I had my first real conversation with Andy today, and he’s such a cool dude. I really wish I talked to everyone on the program, but our classes are different, or we do different things, so there are just some people I never see. We talked about being awkward and the struggle of learning Chinese. Long story short, if we’re not actively listening, it just kind of filters out of our brains, and sometimes the roommates don’t understand that.
Andy told me about being awkward, and I 100% relate. He said that some Chinese guy was holding the elevator door open for him, but he got nervous and took the stairs instead. He was going to just wait for the elevator on the second floor, but the guy ended up passing him. Andy said he felt bad because the guy probably thought he was racist. Again, that’s the biggest mood ever.
The midterm wasn’t too bad; it was like every other test, except with content from all the previous classes. I actually finished pretty quick, but that might have been because I was getting the questions very wrong.
During the speaking part of the test, Yang Laoshi told me not to say “um” because when I do it makes me sound like I’m not fluent, which doesn’t really make sense considering I’m not fluent. Either way, it’s not a big deal. My oral was just rougher than usual because um is what I say to gather my thoughts, but because I was focusing so hard on not saying “um,” all my previous thoughts went out of my head.
When I was done speaking, she told me the content of my orals was good, but my tones suck. It’s the same criticism as always, so it doesn’t really bother me.
I actually had a heart-to-heart with Yang Laoshi about studying Chinese. I told her I thougth my high school Chinese classes were hard, but then I went on NSLIY and realized how easy I had it. I then said that NSLIY was easy compared to CLS. I told her about being a year out of practice and my future plans to study Chinese. She told me that if I would fix my tones and say longer sentences, I’d be pretty good at Chinese.
Hannah and I went to eat the chicken nuggies and French fires on the second floor, and then I went back to my room to pack. I should have used the time to study for the tingxie, but I honestly could not be bothered.
At some point, one of the teachers texted me the script and put me in charge of assigning everyone their group. The movie we’re filming is about a girl who’s throwing a ball to select her future husband.
I decided to take the role of the bride because there’s costumes involved, so catch me in some ancient, traditional Chinese wedding dress on Sunday. John is playing my husband, which is funny because he’s over a foot taller than me, so someone’s going to have fun framing that scene.
It was actually really fun getting everyone to choose their parts. Maybe I am cut out for organizing and leading stuff.
At some point I ended up going to Hannah’s room because I didn’t really feel like being with my roommate at the time being. She thinks she’s my older sister and does nothing but patronize me. I know it’s because I’m younger than her (but only by a year and a half), and I know it’s because my language skills are limited, so she thinks she has to protect me, but it’s annoying as hell.
Today, I wore a dress and she looks at my outfit and goes: “Why are you wearing that? You know you’re going to the desert. Did you bring pants?” And all I could think was “well I’m not currently in the desert, and I did in fact pack pants because our RD told us to do that yesterday in English.” Again, I know she’s just trying to be nice, but she acts like a parent. I’m not hear for that.
Hannah and I walked to the gate, and we boarded the bus to take us to the train station. There’s nothing better than a bus full of foreigners wearing matching shirts and bright orange hats. Of course, we had to take a group photo at the station, and then we sat around for an hour waiting to board.
Hannah, Cayleigh, Hannah’s roommate, and I play some card games. I watched the first game because it would have high key stressed me out. Basically, what you do is you split a deck of cards in half. You then take turns calling out the numbers numerically up to 13. If the card you say matches the card that is face up, you slap the deck. Whoever slaps it last has to take all the cards in the pile, so the objective is to get rid of all your cards.
The other card game we played was rummy, but we didn’t get to finish because we had to board.
We’re on hard sleeper beds, but the name is deceiving. Hard sleeper just means you don’t get your own room; the mattresses are actually really comfortable, but to be fair, anything remotely soft feels like heaven at this point.
The beds are kind of insane, and I’m so glad I got a bottom bunk. The upper ones have no room, and they’re super high up. I wasn’t even sure how to get up there, so I asked Amanda if I could try climbing up to her bed. I realized I was in a dress and was probably going to flash everyone, but Amanda said I was fine. Turns out I was not fine, because I did in fact flash everyone. At least I was wearing my cute undies.
I ended up sitting around and talking with Hannah, Korey, Holden, Katey, Cayleigh, Adam, and Logan in their section of the car.
At 8, we made some instant nudes (noodles), and let me tell you, it was good. Chinese instant noodles are much more intense than Raman, and I’m here for it. I accidently made a mess trying to put the spicy in, and Holden laughed at me.
We ended up playing some game that involves lying. Basically, everyone gets a word, but three people have a word that isn’t the same as the rest of the group. You go around saying adjectives, and the goal is to figure out who doesn’t have the same word as the rest of the group. So, for example, 5 of us got the word “tea” and 2 got the word “coffee.” You don’t know who has what word, so you’re trying to sus out the lier.
It wasn’t really that fun, but that’s because we were trying to call each other out in Chinese. When we switched to English for a hot second, it was fun. Accusing people is how the game is supposed to be played, but we had limited Chinese.
When the game concluded, I went to go watch Zombie Land with some people, but the lights were going out soon, so we only got 10 minutes into the movie. I was really digging those motion graphics.
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