I can’t believe I’ve been in this country for almost two months. When you say you’ll be gone for eight weeks, it doesn’t seem like that long of a time, but when you say you’ll be gone for two months, suddenly it seems like you’ll be gone for forever. Comparatively speaking, two months is not that long of a time, but in the same regard, it doesn’t feel like it’s been two months since I’ve left DC. It doesn’t feel like it’s been two months since I first started classes. And it doesn’t feel like it’s been two months since I felt met the people I’m here with.
We’re winding down to our final week, and in less than 7 days, I’ll have to say goodbye to the wonderful friends I’ve made. Sometimes, when I think about it for too hard, I feel like I’m going to cry, but then it disappears just as quickly. It’s like I’ve not processed that I’m actually leaving, or maybe I’m just really excited to go back to America. I really miss having cell service and reliable wifi lol.
This morning was kind of slow, but in a good way. I lounged about, chatted with my grandmother for 10 minutes, and then studied the wrong lesson for the 听写.
Also, today’s my roommate’s birthday, so I decided to go out and buy her a birthday cake from the same place Hannah and I got Korey’s cake. I ended up going with the bunny cake because it looked cute (but I really wanted to buy the chocolate cake).
I had to make a stop at the bank though (cries), and on the way back from the cake place, I stopped by GCUP to print some pictures. Originally, I planned on using the one outside the ice cream place, but it was missing. The one at GCUP is weird. It said my photos were in the cue, but I stood there for a while waiting for them to print. My assumption was that the machine was out of paper, so I went to buy a drink and then asked if there was paper in the machine. They told me there was, so I figured by the time my drink was ready, the photos would be printed.
Nope. So, I looked confused, asked again if there was paper, and the worker said some words I didn’t understand. My assumption was that “the machine takes a long time to print,” but I’m not sure. The other place only took a minute.
In a strange turn of events, while I was writing this, I got a knock on my door, and it was Korey. He handed me two photos and said “so I was walking down shidalu and I just saw a photo of my face, and then I realized it was probably the photos you were talking about earlier.” So that was funny and also slightly awkward because I didn’t want him to see the photo until Friday, but at least he doesn’t know what I have planned.
But anyways, I was independent in China, and I think this is a plus one for me.
While heading back to campus, I ran into Faith and talked to her about the party thing we’re supposed to be doing. Long story short, she’s an angel bean and is going to buy me chicken and potatoes to cook.
I went back to the dorms, and asked Korey to bring me back my hat and to also give me the candles and lighter from his birthday. That was a good move, because if his roommate hadn’t closed the door on him, and he hadn’t stayed in my room, I would not have found my way to the party. Apparently, everyone left earlier to buy food, but I was not part of that group, and my plan was to walk to the East Gate by myself at 12:15, but no one would have been there.
On the way over, Korey told me stories about his time in the military, which was fun to listen to. If there’s one thing I know I couldn’t do, it’s armed forces.
We were the first to arrive to the party room, so we sat on the gaming computers. I watched him play World of Warcraft, we downloaded runescape onto the computers, and then I created my own WOW account.
The monitors on those computers may have been awesome, but the processor was ass. Literally, it took 45 minutes to download runescape, and it’s probably only 4 megabytes. Sad.
I helped Hannah cook her eggplant fries, which were good despite her saying they weren’t. The problem was that they accidently bought corn starch instead of rice flower. Also, we just didn’t have the proper cooking ingredients/equipment.
The afternoon was just a mix of lounging, gaming, and cooking. It wasn’t bad. I ended up cooking some chicken and making spaghetti sauce. Both turned out not bad, so I’ll take that.
Also, Hannah made us some bomb ass crapes. That’s probably the most important part.
On the bus ride back, Korey showed me some pictures of himself from several years ago. The short hair is not a good look tbh.
When we got back to the dorms, I waited for my roommate to enter so I could give her her cake. She really liked it, we took some photos, and I lit the candle. She later put on her wechat moments that this was a special birthday because it was the first one she spent not at home. She got to meet some great new people, and she got to spend her birthday with me. That’s so sweet. Also, she lowkey roasted us because she put “hot pot was so bad because we ate with forks.” 1. Ouch. 2. That’s valid; it’s impossible to eat hot pot with forks.
I studied for the tingxie, and spent the rest of the night goofing off.