Today was the first day of classes again after the MMK project…BLAH. Classes are pretty boring, as always. We started the day off with a lecture on China & Europe relations. Not too interesting…so far, it seems like the relationship between China and any other country is the same – it was bad at first, but has been improving. It went from strategic partnership to cooperative relationship to positive interdependence. It’s like the same for China and the other major countries (European countries, US, etc). It’s all politics. And it’s all the same to me.
That was morning session. Then we had lunch. Me and Joanna have been having stomach problems, so we just went to a convenient store and picked up some rice balls (onigiri-type things) to eat. Then we went back to class.
Afternoon session was much better. Usually, a professor just comes in and lectures us about his research topic. But this guy was different; he used to work for the US Senate and talked to us about how the Senate and China interact, then did a role play game with us. It still wasn’t interesting, because I am not interested in politics and he went into the structure of the political systems and things like that, but at least it held my attention. For the role playing game, he had us be a congressional staffer, a senator, or a Chinese ambassador. Our task revolved around a bill that was circulating in Congress about the US having stringent environmental regulations that countries must abide by to trade with the US, or else a tax is imposed on the country’s imports. Anyways, the Chinese ambassador (which is the group I was in) obviously opposes this bill because that would require China to take drastic and expensive measures to regulate its industries or else be taxed for the items it exports to the US. The congressional staffer was in favor of the bill in the interests of protecting the environment. The senator was just supposed to make a decision on the bill. Yup, so it was a more interesting twist on class. Gave us some hands-on experience in the world of the senate.
Anyway, after class is when the ACTUAL fun starts :) I met up with my MMK team for KARAOKE (Here they call it KTV)!!!!! It was sooo much fun! We went to Wanda Plaza (the shopping mall) and there was a huge karaoke place on the top floor. We got a big private room, and joined with another group of 5 people (so there were 14 people in the room total). It was soo crazy…there were so many people all just being silly, singing in English and Chinese, and hanging out. It was lots of fun and we sang for 4 HOURS!!!! CRAZY!!!! :) I absolutely LOVE my team…I’m so glad we’ve become such good friends. I’m so sad that I only get to hang out with them for a couple more days and then the program is over on Friday...
After karaoke we went to dinner at a restaurant in Wanda Plaza. We were originally gonna get tsin jien bao but it was closed :( :( :( But its okay..this restaurant was good too. I shared a meal of grilled chicken and some vegetables with Tao because we both weren’t very hungry. Anyway, we always have the best time at dinner, and then we walked back to the hotel (about 20 mins) after dinner. I learned how to say “awkward turtle” in Chinese (ganga du ooguay)! Hahaha…so random. On the walk home, me and Nikki talked with Chris (who is usually the quietest one and hardest to get to know, so this was a major breakthrough) and he opened up to us and shared with us about this girl that he likes….he is SO CUTE! He was telling us about how he had dinner with her and they spent HOURS talking because they just had so much to talk about and he was so happy…and then he talked about how he tried to see her after that, but it was difficult because she had a major exam to study for and then she went home right after the exam, so he didn’t get to see her. And he asked us our opinion on some of her behaviors and stuff like that. It was just really good to talk with him because he’s usually so hard to talk to…I’m so surprised he opened up to us like that. I really like him…he’s so funny, and SO dorky but it makes him really cute. But he’s ridiculously smart, and you can tell because he studies electrical engineering at the 3^rd best university in China. He’s just super geeky and sort of awkward (ganga!), but still really cute at the same time. And then there’s Alex, who is SO funny too. He’s also pretty nerdy and geeky, but I think he’s less shy. He’s more assertive than Chris, and more engaged in the activities, so it’s usually pretty easy to talk to him. But I think sometimes he is too much of a leader (he was one of the leaders of the whole MMK project) and craves attention too much. But he’s still really nice and funny :) And then there’s Michael, who is so charismatic and funny that he could easily be anyone’s best friend. He’s kind of a natural leader and all the kids at MMK looked up to him (partly also because he played basketball with them). But anyways, I think I like Michael because he’s always confused. It’s really funny because he gets really confused when we use English words that he doesn’t know, and then he’s like, “Wait..what does this mean?” But he’s also very smart, and very into politics. His major is political science and I’ve been told that he’s a P member. Oh! He’s also a natural athlete. He had never played volleyball before the other day, and he became SUPER good at it by the end of the game. And then there’s Ariel. I LOVE Ariel :) (and not just because she’s got the same name as a Disney princess). She is SO sweet, and SO cute, and SOOOO patient. HAHAHA I always practice my Chinese with her, and she’s always encouraging me to learn more and keep practicing it on her. I swear, once I learn a new phrase, I say it to her about 100 times just to make sure I memorize it, and she never gets annoyed. I think if I were her, I’d be pretty annoyed. But she’s so sweet. I could never see her getting angry at anyone. And that’s all my Chinese students!! Ohhh I’m going to miss them so much. We make up a really fun team…I don’t think it would be quite as fun without one of us.
Anyways, after all that, I got back to the hotel at around 10:30 and took a shower, and now I’m writing this. Man there is SO much work to do. Dan told us today that we need to start working on our class presentations. They have to be on some theme in the class, has to be 10-15 mins long, and has to incorporate our readings, lectures, and experiences. Um. My first thought was CRAP. I haven’t been reading or paying attention in class. But…Joanna, Nikki, and I (all the psychology majors in the group) decided to work together to do a presentation on the psychology of the migrant school kids. We’ll probably talk about their mentalities and how they differ from regular kids…I don’t know. We’ll have to do the readings and look back on the lecture. Plus we have to write a 5 page paper on the topic, all due next week. PLUS my mommy and Joanna’s mommy are coming this Friday and they want to go travel, so me and Joanna are aiming to get a majority of this project done by the weekend. Yeah…we’ll see how that turns out. AND I’m still behind on my reading, only on day 6 when we’re supposed to be on day 11 now. I give up.
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