* 8/11/09 9:52pm Day 38: This is for Joanna *

CHINERRRS CLASS.

And then, we went to the Shanghai Museum as one of the class activities. It was kinda boring…it was a lot of ancient Chinese artifacts that all looked the same. There were old coins and vases and calligraphy and paintings. I basically only went to hang out with people, because Joanna and Geneva were going so I knew I’d be bored if I stayed at the hotel myself. So we went, I had some pretty productive Dutch and Japanese lessons. I’ve forgotten all my Japanese, so I keep making friends with the Japanese kids so I can practice with them. But Japanese is super hard because they talk really fast…or maybe not, but their words seem a lot more slurred together. At least with Chinese I can pick out the words I know even when people are speaking fluently to each other, but with Japanese I find it a lot harder. Anyways, I learned how to say Miffy (yes, the bunny rabbit that you like, ja) and “Everything looks the same” in Dutch. And in Japanese, I learned how to say “You’re crazy” (lit. your head is funny) and “Boring” and “I’m tired” and “i forgot.” Technically I should know all of those already, but I forgot them all. How sad. I need to study Japanese like mad when I get back.

After spending 2.5 hours in that boring, but very beautiful, museum, we all dispersed into our own separate directions because we all had different things to do. Me, Geneva, and Joanna were supposed to meet Kelly (the girl from the last program) at People’s Square at 7pm, which is right next to the Shanghai Museum, so we decided it’s not worth it to go back to the hotel and then come back out to meet her because it takes about 30 mins one way anyways. SOOOOO, we spent FOUR HOURS waiting for her. Yeah, four. We sat at the food court in a shopping mall and studied while we waited. It was so ghetto. Plus, she was late because she got stuck in traffic, so we ended up waiting like 4.5 – 5 hours. So when she finally came it was 8:15pm, and we ate dinner with her really quick, and then went to People’s Square to shop. I needed to buy some earrings because mine broke. It was good practice of my Chinese though, because I did all the speaking and bargaining with them in Chinese. I bought 4 pairs of earrings -___- I need to stop buying earrings. We didn’t spend too long there, because our metro line stopped running at 9:30pm so we needed to be on it by 9:20. We ended up spending like…30 minutes shopping (which is NOT enough) and then got on the subway.

Man…today was so tiring. 我很累！Yesterday Joanna was trying to tell a friend to cross a field, so she kept saying “Just walk past the green area. The green area.” Although it would’ve been more obvious to say “field,” that didn’t seem to occur to her, so she kept saying “green area.” This is what being in China too long does to you. Takes away your English vocabulary, but replaces it with nothing. On another side note, my Chinese-English dictionary has the f--- word, but not “booger.” What the heck is that about? I wanted to call Joanna a booger yesterday, but instead I had to settle for “big bear” because I couldn’t find booger. And when I was trying to look up “fun” today, I noticed they had the f word. Since when did that become an official word? Or at least official enough to be included in a Chinese-English dictionary over “booger”? Such sad times we live in now, when I can’t as easily call someone booger as I can cuss at them.