我吃饱了。
I am so full. I feel like I have been eating food all day. This morning I woke up at 7am and ate three baozi (steamed bun with meat) while I waited an hour for my gmail to load. (I wish I was exaggerating.)
After dealing with Internet issues, I wasn’t in the greatest of moods. I went back to my room and my roommate had looked up Chinese music that I could use in my presentation on Chinese music. Gotta say, I’m a fan of this roomationship so far.
We went to lunch and I had extremely oil noodles. They were delicious, so they are most likely unhealthy (like all the good things in life). We were told at orientation that the Chinese like to soak their meat in MSG. I’ve probably eaten as much MSG in the past week to match what I’ve eaten in my pre-China life.
My roommate and I took a mutual nap after lunch (sad to say that no Inception occurred). Before I feel asleep, I attempted to say, “Falling asleep after eating is the best feeling in the world” in Chinese, but instead I said “After eating, falling asleep is the best egg.” My roommate had a good laugh.
I woke up 20 minutes late for my placement test, so I quickly traversed campus to get to the wrong building (Chengxin building). A nice Chinese man let me know which building I should actually go to, so I went to the fourth floor of the Ningyuan building. Father Jim, counselor-not-authority figure for us Beijing Center students, told me jokingly that I would have to take Chinese over from the start, to which I laughed half-heartedly (fyi: the notion of repeating Chinese class is an extremely effective threat for those who have studied it). Within ten minutes, I was ushered into a classroom where my placement tester was waiting.
After taking that placement test, I’ve realized that I stressed over it for nothing. The entire conversation was conducted in Chinese, but he only asked me questions like “Introduce yourself” and “How long have you been studying Chinese?” He had me write down a few sentences like “You didn’t give me a phone call,” which included vocabulary I learned in my first semester of study. After five quick minutes, he said, “Welcome to Advanced Intensive Chinese.”
That sound you just heard? That was my social life leaving the country.
But I guess I shouldn’t be that dramatic. I still have tonight! Since my pre-frontal lobe hasn’t fully formed yet, I decided it was a good idea to go out to the Chinese bars tonight despite an early flight tomorrow to western China. I haven’t been out yet, and I was going with a friend to meet up with several other Georgetown students in Beijing who just finished their summer session. (Note for parentals: I will be in a group the whole time, won’t stay out too late, and Beijing is extremely safe because laws are rather harsh for offenders).
That reminds me what I should let you know, dear readers. Tomorrow is our Silk Road trip, and if I don’t find Internet in the random hotels we stay in, then I won’t be back online until September 5th. It is quite possible that my blog will remain silent for the next two weeks. But have no fear, I will keep a journal on the road and will return with a vengeance come September 5th, with multiple blog posts to satiate those China-hungry minds.
Talk to you again in a few or several days!
~Chopstick Chick
Samm Nicolino says: 
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