I regret my decision to snapchat in the bathroom at 12:30 at night because I felt kind of tired when I woke up this morning. I still woke up at six, but despite still being tired, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I’ve gotten used to my slow mornings and really appreciate my down time in the morning. It’s one of the few times in the day I have to feel more “American”. It’s not that I don’t love China (because I absolutely do), but having time to think in English and not socialize with anyone is very nice.
Breakfast this morning was salad with thousand island dressing. It was almost salad with ketchup thought because for some reason people here think ketchup on salad is normal. Although, I have a theory that my host mom was trying to give me an “American breakfast” (my only reason for thinking that is because of the thousand islands though). I was also given spam on bread which was interesting to say the least. I mean, I’m not 100% sure it was spam, but I am 99% sure it was. I texted my parents and they told me not to eat it. I mean, despite the doggy origins and slightly “not meat taste”, it wasn’t bad.
Today is the last day that my host sister is walking with me to school, but I’m not too worried. I’m sure I can manage getting from home to school and vise verse. The only thing I’m concerned about now is making sure I get a key from them, because I kind of want to be able to get into the house. I’m hoping they’ll give me one tomorrow.
Classes were good. Reading is easy, and my first teacher is easy to understand. I’m still not a fan of my third and fourth classes, but I’m hoping it’ll improve over time.
Also, people are still switching classes. We’ve had five people from the intermediate class move up to the advanced class, so now our class is the smallest. I honestly do think I could move up if it weren’t for the listening comprehension problem, but I digress. My class has also had some new additions; although I think only one person is going to stay.
After class got out, me, Jessica, Emma, and Anushka decided it would be good to walk half a mile to the cafeteria in a literal monsoon. I’m so stupid because I thought that my backpack wouldn’t get wet since I had an umbrella. Mistake number one was bringing a tiny-ass umbrella. Mistake number two was sharing a tiny-ass umbrella. My backpack ended up getting drenched and I was swimming in my shoes. My skirt got wet and soaked through to my underwear. Everything we did was a mistake. I ended up going shoeless for the rest of the day.
Thankfully, when we left the lunchroom, the rain had stopped so we were able to walk back to our next class in peace. (Peace meaning no rain. I was still almost mowed down by several cars, bikes, and mopeds.)
Our culture class was calligraphy. I really wish I had better listening skills because we had a “history lesson” in calligraphy before we actually got to write, and that was 90% of the class. I didn’t comprehend as much as I wanted to, but it was fun to watch the teacher write.
I think my favorite part of the day was getting a tour of Nanjing University. Part of the campus has traditional Chinese architecture, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The campus is breathtaking because of all the greenery. I feel like I’m walking in a move set because of how manicured everything is.
Dinner was interesting. So, I suck at using chopsticks when required to pick up slippery foods. My family served spongy cucumber and I couldn’t pick it up because of how oily all the food is. (Essentially my hands were oily, which meant I couldn’t hold the glossy chopsticks properly, which meant I couldn’t pick up the cucumber.) Long story short, my host mom ended up getting me “easy to use chopsticks”. Basically I’m eating with square chopsticks instead of round ones. (It was way easier though so rip).
Dinner tonight was two dishes of cucumber, duck (plus head), soup, and some kind of bread. I was content eating this bread plain, but my host mom is obsessed with this spice and keeps putting it on all my food. When I said it was too hot for me, she got a new idea. She gave me some “sour tofu”. I’m pretty sure she and my host dad knew I wasn’t going to like it because they were laughing the whole time. And they were right because idk what I put in my mouth, but it was nasty. I made them laugh though, so that’s all that matters.
Overall, I’d say today was pretty solid.
