We did it bois.
I decided to sleep in an extra 5 minutes this morning since I finally figured out that our test starts at 9:00 and not 8:50.
Right before the test, Yang Laoshi decided to take photos of us taking our final. I’m not sure why we needed that, but the photos actually turned out pretty cute.
The final was much easier than I thought it was going to be, although, I do think I fluffed up sections 3 and 4 pretty bad, but we shall see. Honestly, the final was way easier than the past two tests we’ve had. I’m very confident Yang Laoshi went easy on us, but in a way, I think she also understood the amount of stress we were under.
When it was my turn for the 口语考试, Yang Laoshi and I talked about my handwriting for a bit. She said that she and the teachers say that I have some of the best handwriting (which is crazy to me). She tells me that I write my characters so beautifully every time, but today she really emphasized how nice I write. At some point, she told me that my handwriting rivaled a native’s and that if she saw my handwriting, she wouldn’t think a 外国人 wrote it.
I tried to explain that 1. My handwriting isn’t nice. And 2. The only reason it probably looks nice is because I learned how to write from texts books. I haven’t developed a “handwriting style” since I’m looking at typeface whenever I need to learn how to write a character.
I’ll take the compliments though; she seemed really genuine.
My oral was kind of a mess, and honestly, I thought I did really bad on it, but Yang Laoshi gave me a 4.9 on it. Again, she’s going easy on us. But, the compliments she did give me were that I speak with “native fluency and speed” and if I would just fix my pronunciation, my Chinese speaking abilities would be awesome. She also said the content of my oral was good.
I waited for Hannah to finish her oral, and then we went to shidalu to get our 土豆牛肉米饭. We also made sure to print photos while there as well. Also, I wanted to get a photo with our drink guy, but we chickened out at the last minute.
This post is such a mess because I keep remembering random things, but as I was walking to the Muslim place, I saw a monkey on a leash. Hannah and I saw Korey and Holden and they pointed it out as well, and when we got back to the dorms, I saw that Steven had sent a message in the group that said “Yall there’s a monkey on shidalu. I’m not joking.” And I’m not sure how this came to me so quickly, but I came up with the amazingly witty remark of “Don’t talk about yourself like that Steven.”
Hannah and I put on makeup in her room for graduation, and then we met everyone in the lobby at 1:15. I was just in a very complimenting mood today, so when I saw Katey, I looked at her and said: “Oh hey pretty lady.” But, at that exact moment, Phil walked passed, and half the people around me thought I was talking about him. I’m so dead.
Graduation was different because we saw a performance, then they called us up in the most random order to give us our certificates, followed by some games and more performances. I just assumed they’d give us our completion certificate everything, but nope.
We also got to watch the movie we filmed, so that was pretty good. Our performance wasn’t too bad either.
Isaac and Jason did standup comedy, and I thoroughly appreciated their impressions of Danni and each other. Best bromance.
At the end, all the teachers sang 朋友to us, which was really sweet. A solid conclusion to the two-hour program.
Afterward, we all went outside to take pictures, and I got some cute ones.
I spent an hour packing up all my shit, and I realized I brought too many clothes with me—half of them I probably only wore once because I realized that I didn’t like them halfway through the program. Also, Korey and I kept tossing shit back and forth between each other because we were trying to get rid of it. At one point, I gave him a tide pod, which he actually put in his mouth.
Disgusting.
Daniel and I finally got to talk together in English again, and I really wish we could have gotten to know each other better.
Shiyi came into my room as well and asked if I had a lighter, which oddly enough I did. She seemed shocked and I couldn’t tell why. She then told me to pretend that I didn’t have a lighter, which confused me more. Finally, Daniel explained that she was trying to use a pickup line of me which was: “Do you have a lighter?” And I was supposed to say no so she could say “The how do you set my heart on fire?”
That awkward moment when you ruin a pick up line.
I chilled in my room until 6:30 when I went to get dinner with Hannah, her roommate, and her yuban. We had potatoes, 土豆牛肉, mushrooms, and rice, and honestly, I think it was the best food I’ve had in Xi’an.
We went back to the dorms, I chatted with Hannah, and then we went to distribute pictures. I sat and chatted with Cayleigh for a while, and then went back to my own room.
While I was typing this, Cayleigh’s roommate ran into my room because she wanted me to kill a bug. Originally, she was looking for Korey/his roommate, but they were both out. I was going to kill the bug for them until they told me it was a cockroach, so then I ran to get Logan’s roommate lol. Crisis averted.