I can’t believe I’m getting sick at the exact same time I got sick last year. How is this possible? Literally, I just checked my NSLIY blog (this time last year was the day we flew home), so I was actually dying on an ear and sinus infection.
Catch me sounding like a chain smoker on the plane if I actually don’t get better by Saturday.
My head hurts, my sinuses are swollen, and my throat feels scratchy. And best of all, I think all the medicine I’ve pumped into my system is actually just supposed to be placebo because I don’t feel any better. The thing that really helped me was the 20-minute nap I took after meeting with my yuban.
But, it’s not just me that’s sick. A bunch of people in the 401 class is sick (4/6), there were like 2 people in the 400 class that are sick, and then Cayleigh, Hannah, Rachel, and I have all been feeling under the weather. And this isn’t even including the Chinese roommates that are sick. I think all of us are just tired and ready to go home.
In drill 1, we talked about DINK (double income no kids) and the benefits and setbacks of it. The textbook is slightly leaning towards propaganda in my opinion because it’s like “China had to implement the one-child policy because they needed to develop the economy.” Like, I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. Second of all, the government is literally telling people they can only have one child, and since China is a 重男轻女 society, it creates a really big gender inequality. But sure, let’s pretend it’s all about economic development.
I’m not sure why Yang Laoshi was talking about Halloween, but I don’t think any of us were really paying attention. Hannah thought she said heroine instead of Halloween, which made for a good double take moment on all our parts.
Today was our last drill 2, and I’m sad because that’s the one class I really enjoy. We talked about DINK families and one other topic that’s sleeping my diseased head.
Our last topic was to talk about CLS. We all basically said the same thing: classes weren’t bad, but the thing we’re all going to miss the most is the people. Again, that same feeling of “I might cry” when I think about the end welled up in my chest when I talked about leaving my friends. Friday’s graduation should be interesting for me.
At the end of class, we had Phil take a photo of us with Li Laoshi, and that concluded our drill 2 class.
Also, shout out to Phil for buying me Chinese medicine. Again, I’m not sure if it’s actually going to work considering you’re supposed to take 5 pills at a time, but we shall see. All I’m saying is, no medicine should be so weak that you need to take 5 pills in one sitting.
For lunch, the girls went to the cafeteria and I got a chicken wrap. We then went to shidalu to print photos and get drinks. I made the mistake of ordering lemonade with a sore throat. (And here’s the thing: I was 90% certain I was ordering lemonade, but I still did it anyway. Good job Hayley.)
We tried to use the good printer, but it wouldn’t let me print more photos. I’m assuming I reached my limit or something. We tried at the GCUP printer, but we couldn’t use that one either. Sad.
I did get to show Isaac how to use the printer, which was cool. I’m 100% certain he could have figured it out by himself considering he’s practically fluent in Chinese, but I’ll take the sense of pride I feel when I help a level 600 person lol.
In newspaper, we continued our topic of cultural differences, and I wanted to same something along the lines of “older people have different views on things,” but I couldn’t remember how to say old people. I thought it would be 老情人 since young people is just 年轻人, but it turns our 老情人 means something along the lines of gold digger? I wasn’t too sure, but I know it probably has something to do with mistresses, so that’s my bad.
I’m glad I gave everyone a good laugh.
I had my yiduiyi and I finished the homework in 15 minutes, so I spent the rest of time talking to Li Laoshi about my photos and my friends. I wish I did this normally during my yiduiyi, but I like getting my homework out of the way.
I waited for Hannah, and then we went to shidalu to meet with my yuban. I felt bad because this was probably the last time we are going to meet besides graduation, and I only hung out with her for an hour. I told her that I was sick (and I was getting a headache) and she seemed sympathetic.
She did buy me a gift which was really sweet, and I actually had her gift ready as well. It was just a picture of us, but I did write a quick message on the back.
We mainly talked about language learning again. I asked her if they had spelling tests when they learn English and she said they did. I said they were probably easier than Chinese tingxies since you can sound out the word, but she said that’s not how they do it.
Instead, their teacher will say the Chinese word, and they have to write the English word.
Now that’s a bunch of bullshit.
I mean, it’s a really good way to make sure they actually know the word, but goddamn. Just let them sound the word out. That’s literally how we teach children in America to spell. Yikes.
I went back to the dorms around 5:00 and took a 20-minute power nap.
Hannah bailed on Korey and me for dinner, so we went to shidalu to get some dumplings.
When I got back to the dorms, I studied for the tingxie and then level grinded on Runescape for two hours.