Little bit of love, little bit of love

I was reminded by a few people (both here and in the States) that I am having an amazing experience and I shouldn't be boo-hooing about not experiencing what I experience every day when I'm home.

Thank you to those of you who smacked some sense into me and told me to suck it up. I needed to be slapped around a little bit, and I'm back on track.

I had my first day of work yesterday, though it was mostly team-building stuff and sport-specific training. We played games to get to know each other, and one of the games involved picking jelly beans up with chopsticks and running them across the room to deposit them in another bowl. I was nervous because I'm not the best with chopsticks, but I totally rocked at it, so maybe I'm doing better with little things like that than I thought. I am pumped for the Olympics to start. I am thrilled with what I'll be doing. I love who I'm working with. China still doesn't make sense to me, but I'm back to liking it again.

We discovered a place called "Grandma's Kitchen" that has American-style food, and we just got back from having brunch. It was fantastic and my Mexican skillet had real beef in it! Perfection.

I don't think I'm going to end up making it to Shanghai this weekend because I have to work, but maybe some other time when my schedule allows for it. Anyway, thank you to everyone who responded to my whining with either comfort or a reminder that I'M IN CHINA and should be using this experience to my advantage.

You know when things just... start to align? And your life almost immediately feels better? Well... the past two days have been that. It's like China knew that I was getting frustrated, and decided to fix itself. The weather has been so much cooler (meaning upper 80s! Woohoo!), and I'm getting more familiar with the subway. Our cab drivers have been pretty good about getting us where we need to go without almost killing us in the process. I haven't seen anyone peeing on the street, and I've had good food and company for an entire 48 hours. Thank you, universe, for reminding me how important it is to be rational and fair.

That's it... I'm off to take a quick nap before meeting up with the girls for a girls' night out at China Doll (I've rediscovered my love of dancing!). I'll be home by midnight. Lovely!

Love that Dirty Water

Alright, so... I am homesick.

I went to karaoke last night and the song "Dirty Water" came up. The music video behind it was just pictures of Boston. Copley, the Pru, Harvard Square, Storrow Drive...

And then today, Jess and I watched Good Will Hunting. Maybe it's just because of these two instances, but I am feeling pretty homesick.

It's hard to hear about things that are happening at home, because I know I'm having an amazing time and I don't wish I wasn't here, I just wish I was part of things that are happening at home. Facebook keeps me constantly updated to the goings-on of people I love, but when I'm so far from everyone and so unable to talk for real (the time difference makes real communication basically impossible), it's hard to feel in the loop.

Anyway, with everything else in life, this will go in waves. In two days I will probably be back to focusing on China and everything I'm doing here. Starting work tomorrow will definitely help. And before I know it, this trip will be halfway over and I'll be wondering where the time went.

I'm considering a trip to Shanghai this weekend. I'll keep you updated, but please return the favor... Emails and comments make me feel so much closer to you all. I'm sorry I'm not around for birthdays and parties and get-togethers and Shark Week, but I still want to know what's happening in your lives.

In other news, all I want is a fresh salad...

Beijingaling Zoobaloo

I went to the Beijing Zoo today. It was a good experience, and highlighted a few things that I've been meaning to talk about. I'll start with the zoo itself and work my way up to the big stuff.

First of all, it was insanely hot today. It's the kind of hot that's just oppressive. You walk outside and feel dirty, and you're already sweating. It's very hard to feel clean, but you settle into it after a while and just accept that while showers help, they certainly don't fix the problem. After a bit of confusion and plan-changing, we settled into cabs to the zoo (because on a really hot, sweaty day, the subway is your least favorite place to be). We arrived after little to no confusion (!!) and got down to business. Fenn wanted to see bears, Andrea wanted to see lions and tigers, Jess wanted to see penguins, and I wanted to see giraffes and pandas. The panda exhibit was first (and cost extra money), and there were TONS of them. They were really adorable, and we got to see them eating. Their caretaker handed them bread and they would take it from his hands and just sit down and have a nibble. One was stretched out on his back, scratching his stomach, and munching on his baguette. It was incredible.

We then saw some really strange birds, including black chickens, which I was told to look for. I am putting pictures up on on Ofoto hopefully tonight, so be on the lookout. We then saw some pretty cool elephants, who perked up for pictures. After elephants were rhinos. They were obscene. One turned around and peed at us (thanks!), and the other was a male... who... well... showed off some pretty inappropriate limbs. It made me uncomfortable, and I don't really like rhinos so much anymore.

Then came the sad part of our visit. We saw lions and tigers (no bears, oh my), and they were treated so incredibly badly. The kings of the jungle are housed in concrete boxes with bars in China. They look malnourished and depressed, and I almost cried. They have very little room to walk around, and I couldn't take any pictures because I just thought it was so wrong. I had the same feeling that I did at the village, strangely enough. I felt that I was partially responsible for their living conditions, and I felt guilty and helpless. It was really sad, and I thought momentarily about changing my life plan and becoming a zoo keeper to improve their lives. It's hard to see something awful that you're helpless to change.

After that, we saw zebras, giraffes, and ostriches. I LOVE GIRAFFES. They are really the coolest animals that exist. The ostriches were up close and personal, and it was here that I got upset again. People were throwing trash at the ostriches to get their attention. Their pen was already pretty disgusting, and I'd been seeing litter in other animal's cages but didn't really think much about it. For some reason, I felt so incredibly angry with these people and their disregard for the animals. I know that I'm not one of those nutty animal activist people, but there IS such a thing as common decency, and it made me so sad and angry to see animals living the way they were. The camels had humps that were floppy and flat due to a lack of water. It made my heart ache and it highlighted a few feelings that I've been sensing for a while but couldn't quite pinpoint.

Before I came to China, my impressions of it were that it was a very collectivist culture, with an intense focus on community. Now that I've been here for a bit, I am unsure what to make of my experiences. They just don't seem to align with the national identity China seems to portray. Keep in mind that these observations are not to be taken to heart. I've only been here for (almost) three weeks, and my experience doesn't reflect the way the society operates as a whole, so I can't even really make generalizations. Okay, enough with the disclaimers:

Subway
I have ridden mass transit in New York, Boston, London, and Paris, and NOTHING compares to the way the subway works here. I have almost fallen several times from being pushed either in or out of the subway. Friends of mine have been elbowed in the face and squished so much that their feet no longer touch the ground. You have to be a fighter to get off at the right stop in rush hour.

Lines/Queues
Lines do not seem to matter here. It seems to me that if you are in the way of someone, whether or not you were there first, they will get you out of their way no matter what. I can't quite get up the gumption to shove my way back, or push past people in front of me, though I'm curious of how it would be received.

Taxis
If you get a taxi, get in it while it is still moving, if possible. People will take it from you, and you won't even know where they came from.

Sanitation
Okay, so I've been trying and trying to not let this one faze me. I understand that I'm coming at all of this from a "Western" perspective, so I'm trying to be fair in my perceptions. However, I can't get over this one. Children here will routinely urinate or defecate on the sidewalk. I can't even tell you how many times I have seen a child pee on the sidewalk, into dirt, IN A MALL, or into a grate. If they are even wearing pants, they will often be missing a crotch and a backside, so that the child can simply do his/her business wherever. Now, here's what I've determined regarding the disposal of bodily waste thing: maybe squat toilets are more sanitary because you aren't really touching anything (unlike on a western toilet), and your waste goes immediately away. Maybe letting your child urinate freely is better for them than having them sit in a soiled diaper. However, I saw a ten-year-old girl urinating on the sidewalk today in front of the zoo, in broad daylight, on a crowded street. This is problematic for me for a lot of reasons. The first is the obvious sanitation problem this causes for other citizens. At Emerson, a kid in Piano Row was playing a joke for a while by dropping human waste into a trash can on his floor, and they had to go through a huge process to clean it and ensure safety. The second is that it seems disrespectful to other people. The third is that it seems to indicate a lack of self-restraint or ability to put another's needs before one's own. I just don't understand it, and though I'm getting more used to it, I can't contain my disgust when I see it.

Anyway, it was a good day. These issues are minute really, and I want to emphasize that I've also met an incredible number of people who want to go out of their way to help us.

I've noticed too that when I get outside of really touristy spots, I have a much better experience. Jess and Andrea and I went to the Lama Temple the other day, and wandered around the hutongs for a while afterward. We ended up finding a really great little tea place that was tucked into an alley. It had a courtyard with calming music, and only one table. The table was glass, with turtles living in the bottom part of the table. It was really cool, and the people were unbelievably nice. It was so calming, and after the madness of the Temple (we were scolded for lighting incense in the temple... oops!), it was exactly what we needed. Afterward, we did a little shopping in a tiny store without sizes or a fitting room. I guessed on a red dress that looked vaguely my size, and paid $2 for it. I got it home and put it on, and it fit perfectly. It might be my new favorite garment. :)

Once again, this post was a jumble of things. I love it here, but it's in such a transition and I'm such an outsider that it's hard to get a grasp on what's going on.

Chariots of Fire

Yesterday was my first day of work, meaning that I saw the Bird's Nest for the first time up close. We went inside and had an orientation to the venue, followed by a scavenger hunt.

This building (or "beauty" as our tour guide, Rock, would say) is INCREDIBLE. We literally ran wild through the venue for almost an hour in our search for the required scavenger hunt items. In an effort to save time and get to the other side of the venue, we RAN ACROSS THE MIDDLE OF THE FIELD OF PLAY. Correct. I ran through the middle of the most internationally famous Olympic venue, where such incredible events as the Men's 100M will take place. As we made our sprint across, all I could hear was Vangelis' Chariots of Fire Theme Song. Despite all the frustration and confusion I've been feeling lately, that one moment made me remember why I'm here. Not to be an Olympian, of course (though that one moment felt pretty damn good), but to cover their success or their failure. It felt good, and very, very surreal.

After that, we had more training and lunch (which, for me, consisted of rice, banana, and a mysterious yogurt drink, because the meats looked a bit shady and I'm a little wary after my near-dog experience). After we finished, a few of us ended up sitting in the stands of the Bird's Nest. We witnessed a run-through of the performance for the opening ceremony. It was incredible. And I saw it for free. On a field that I'd just run across.

After that, we went to Taco Tuesdays at a cool Mexican place in San Li Tun Lu with our supervisor and some of her friends. I ended up having some great conversation with a few Brits and longed to be back in London!

That's all for now. I'm going to wander and see some Temples with Andrea & Jess today. I'll update if I go swimming in the Water Cube or some equally ridiculous thing in one of the other venues. What is my life?! Absurd.

Lost in Translation

I've been in China for two weeks, and I am noticing that the communication gap is beginning to feel much, much wider, and almost impossible to bridge. Simple things like ordering dinner and getting a taxi to take you to the right place are incredibly difficult. It's not that these things have gotten harder. It's that when I first arrived here, everything was an amusing adventure. I could laugh at myself and the situation, trusting that it would all work out well in the end. I'm starting to realize that I'm out of control here. I am surely doing my own thing, and I'm definitely deciding what I want to do and when (that will all change once the Olympics begin), but when it comes down to it, if a taxi driver takes me to the wrong campus (always a treat in the middle of the night) or to a construction site when we were intending to get to a bar (we forgot to add "Lu" to the end of San Li Tun), there's nothing much you can do about it if you don't know your surroundings well enough to give directions and don't speak the language in any understandable way.

This has all happened before. In France and Germany I began to feel very alien as I fumbled with words that had 1928396028 consonants and no vowels. But I could still guess at things. And I didn't look quite so foreign.

I stand out here. I'm tall. I'm blonde. I'm PALE. These are all things I knew about myself before I left the States, and I'm not even saying I'm bothered by it. It's just that when I'm feeling uncertain of where I am or what I'm doing, I simply can't hide in the crowd.

I may have eaten dog at a restaurant. It was supposed to be a hamburger. It wasn't.

I almost ate a scorpion on a stick, but it was still alive and squirming as I neared it so I ran in the opposite direction.

I consumed beef tongue.

I have mastered chopsticks and squat toilets.

I love it here. It's all so full of beauty and history and tradition and grace. I just wish I could meld into what this culture is (absolutely not out of dislike or hatred of my own. I love America and long for simple American things more than I ever thought possible), if for no other reason than to feel at home. It's all an adventure. I get it. I'm loving it, I just want a kitchen and fresh vegetables and a hot dog and meat I understand and a language I can speak and people who see me as more than just a tall, out of place foreigner. I feel mute and like a huge alien.

This has been a jumble of things. I apologize for the disarray. I'll keep you updated with my thoughts as they happen. Things are changing every day, but I'm still happy.

A Not-Quite Retraction and Beauty Galore

A few people have complained that it's been several days since my last post, which wasn't exactly filled with happy thoughts. I often find that I require time to think things over, but am usually too impatient to give myself said time. I want to talk about a few things that I think should be addressed.

I was talking to Crysty about the experience so far, and after scanning a few people's blogs, we came to the conclusion that we were both frustrated that people were posting things that painted a picture of China that was largely unfair and inaccurate. The tricky thing about what we're doing right now is that, whether we like it or not, our views of China are going to impact other people's views of China. You, dear reader, are subject to my own incomplete and biased perceptions, and what I say about this experience will in some way affect the way you understand China and the Chinese. After complaining about other people, I laid in bed for a while thinking about myself. I sort of went on a tirade in my last post about a feeling I was having based on an experience that I can't (and nor can anyone) ever fully understand. What I said was true in that it was the way that I felt, but I think it's only fair to this country that I've come to love to consider that there are many other ways of looking at what I experienced in that village.

Surely, as Americans, we understand the power of image and the importance of image-making. Why then does it seem that China's frame of reference is so distant from our own? I was reminded when walking through the village of a passage from Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place, where she discusses the visit of Princess Margaret to Antigua while Kincaid was a little girl. All the buildings that the Princess would visit were stripped and rebuilt. The beach on which she sunned herself was cleaned and the locals were evacuated. The highway on which her coach traveled was paved and rebuilt, while the other highways, beaches, and buildings remained in disrepair. "Surely this is wrong," I thought, as I passed villagers who'd stopped their work to stare. Days later, I'm realizing that maybe it isn't as wrong as I thought, and who am I anyway to judge?

That said, I want to express that I have been impressed and thrilled by China and by its people. This country is a magnificent one, with people who seem genuinely interested in my well-being. It is a country of confusion right now. Torn between the past and the present, its citizens struggle with their desires in the face of tradition. Journalists walk a fine line, hoping to inform the public and remain in good standing with the party. The party itself is struggling to understand its place in a world that inevitably must change. All of this struggle, disarray, and growth is now in the international spotlight as the Olympics near. In my willingness to criticize the journalists here for what seems to be a lack of journalistic integrity, I overlooked what was lacking in my own reporting. Journalistic integrity is the responsibility to uncover the truth while considering every point of view in order to determine the most feasible option. Through my hasty denouncement of what had occurred at the village, I was doing the very thing I'm struggling to accept in China.

After a frustrating day at the village, I experienced two thrilling and positive days. It's a two-to-one ratio at this point, and I think it's important to remember that. On Saturday, we went to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. I have pictures up on Ofoto, so comment on this post if you haven't seen them yet and would like to. It was insanely hot and crowded, but it was an incredible experience nonetheless. The Great Wall really IS great. The sheer size of it blew my mind, and in order to climb it, you must tread up extremely steep slopes. It was fantastic. The Ming Tombs were on extremely pretty land, but the Tomb itself wasn't totally impressive. It was very cool to see an Emperor's throne, and to see the goods with which he was buried, but it was at the end of a pretty long day and most of us were tired.

Sunday was my favorite day so far. We went to the Summer Palace, the Winter Palace, and the PEKING OPERA. The Summer Palace was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Again, there are a lot of photos on Ofoto so let me know if you want access. The Palace itself is awe-inspiring, and it's right on water. We rented a boat and went out to see it from a distance. While we were on the boat, a Chinese couple asked to take a picture of me with a fan, so I posed a few times. Afterward, I wanted a photo with both of them, but the wife only wanted a picture of me with her husband. This explains my new Facebook photo. Soon a crowd had developed and other people were taking my picture. It was really funny and a great experience. Crysty and Jim and I decided to have a little photo shoot with our newly acquired props (fans and a parasol) by a river on the grounds of the Summer Palace. During this photo shoot, a few Chinese women wanted our picture also. I think it's great that they are as curious about us as we are about them. It's a humbling experience, oddly enough, because you remember that your experience is not "the norm." We had lunch at the Summer Palace and it was tasty and beautiful!

The Winter Palace is entirely ruins, because it was burned down by the Europeans. It was a cool experience, but I was shocked that they just let people walk all over the ruins. It felt awkward and wrong to just be wandering around a field with broken columns and stairs scattered about. After that, we had dinner and went to the Peking Opera. Some people fell asleep during the Opera, but I was completely riveted. It was SO beautiful. The sets were dream-worthy, and the costumes and make-up were the definition of intense. I made friends with an older Chinese couple sitting next to me, who seemed happy to see that I was enjoying it so much. The music was so different from anything I was used to hearing, and everything was incredibly stylized. It was an interesting mix of drama and dance. The women's voices were all cartoonishly high, and it was such a lovely thing to see.

On Monday, we ended up taking a trip to the U.S. Embassy and then having drinks at a hotel nearby. I had a burger there too, which was exactly what I needed. The hotel liked us so much that they invited us to a sunset champagne sipping ceremony, which was fun. Afterward, a group of us went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was just like any other Hard Rock, minus the live music. From there we wandered down the street to an Irish pub called Durty Nellie's (yes, Durty). It was the best pub I've been to. We had drinks, played darts, played pool, had the place to ourselves, and had a dance party to the same nine Michael Jackson, U2 and Bob Dylan songs. It was a great (and strange) taste of home. I got to bed around 2:00 and woke up at 5:00 for my first day at work. :) Lovely.

Work was interesting, but we ended up not doing much of anything. The people who I'm working for don't arrive in Beijing until July 25th, so I won't be doing anything until at least then. I might take a trip to Shanghai or elsewhere. We'll see!

I did a little bit of wandering around and shopping today, and ended up buying a great dress for the equivalent of about $15. It would easily cost upwards of $60 if we were in the States. Some people are going to play ping pong now, but I think I'm going to hang out and do some reading instead. Later, we're going to a bar called "Propaganda" that is mostly an ex-pat hangout, with a 70 yuan cover charge ($10), and free drinks after that. I'm going with a large group, so don't worry about my safety. :)

That's it! What a long update! Congratulations and thank you for reading the whole thing!

More to come pending an adventure to an English bookstore and the Forbidden City tomorrow...

All the world's a stage...

Yesterday was the first day of our three day tour that BOCOG has so graciously arranged for us. We went to a sewage plant, a country village, and dinner at the most famous restaurant in Beijing, renowned for its Peking Duck. Yesterday was also the first time I felt frustrated, and it didn't help that we had reporters and photographers from every major Chinese newspaper and show following us all day. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, and by the end of the day, I was completely exhausted. I will upload pictures as soon as I can. I need to borrow a cable from someone in my group. 

We were all quite puzzled as to why we were taken to see a sewage plant. It was an hour and a half away. It was also state of the art apparently, though I don't know much about sewage plants to begin with, so I didn't have much with which to compare it. This first stop was confusing, but alright. We signed a banner in the entryway that said something like, "We participated in making the 2008 Olympics in Beijing great." It was cool to see all of our names up there, and we signed both our English names as well as our Chinese names. 

Then, we drove for another two hours to a country village. As it turns out, it was a village that is heavily subsidized by the government, and has been completely rebuilt for the Olympic games. There were signs everywhere that labeled it as part of the "Olympics Country Tour." The facilities were very nice, but it became painfully clear that it had been built almost solely for our benefit. It began to feel like we were at Disney, traveling through a world almost like ours, but completely artificial. We went at first to a beautiful temple, that seemed like it'd been around for quite some time. We found out that parts of it were 500 years old, but most of it had been reconstructed over the past two years. It was stunning, and there are plenty of pictures of it. We then visited a nursing home, where we were given a performance by nurses and administrators. The song they sang was lovely, and then they translated it. A few highlights from the song: "We are so happy here. There are no problems in our lives. The government has taken such good care of us when we got old, and we love it here. The air is so fresh, and we have the mountains behind us. Old people can be happy as they get older and older, thanks to the gracious care of the government."

I was stunned and wanted to cry. A few of the elderly people that we met seemed genuinely happy, and we had small conversations via hand gestures or a translators. The other elderly people seemed angry and sad. I suddenly felt unbelievably embarrassed, guilty, and sad. A kid from Purdue started having his picture taken with elderly people, and I wanted to shout at him and remind him that we weren't in a zoo. 

I started thinking about how we got to this remote village, that definitely didn't serve as an example of what a standard village in China looks like. All of the colleges went, so we came barreling into the village with our eight coach buses and police escort, forcing locals off the roads. We passed other villages on our way, and people stood on the sides of the road, staring at us. I realized at the nursing home how much I hated what we were doing. A wash of conflicting emotions fell over me, as I thought about what these people's lives must really be like when we aren't around. Then I felt thankful for my own place in the world. Then I thought that it might be good that the government is stepping up to improve at least someone's life. Then I felt angry with the Purdue kid and everything he seemed to be conveying about Americans. I wanted these locals to know that I understood them, but the truth was that I didn't. I don't. I probably never will. 

We saw a calligraphy school in the village, and it was fascinating. We saw a tai chi presentation in the courtyard, and I was starting to feel better when several students forced themselves into pictures with the tai chi presenters. They were very sweet and good-natured about the photographs, but it felt wrong. The next thing we saw topped it off.

We went inside of a villager's home. A group of over 300 students came wandering through this woman's home. We were informed that the homes cost the villagers very little, as the government pays for the rest. I felt awkward being there anyway, but when people started using the woman's bathroom as though we were in a museum or zoo, I had to leave. I went out into the courtyard and saw the woman whose home it was. Nobody had spoken to her. I walked up to her and thanked her for allowing us into her home. She nodded and asked me if I was a college student, and I told her I was. She then asked if I was American, and I said yes. She said that she thought so, because Americans have more money than the Chinese. I blushed a bit and told her she had a beautiful home, and I asked her if she liked living here. She paused for a moment and thought, and then smiled again and said, "Of course, of course. The government has been kind." It was difficult to communicate with her because of the language barrier, but I could tell that there was more stopping her from telling me what she actually thought. She seemed sad and went largely unnoticed by the foreigners that had overtaken her home. I was angry and wanted to cry.

On our way back to the city for dinner, I waved at the villagers who'd had to pull over on the road. They waved back, and I felt a tremendous loneliness and discontent. I was tired of traveling, I was tired of seeing an artificial world, and I was tired of being told that life was "good beyond comparison" because of the government. 

And now, I need to go and get ready for another day of sightseeing. We'll be seeing the Great Wall today, as well as the Ming Tombs. I'll write about this tonight or tomorrow.

This experience has been great and eye-opening, and I'm not upset that I'm here. I'm glad that I'm here to see what I'm seeing, it's just difficult to swallow when you know it to not be true. 

Flight of the Bumblebee

I arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon around 2:00 P.M. (Beijing time), 2:00 A.M. (Boston time). The flight felt quicker than I'd expected, though it was definitely thirteen and a half hours long. The first word that came to mind was "elation," when nobody took the seat next to me. I spread myself out and enjoyed a cramp-free ride! Cocktails are free on international flights, and I discovered that they had tiny, adorable bottles of amaretto, so a flight attendant and I cooked up a delicious new cocktail: amaretto, orange juice, and sprite. It was a tasty accompaniment to the mysterious chicken-beef that they served us. I slept through most of the flight, waking only to eat the three strange meals (one of which was called "Noodle Service,") and to read a bit more of The Beautiful and Damned. I fell asleep for the final time and woke up when we landed in Beijing. It's a strange feeling, waking up in an entirely new place than the one in which you started.

We arrived at the dorm around 4:30, and settled into our rooms quickly. My room is apparently one of the larger ones, with a pretty atrium-type thing on the back, that overlooks the gardens and tennis courts. The shower is amazing. It's a spigot on the ceiling, and it's next to the toilet, with nothing separating the two. There's no ledge or anything, so the entire bathroom floor gets soaked when someone's showering. The water pressure is FANTASTIC (it feels like a massage), and Crysty and I discovered that the toilet is actually pretty handy when shaving. We took a tour of the campus around 5:15, and I had my first meal in China at 6:00. I'm still not entirely sure what it is that I ate, as nobody spoke English and the signs were in Chinese characters (which I know nothing about!). I had a strange grape milk bubble tea, which was tasty and not what I thought I ordered.

I'm not sure if it is so gray here due to the pollution or the fog. It's unbelievably humid, and I've come to terms with the fact that my hair will be curly the majority of time that I'm here.

We are having our first lecture on the history and customs of Beijing today, so I will update later on what I've learned! After that, we'll be having a tour of the surroundings of the college, and then I'll receive a SIM card for the cell phone I don't have yet. :)

Tomorrow is a free day, so I'm planning on going to Watsons drug store to pick up a few essentials. After that, we're going to probably disband into groups to go sightseeing at a few local interests. I'll update as soon as I have more to say!

I am thrilled to be here, and hardly slept a wink last night. I was up at 6:00 this morning, partially due to the time change, and partially due to sheer excitement. I can't wait for what happens next.

I'm off to see the wizard...

Beijing, here I come!

I'll blog as soon as I'm safe and sound and settled.

I love and miss you all already, and I haven't even left yet.

In true legal style, a promise and an addendum

Okay. I want to make a promise, and an addendum to that promise. The promise is that this blog will not be filled with nonsensical quizzes and my results to those quizzes. In general, I hate blogs that do that.

The addendum to that promise is that I will occasionally post quizzes that are of particular merit to me (i.e. that fantastic "Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You" quiz that I recently took on Facebook. It's like it read my mind!).

With that said, this post will be about a quiz of sorts, though I've been trying to convince myself it's worth so much more than those Cosmo quizzes about what hair color you really should be. I present a very abridged version of the Myers Briggs Personality Quiz: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Here's where it gets fun. Go there, and take it. Then comment on this post with what you are. It's fascinating, and way more scientific than anything Cosmo could cook up (although they did have one quiz a few years ago about which leading man you'd fall in love with, and the results were astonishing!).

For those of you who are curious, I'm an ENFP. (http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html) It is crazy how much this sounds like me. A few highlights:

"Since emotional excitement is usually an important part of the ENFP's life, and because they are focused on keeping "centered", the ENFP is usually an intense individual, with highly evolved values."

... did someone say "intense"?

"Because ENFPs live in the world of exciting possibilities, the details of everyday life are seen as drudgery. They place no importance on detailed, maintenance-type tasks, and will frequently remain oblivous to these types of concerns. When they do have to perform these tasks, they do not enjoy themselves. This is a challenging area of life for most ENFPs, and can be frustrating for ENFP's family members."

... my apologies to my parents and Lucas, all of whom have discovered, much to their chagrin, that cleaning is not one of my favorite things.

"The gift of gab which they are blessed with makes it naturally easy for them to get what they want."

... apologies again, for anyone I've sweet-talked into doing things my way...

"They also tend to be procrastinators, both about meeting hard deadlines and about performing any small, uninteresting tasks that they've been assigned."

... I maintain that I do my best work under pressure.

"Most have a natural propensity for role-playing and acting."

"ENFPs sometimes can be blindsided by their secondary Feeling function. Hasty decisions based on deeply felt values may boil over with unpredictable results. More than one ENFP has abruptly quit a job in such a moment."

My mother is surely laughing at this one...

And finally... a list of famous ENFPs:

Franz Joseph Haydn
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Will Rogers
Buster Keaton
Theodor "Dr." Seuss Geisel (The Cat in the Hat) <--- Interestingly enough, we also share a birthday!
Mickey Rooney
Andy Rooney
Carol Burnett
Paul Harvey
Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) <--- I wanted to be her as a child.
Bill Cosby (Ghost Dad)
Dom Delouise, actor
Dave Thomas, owner of Wendy's hamburger chain
Martin Short, actor-comedian
Meg Ryan, actor (When Harry Met Sally) <--- I've been told I look like her, and order like Sally in restaurants.
Robin Williams, actor, comedian
Sandra Bullock, actor (Speed, While You Were Sleeping)
Robert Downey Jr.
Alicia Silverstone (Clueless)
Sinbad <--- This is cracking me up.
Andy Kaufman
Regis Philbin <--- This is cracking me up more.

Take it and then tell me what you are. I'm so into this.

In other news, Beijing in five days!