Achievements

1. Consuming one grasshopper and one scorpion. The grasshopper was much better.

2. Being able to say "cancer cell" and "immune system" and "carbohydrate" in Chinese, among other things.

3. Taking a one-hour long bus ride (with my tutor) to a Chinese Medicine hospital and talked to a really friendly and intelligent doctor. He told us to read the Yi Jing and explained some of the philosophy behind Chinese medicine, as well as more medical things. 80% of the cancer patients in their ward were diagnosed by Western doctors - either the patients elected to use fusion or pure TCM, or their doctors suggested it! He pressed that patients have a lot more choice in their treatment schema, which is awesome.

4. Buttoning my coat one-handed in the stairwell while holding my bookbag and tea mug, before I get to the ground floor of my dorm.

5. Talking about cockroaches and the Empress Dowager Cixi in varying levels of bad Chinese.

6. Discussing life choices with my roommate, in bed, in the dark, at 1am (in a mixture of Chinese and English), when I have an 8am class I haven't yet studied for.

Oh and this one is Qiuhong's: Telling me the Chinese word for "bacteriophage," AND writing it! Way to remember it from high school bio :P I would have forgotten the character years ago.

For a change of pace (har), here are some beautiful Summer Palace pictures.

These used to have religious paintings, but got whitewashed during the Cultural Revolution.

The last emperor was held under house arrest here by Cixi.

Help protect the ancient relics, help protect the railings.

Does it look fiendishly cold? Cuz it WAS.

Changeable

These are the pictures I used for my Beida photo essay. The text is too embarassing to post up here, but here's a quick rundown: established in 1898, evacuated to Kunming in 2nd world war, frigid during the cultural revolution (and Mao worked in the library before he got famous!), and now it's internationally acclaimed.

Woo Beida. You're awesome. And beautiful.

Now I need to go back to class. We had an exam today, which I finished an hour early, but our "debate" is during the last 10 minutes of class so I have to go back!! Kinda frustrating. And this afternoon we're going to a famous teahouse where we'll learn traditional Chinese games. Hmm. This could be interesting or painfully touristy...

Indoor internet!

Last-minute as usual, I'm finishing up my "letter home" assignment for the Pitzer fieldbook.
I was going to post my photo essay about Beida, but it's really not that interesting - it's just four photos of different manifestations of the view outside my window, and various cheesy captions to them (think "dawn", "winter" and "night", as well as "daylight"). And it's REALLY windy outside, and so cold the wind whips your breath away in the darkness! A mianbaoche - loaf-of-bread van - almost ran me over today. Not cool.

A white mianbaoche lurking on the bottom right.

Anyway. I need to finish my essay. Oh yeah and: THE INTERNET SITUATION GOT RECTIFIED. Thank you Wang laoshi, Mike Donahue, Pitzer, and whatever kind internet deity made this happen, but I am NOT crouching in a hallway or losing my fingers outside to upload this. I don't think I'll ever get over the luxury of internet in my room now.

(PS: please don't tell Stazi she can even get internet in her bed if she really wants to cuz then she'll never leave it.)