Long story short:
Wake up: 5:00 AM. I thought it was 6:00 and my host family told me I needed to be up at 6:30 if I wanted to shower this morning. I thought: oh, I only have 30 minutes of sleep left; I might as well wake up. No. I hate myself.
Video chats: I tried to video chat my fam at 7:00 AM and they didn’t pick up rip. Lol, jk, they ended up picking up a few minutes later. I actually got to sit in the living room for this video call instead of the bathroom since my host family yeefed out of town for the day. It was nice being able to sit on the couch instead of the toilet lol.
Home alone: There’s nothing more comforting than being home alone for the first time in four weeks. I got to sing loud and obnoxiously, I got to turn the 空调 on, I got to open the fridge without feeling judged, I got to eat snacks, etc. And to be fair, it’s not like I can’t do these things when they’re around, but there’s something soothing about being able to do mundane tasks in peace. For the first time in a long time, I truly felt at home.
Cooking class: At noon, I left the house to go to Nanjing University so we could get on a bus to cooking school. It was a lot more fun than I expected, and I already had high expectations for this place. We got to watch a guy cut a raddish into a flower, and we watched another guy decorate a plate with food gel. We saw some amazing cakes on our way up to the second floor, where we gave a presentation about American cuisine and manners. Also, they gave us some really good watermelon to munch on. I do feel kind of bad though because I didn’t have a place to put the seeds so I ended up putting them on the table. Someone else cleaned it up for me, and I feel like a turd. After our presentations, we got to talk to some of the students at the school, and I met the most pure-hearted guy ever. I was super freaked out about having to speak in Chinese, and he turned to me and goes: You don’t have to be nervous. His tone was just so comforting and he smiled a lot too. We took some selfies and found out we’re the same age. I was so shook because I thought these guys were in their mid-twenties. I ended up getting his WeChat because I want him to send me the photos, but I’m kind of afraid he’ll forget about me. Oops. When we were done talking to the students, we took a photo in front of the school and then walked up four flights of stairs in order to learn how to make roses out of paper clay. We also got to make 包子.
KTV: Ben invited some of us to go to KTV with his rich host family. It turns out the people who ended up going were the OG squad (Justin, Jessica, Anushka, Ben, and myself), which was actually really nice. When we got to the KTV room, there was just a table full of drinks and snacks. It was literal heaven. There’s no good way to describe KTV, so here are some videos. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.
Late night subway rides: I thought the blue line was crowded, but holy Jesus, there was barely any standing room on the green line at 9:30. Thankfully, I only had one stop on it before transferring to the practically empty purple line. (God bless). Walking around the city at night was very nice, but slightly terrifying. I love the fear that’s been instilled in me as a young female walking home alone at night.
Home: I got home as was scared that my host family was asleep because all the lights were off, but it turns out they weren’t even home yet. It’s currently 11:43 and they’re still not here.