China Day 1

Turns out I’m a dumbass and we left DC on a Thursday, so we actually didn’t lose as many days as I thought, so now time makes sense again.

Today I woke up at 7:30ish, which was nice because it means that my body is adjusted to the time zone, but bad because the hard beds are what woke me up. Nevertheless, it was nice to have an hour and a half to just lay in bed and scroll through wechat messages.

Breakfast was awesome, and I ate mostly potatoes, but I also had some mushrooms and broccoli. During breakfast, I had our RD help me read the letter my roommate wrote me, and thankfully I did understand the parts I read. He helped me clear up the parts I couldn’t read. Turns out, she has a very self-deprecating sense of humor, which makes us a perfect fit.

After breakfast, we got a tour of the campus and then had another in country orientation. It wasn’t really anything we hadn’t heard before. The exciting part was meeting our language partner. We got lunch with them and then roamed the campus. Mine pushed me to only speak in Chinese and really held me to the langue policy, which was nice. I couldn’t understand everything she was saying, but I got the jist of everything. She’s a really good conversationalist, and I wasn’t as nervous about speaking to her as I thought I’d be.

I told her that I needed to work on my tones, but she told me I was doing a good job. I appreciate the kindness, but we both know that was a flat-out lie. She did tell me that my grammar was good without being prompted, so maybe I have something going for me.

She dropped me off back at the building, and we had another introduction to Shaanxi Normal University, following by receiving our program phones. I was really banking on my iPhone 5s working, but alas, it did not so now I’m stuck with the program phone.

After orientation, I went to go get to RMB from an ATM, had a mock fire drill, hung out with Korey on the lit balcony, and

then went to meet my roommate. We had a scavenger hunt around campus, which meant cute photos.

The first thing my roommate said to me was: sorry if I talk too fast. I couldn’t help but laugh because that’s the same problem I have when speaking English, so we’re a match made in heaven lol.

Dinner would have been awesome if it wasn’t so spicy. I loved how the food tasted, but I physically could not eat it because my lips were constantly on fire. My roommate is from Sichuan, so that explains why she was fine with it.

We made our way to the library, took some more photos and then called it a night. I fell asleep almost immediately as I laid in bed. I woke up two hours later with a bag of empty chips and red eyes. I’ve never felt so exhausted.

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