Week 一 recap

Week one passed by very quickly, but it already feels as if my arrival in Beijing last Friday was a long time ago. (That actually made no sense.)

For those of you wondering how I'm spending my time aside from trying weird foods and getting lost in random alleys: We have about four hours of class a day starting at 8:00 a.m.- an hour-long lecture (8 students/class), two hours of vocabulary review and grammar drills (4 students), and then one-on-one conversation practice with assistant teachers. We’ve also been assigned individual language partners, Chinese college students with whom we’re instructed to spend an hour every weekday doing anything we want, as long as we speak Chinese. My language partner’s name is Han Weiwei (韩伟伟), rising sophomore majoring in biology at 首师大.

Also, homework = a page or two of homework based on the morning classes' material + about 40 new characters every night + a couple pages of reading + grammar notes. Oral and written tests on Fridays and a short essay every weekend.

Totally random:

Go Rockets!

To celebrate the end of week one, Jared, Dahlia, Bowon, Jonathan and I ordered McDonald’s at 4 a.m.. Not that I ever eat it in the U.S., but for some reason the fact that they delivered to my room on the 11th floor within half an hour made the gray meat and rubbery McNuggets amazing. Also, McDonald’s has a really clever number in China- the area code followed by 517-517. In Mandarin, this is pronounced wu yao qi, wu yao qi, which sounds very similar to wo yao chi, wo yao chi (I want to eat, I want to eat).

the goods arrive

Cheese, ketchup, sweet and sour sauce on my sheets.
Laundry time.