example, I am fluent in Chinese and have major league quality stuff (trans: pitches) as long as nobody is around :) In case you are reading this, and have a strong desire to read clever, precise and witty things, please go read Noelle Chun's blog because not only does it feature huge and flaming buildings, but also heart rending sagas. Enough said.

Working at my new "job," I am finding that when you compare most things to janitoring, it doesn't really seem like work. Data entry versus popping gum (four years in row) off desks just doesn't compare. Nor does staying up until 2am doing "rounds" compare to shoveling rocks. And when I get bored here, I can read a book. No need to wonder around aimlessly, pretending to have stuff to do. My job, for clarity's sake, is being an RA for highschoolers here at NU. They are the college prep program, they are 15-17, two are taking orgo, and they're all crazy. But, they're also friendly enough. For your viewing pleasure, I am including a video of the only job I liked when I was a janitor, and my classic task, carpet cleaning.

I saw the movie Cars last Friday night, and it was a most excellent movie. It was the first one that I have been willing to shell out the big bucks at the Evanston theater to see. Mostly about one car learning there is more to life than himself, it is also about taking life slowly enough to enjoy it. And I feel like that has been pretty relevant to me recently, constantly looking into the future, never content to just be in the present. Fortunately, I got a whole lot of practice the last few days, as I took the bus to Minnesota and back. Actually, the megabus is a pretty amazing thing. You can literally buy a round trip ticket for $2.50, and the bus is clean, fast, and friendly. And it was kind of nice to see some of the country I keep just flying over. It's just too bad that I didn't have talking cars to accompany me.

Yesterday I got "surprised" for the first time in my life. And I must admit, getting surprised has always been a secret hope of mine, because my birthday is not conducive to it. Before highschool and now NU started, my birthday now hit's that no-no zone of all highschool friends gone at not at college yet. Anyway.

I went sailing with Barney and he took me to dinner afterwards at Joyees, except Krystle, Rachel and Maggie were all there waiting for me. Perhaps the most special part was the picture they gave me. The picture has all of my best friends here at NU that will be here when I come home in the fall of 2007. It is probably the most thoughtful that has ever been done for me, and it makes me cry everytime I think about it. Thank you, guys.

MEIV is the best thing that I ever become involved with. And when I think about China,

it is not the fact that I am going across
the world to live that scares me most.

What scares me most is the fact that I am leaving my MEIV family, because that is what it has become to me.

I do not have a digital copy of the picture, so I will include one of me, Maggie and Rachel. And on of the boyband sensation, 375 Kelvin.

I just returned from Washington DC yesterday, and it was quite the experience. One cool thing was that my trip was paid for, but better than that I met all sorts of people that are like me! White people that speak multiple and less spoken languages. White people speaking Mandarin, Arabic, Korean, Thai, and a lot more. And while at first it was a little weird to be with all these white people speaking foreign languages (there was only a few Asians and black people), it was very cool. Because nobody blinked when you said what you do. Pretty awesome:) I am so used to long pauses or people thinking I am strange. I also met one girl who is going to be in Hangzhou next year, so that is nice. It's nice to know one person, other than my penpal (who I haven't heard from in a while) that will be there. She is from Mississippi. Here a some pictures of the couple places I got to visit--I only had about 2 hours of free time. So I was running around! It was cool though, to see all these places. I wanted to see the WWII memorial, but alas, did not. I'll probably have a lot of time when I have to move to DC after I graduate... but not going to worry about that right now. Final exams are soon... and things are crazy. But it'll be ok.

Yesterday I went to the dessert dinner for the MEIV team that is going to China this summer. I really feel like I wish that I was going. And I don't think that it's just because someone I am a somewhat fond of is going on the trip. They are going to have an amazing opportunity and experience and I am so excited for them. There is one guy going who is white who yesterday was questioning "why am I going on this as a white person..." He seems like a great guy, I hope that he can outgrow that questioning of his race so much on the trip. It'll be hard. I went through a whole period of "I am nobody!" identity before I made it here, to I am white and that is valuable and good and I can use that to help others. We are defined by more than what we do. It is also what we do not--for example. I am from Minnesota, a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. How much seafood do you think I eat? I think the Chinese American people on the trip will find a lot of their identity out there in Yinchuan too. It reminds me of "The Book of Lights" by Chaim Potok. He's a Jewish author and in the book his two characters end up finding both understanding and forgiveness in Korea and Japan. It's a beautiful book, I more than recommend it.

I have about 10 minutes to kill before I go meet with someone to plan out my internship while in China. Studying Abroad requires more paper work than operating a small country, but probably not a large one. I am not entirely sure, as I operate neither yet. So far I have filled out applications for Hangzhou, for Northwestern, for scholarships, for internship credit and roommates and who knows what else. Now for a picture of me. This is me and Alice (looking gorgeous) before we went to her formal last Friday. It was good times :)

this'll probably get more extensive later. i am going to bed.