3.27 - Mr. Li - 李先生

Top ‘o the morn’n to ya~  Today is a pretty swell day… the sun is shining…l the birds are chirp’n… nice.  Just made some coffee.  I was going to make some friend’s (friend from Ghana, tutor, 方银) and a few other’s some breakfast… French toast, but Mr. Z (Ghana) lives really far away… and one of the other’s has homework, and the other one didn’t want to trouble me to make French toast just for him!  Humph ! Fine!  I didn’t want to make you all French toast EITHER lol… just kidding =) 

So I had my 煎饼 alongside a nice cup of French pressed coffee! So good, and some toast… can’t waste!  I haven’t had bread or butter in a long time, so when I tasted it this morning, I was like Madonna… “ oooooh….for the very first time!” lol it was great… haha I forgot the simple heavenly taste.. bread and butter… what a concept.  See people, we learn to appreciate things!

Anways!  You will be so proud of me~ I had a job interview yesterday.  Well, kind of an interview.  It was more like an informal meeting in a very informal place. It is in the largest building in Nanjing… and happens to be the 7^th largest building in the world: the Zifeng 紫峰 tower .  An investment banking firm ( I won’t post on the internet, but trust me when I say it is legitimate… I am somewhat acquainted investment banking) I met this person through an acquaintance who has known Mr. 李, Managing Director of this firm, for over 60 years. 

So my overall impression of this person upon meeting was that he was well-acquainted with foreigners, and quite respectable.  Although mainland Chinese, his behaviors and mannerisms did not differ much from that of any other investment banker I have ever met before.   Although guarded ( I always am when meeting new people in foreign countries), my intuition tells me by the height of his office in the building, and security clearance it takes to get to his office, and his mannerisms -that he is a respectable person.

I thought what luck!  He wants me to help him translate certain documents (prospectus) and join in on business meetings with Russians and Americans two help translate.  Wonderful opportunity for me to make some 关系connections, and learn about mainland China investment banking… However, dear viewers, please understand, I am always guarded, and I know -first impressions are simply first impressions… no matter what umpteenth story on which your business resides, or whatever beautiful building you may work in, 人就是人 people are people.  My feeling is that business women, even in the U.S., should always keep this stored in the back of their mind somewhere.

May I highlight this part of our conversation?

“I am not the traditional Chinese business man who likes to drink at business meetings, it is bad for the health; I respect you, and would not ask you to do such a thing， would you care for a cigarette?”  

HAHAHA!  No Mr. Li I do not smoke… It’s also bad for the health.  But that’s okay… you were saying?

So that went well yesterday, the pay is also good for my standards, even if I were to work in the U.S.!  it is also a  I will, however continue to look for some work in field of Journalism… wish me luck in that department!  Other than that.. just trying to get some homework done…  Adios amigos!

Aloha again… lol Same day, just really super early in the morning… yes, sigh I was a little lazy this weekend.  I was working really hard these last four weeks, so not much homework getting done this weekend between guzheng practice, exercise, and job-related stuff.. But don’t worry I obviously have something to mention if I didn’t wait another 3-4 days to write. .. So I went to dinner with the Ghanian tonight (peanut butter soup man). And I tell you what people, some people just don’t get a hint, -can I vent a little bit?  I mean God forbid that he ever sees this blog, but over my Japanese curried beef noodles tonight, he is sipping on a chocolate shake while eating spicy beef fried rice, unveiling me his feelings for me. “You don’t have to answer right now, but I know that I would make you very happy…don’t answer”  I stare blankly, “don’t answer,” he continues, “ I know I will change your mind in the future you should give me a chance.”  Uhmmmm, alright buddy, I told you point blank in message form on the internet ,“I can only view you as a friend.”  Is what I type hot air over the World Wide Web?    How does that translate to, “yes, I’m definitely interested in you Mr. Zirunsuru?” -Okay, I won’t “answer,” but sir, I am quite decided in my opinion.  Let’s just say I will probably not be eating peanut butter soup for some time again or ever… some will hear what they will.  Okay, so as we are leaving we run into some of his friends on the street.  - And this girl (Chinese) looks at me, and turns to him and says, “oh!  This is the new girlfriend you were talking about?!”  oh – my – goodness.  Help.  “Oh geez, it’s getting late, I must be going...”  escape!

I got home, and since there was no French toast being made today, I devoured the last bit of the French bread… (which was going to be made into French toast), I normally don’t eat bread so ravenously, or in large quantities with butter, if you saw me, you would have thought it was pitiful…  it just seemed horrible to waste sigh (since I’ve missed it so much), won’t be eating that for a while again… my fitness plan starts tomorrow, gotta get slim and trim and burn away my 屁股 pigu… butt! -before Nanjing turns into one of the four furnaces of China’s summer heat.  Wish me luck! lol  Also... after waking from a short catnap 20 mintues ago, I had a dream that i was speaking in Cantonese.. didn't understand a single thing I said during that dream! LOL but it sounded so native lol~  X_X  I am silly... night!

 

Good Morning Everyone! 3/22 尊吧 ZUMBA!

It has been a little while - Time seems to be flying by!  Someone told me in a text just now that time is our enemy?  Lol well, I suppose if you are far away from someone, it can be…  Anyways today is going to be a sunny day I hope… it has been raining a lot lately.  As if it is 一直冬天 continuous winter?!

I finally got fed up with hanging my clothes on bamboo sticks, and just bought a dang clothes drying rack.  What a marvelous invention!  It is fantastic.  It is raining… my clothes are drying… and there are no casualties falling from the bamboo sticks on my third floor to the unknown territories down below. 

Haaa, sigh,  Guess what else I did this weekend?  Zumba!  It was so much fun!!!  I never thought a Chinese chic could shake it like that.  Not saying that Chinese girls can’t shake what their 妈妈 MAMA gave them… but I’m just saying, they don’t have dances growing up （no prom, no homecoming etc.）, so it must be really hard for most to have mimicked whatever they saw on MTV.  流行文化 Popular culture is on the rise!  LOL  - that is all we talked about in class yesterday… (Broadcasting and culture last).  So I go to this Zumba 尊吧 class (just for a free trial), and this girl is just go’n crazy on the stage… apparently she had been to Columbia where they taught her how to move like that.  I want whatever milk tea she drinks in the morning.  Just say’n~ I obviously had a blast, and signed up!  I like going to a gym.  I do get tired of running circles around a track.  Besides, the weather is so volatile here, I never know what to expect.  I feel more involved with the community taking the metro to the gym in the morning anyway!

Yesterday was (Monday) also my first time at 古筝class.  So cool!  You know, a Guzheng only has like five keys : do-re-me-so-la.  It lacks ‘fa’ and ‘ti,’ the teacher is very sweet; very patient with me.  I have homework to do yet – learning the different styles of an instrument about 20 times as old as my country… crazy!  So before I go to practice (everyday)  I have four little claws that I tape underneath my fingers.  They look like guitar picks, but more delicate.  Posture-wise, the guzheng feels comfortable.  The tricky part is giving my fingers independent-plucking power… trying not to move all but one finger is trickier than one might think!

Sunday  night.. this is two days ago.  I was invited out to a birthday party!  Yes, my progress within my Chinese social circle is improving.  It was 束方银’s birthday.  One of my other Chinese friends told me that it is kind of a girly name for a Chinese guy?  Can anybody tell me why?  I really couldn’t tell you the difference about whether a Chinese name is manly or girly… unless it is like “something-something strength” obviously a dude…. If it is like “something-something- eastern flower”  -Obviously a chic!  Anyways, it was a fun dinner.  Altogether  three girls and three guys, my addition made four girls.  The guys drank beer, offered me some… and I kept up just fine!  Everyone else drank milk LOL!!!  I told 方银 that since his birthday already passed two and a half weeks ago, we should keep throwing birthday parties for him, because it is an excuse for everyone to go out and drink… ha everyday is a birthday!

The night before last (same day I started ZUMBA), I started English tutoring.  I am counting this as my community service.  I am not getting paid for it… I easily could, however then it wouldn’t really count as a community service.

Other than that~  I was invited to Karaoke this Friday night… so I’ve been warming up my vocal chords getting ready  ;)  I love Karaoke.  I feel that learning Chinese songs is kind of a must!  Probably the most enjoyable way for me to learn Chinese!  Anyways -   I LOVE you all ~  Miss you!

Caity ~ 蓝凯琳

 

3/17/11

Howdy!  So some time has gone by!  As I said before, I am doing only a couple blogs per week.  I just don’t think people want to hear about when I am bushing my teeth etc.  lol Boring right?  If I am forgetting to mention something?  Let me know!

Tianqinqin (Liyue’s Boyfriend) is over, he was cooking for Liyue… a sigh, boys are useful sometimes =) lol  He made 葱油饼 onion-oil-pancake.  Literally, just onions (scallions), flour, egg, water salt mixed together, and fried in peanut oil.  They’re not bad!  I only had a little bit cuz I want to stay slim and trim. Not easy to do with so much oil~  Oh well it is fun.  I was making fun of him… “Oh my gosh!!! The chu-shi 厨师 (chef)is here!!! Yaaayy!!”  Despite my efforts to just eat a little bit, my roommate kept taking little bites and feeding them to me lol.  She is trying to take care of me. 

So, I tried to go to 古筝 guzheng practice today, but nobody was there!  Lol  I had scheduled my practice times for everyday this week.  (This happened Monday)  Anyways, that happens a lot, this cancelling class randomly business.  For example, me and Natalie were on our way to 公共关系class, we sit there for about 15 minutes, where is everybody? We wonder… okay so after the 15 minute grace period was over… we left.  As we are walking on the road, we spot 祁老师, Professor Qi.  “Oh Hi Professor Qi!  No class today?” He says, “Oh yeah, I had a meeting!”  Oh… right, you had a meeting?  Right, so class obviously was cancelled.  LOL no emails… no notices… no nothing… haha, this definitely counts as a cultural difference.

Today I was busy working on my 个人简历 ~ My resume.  I started working on it now (yes very early. I know that we are going to have finding an internship, but I still, I feel that I have better chances if I pounce on any opportunity I may run into. 

Just five minutes ago I was watching a film made in the 50’s about the Korean war… I am no history buff, but it is unavoidable…  If I want to understand what’s going on in most of my Journalism classes, I need to know history.  I feel that Journalism is just a flash recording of history… of course it can be swayed, diluted, censored, attacking… etc. etc. but really, it is recording an event according to someone, -so I ought to brush up on the history.

I am starting to not like Wednesdays, HSK class is pretty nerve racking for me.  The teacher is intense.  Tones-Tones-Tones… they are the bane of my Chinese existence.  I have been using my time with LiYue’s tutoring to read aloud and improve my tones.  I know I’ve made lots of improvement since I’ve started, but still… ugh it is painful when the HSK teacher calls on you, makes you read, tells everyone (it is not only I going thru this, everyone does) this is where you are bad… haha oh well, >=(  work harder... 

This weekend I look forward to reading books!  So exciting!  Other than that, my friend from Ghana (Adam) invited me over for Peanut Butter soup, but honestly, even though I like peanut butter, I can’t see myself coming to the point of loving it so much that I drink it as a soup…  X_X Yeaaahhh I’d rather not…. There’s a thousand other Chinese foods I’d rather eat than peanut butter soup, maybe I won’t be feeling well this weekend.  I’ll have to think up some kind of  病.  Anyways I’m getting vibes from that dude that I’d also rather not encourage. ..I’d rather eat more of Tianqinqin’s onion pancake!

I’m missing all of you!  Soooo much!          <3  Caity

Blog 22-23-24

Good Day Everyone… I do have a lot to tell –  Things are getting busier, so I may have to unfortunately have to cut down to three days a week from now on. Let’s start with this last Thursday? 

Cali and I were invited over to J.P.’s house?  If you don’t know J.P., the best way I can describe is he is Mormon, very upright person, married, my age, and has a little baby boy named “Kai.”  EVERYBODY loves J.P.  He was my neighbor in Qingdao.  His wife Andrea invited us over for Mexican food!  It was soo good!

Friday was kind of ordinary, I stayed up until 2:00 watching a documentary and doing a report about Spring Festival migrant workers.  It is the largest migration in the world.  If you are at all curious about it, I would actually very much recommend it.  They follow a family, and a girl in particular. “归途列车” here is the link to the video.  LOL This totally threw off my sleeping schedule, and I ended up falling asleep early at 9, and waking up at 3!  Good heavens.  At least I got to go to the hair stylist美发师later, that was fun… however it took four hours!!!  Okay, you are probably rolling your eyes at me again.  I don’t know why, but the black hair just wasn’t really working out for me.  It didn’t even serve its purpose – I didn’t blend in at all.  LOL but – after this haircut, you’ll have to let me know what you think, they stripped  the black out and put in brown (like my childhood color) and then cut some natural bangs.  People - I think I have to say, I think I found the secret to blending in:  BANGS! 刘海 When I went to the flower blossom festival *(the same place I went to before where 12+ people asked for a picture)… I only got one request!  It isn’t because I’m scary either (I hope)  I have compliments, but I am hiding behind these magic bangs … and it’s great!  I’m just one of the crowd, I feel that I have shed a part of my animal skin =)  My advice is, if you want to use your hair as a part of your disguise in Asia, have an Asian person do it!

The next day, my friends: 李岳 (roommate Liyue) and her good friend 邵莹洁 went with me to the plum blossom festival  (meihuajie)  梅花节(this was yesterday – Saturday)  It was beautiful.  So very soon, I hope that I will be able to post pictures, and manage the website myself! Stay tuned and you will also get to see the beautiful plum blossoms  =)

I was so tired after that day, especially because I was up so early, but Cali and I went to the Café to pull a marathon study session – 6 hours. Lol  We are both determined to memorize between 3-5 thousand characters.  J.P. lent me his “3000 most-frequently Chinese Character Dictionary”.  It is funny, but after four years of studying Chinese, it always comes back to this memory game, what can I recognize, what tone is this character, what radical is this?  This is my mountain to climb, wish me luck… My task is 50 characters per day, in addition each character has 5 related words that include the character ( for those of you unfamiliar, most Chinese words contain two characters).  Wish me luck!  I am behind from Friday (-50)

Also, today I went to the 书城 to purchase several books for my class.  I will have to go online though, nobody had them!  I want to tell you Chinese book stores are amazing – usually 5 stories tall!  I could spend a whole day there-So much fun!  Later I met with my friend from Ghana, had some coffee (he is a computer engineer and will help me use facebook )  !!!  Progress!!!  Currently I am in a bar called “talking”  eating pasta =)  Girl’s gotta live a little  =)  The waiter is kind of funny, he tripped over chair after asking me how I was, poor thing!  Now I am listening to Tequila Sunrise.  It is my condolence as I realize I locked the door and left the keys inside of my apartment.  It is going to start raining soon, and this is bad because it was sunny earlier and because of this I decided to clean my bed sheets and hang them dry.  Now they are stuck there, and I will have to wash them again to get the pollution rain water out of them  X_X . Even though it is Sunday, my roommate is in class. LOL  -but the Eagles are making it slightly better now… Take another shot of courage… the days go passing by… sigh… that they do!

Day 21 – 阴天 Yin Tian (Cloudy Day) and wolf-woman

I have an announcement to make everyone… I am going to learn how to play the 古筝 guzheng.  For your information,
“The guzheng, also spelled gu zheng or gu-zheng (Chinese: 古箏; pinyin: gǔzhēng, with gu 古 meaning "ancient"); and also called zheng (箏) is a Chinese plucked zither. It has 16-18 strings and movable bridges.The guzheng is a similar instrument to many Asian instruments such as the Japanese koto, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh”
Okay, so in English that means the gu-zheng is like a zither, or a flat-laying harp (in my opinion).  I was playing piano last night, and I walk by these gu-zhengs’s, and I asked the guy at the piano store, and the conversation went like this:
Kailin: “what are those!?”
Man: “Oh, those are gu-Zheng’s”
Kailin: “Do you offer lessons? ”
Man: “Ugh,” (he grunted).
Kailin: ”Oh! How much?”
Man: “100 Kuai!”
  “Cool!”

So I told my roommate, and she said that the school’s recreational center offers lessons for 29 kuai per hour, and you don’t have to pay to practice.  Not bad.  Ha, well when in China right?  I don’t exactly get the chance to play the 古筝in Phoenix, Arizona.

Other than that, I was up until 2 last night; my internet keeps going in and out.  But today was a rather slow, cloudy day.  Kind of strange, but the day started with a waitress asking me if I was done studying or not, or if I should order food.  I was only in the café for two hours?  Goodness!  I left, did some tone practice with my roommate before leaving today.  I get to Negative-journalism-broadcasting class (the teacher’s accent is so thick!!! – that class with only 10 people).  And for two hours, we spoke of main differences in East and West in regards to the topic.  Being the only person in the class from the West, of course, the end of the class he turns to me and says “and this American girl must have something to say about it.”  Ugh!  Such pressure!  I answered, but I was nervous, so it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but I put my ideas out there.  “ Blah blah bla, bla… and then -We’re not all as up font and straight, there are conservative opinions among Americans, you know.”

It seems the most common opinions between my teachers and classmates is that Americans are extremely independent.  We are independent, I mean we have an attitude about the right to have our ‘own’ this- that-and-the-other; but in one of my classes, for example I hear “oh you know, Americans are so independent,  Try and imagine it this way,  when raising kids they make them sleep in their own bed at a very early age.”  LOL My goodness it makes me feel like I live in a wolf-like society, my word- children not sleeping in bed with their parents when young…  that’s preposterous! Outrageous! Unheard of!  Actually I didn’t sleep by myself until older, my mom and I still fall asleep talking about boyfriends and nonsense into my teens and to this day.  I would never mention this or correct a teacher in the middle of class; however, you should know that is very impolite in Chinese culture!

Anyways, off to HSK class… We had to read out several papers she handed out to perfect our tones.  She is a sharp one, I feel like her eyes scratch away at my soul as she waits for my every little mistake~ eek!  “Oh good job Kailin, What’s your name, oh Kailin, so much better than last week!  You are a very 努力Nuli (hardworking) student, you all listen!”  -Yes folks,  if in class you outright suck at something, or are fantastic and deserve a gold star… everybody knows about it.  In this example, observe I obviously had horrible tones last week, she must have thought I was the worst student (out of five).  But now, everyone should work hard to get a gold star… like Kailin.  hehe

Sadly, at the end of class my coffee spilled on my papers, I bought a music CD for only 12 kuai and accidentally left it on a counter while I was paying for something, was hungry -but couldn’t think of something I was hungry for, got home –couldn’t get on the internet, one of my shirts fell into the great abyss from my bamboo poles where I dry my clothes outside my balcony, my mom asked how I was and I said it was a “cloudy” day, coincidentally Tim called and I couldn’t hear him (lately I don’t get service in my own house), shower water was cold, no snacks at home (too late to go out again), and then mom sent me a letter my friend Kyle sent me on Facebook… … and… when I saw it, I just started crying!  I don’t know why?  Maybe the shock factor of being away from loved ones?  Mixed in with the pressure of class today?  Is this culture shock? I don’t think so, that sounds like some sort of illness.  I’ll tough’n up, I have no idea, I think honestly, it was just a cloudy day – not every day can be sunshine =) or else, I think the good would become… ordinary.  Oh well, at least this weekend there is guzheng 古筝 practice to look forward to ;)

<3  爱   ~  凯琳

Day 21 – 阴天 Yin Tian (Cloudy Day) and wolf-woman

I have an announcement to make everyone… I am going to learn how to play the 古筝 guzheng.  For your information,
“The guzheng, also spelled gu zheng or gu-zheng (Chinese: 古箏; pinyin: gǔzhēng, with gu 古 meaning "ancient"); and also called zheng (箏) is a Chinese plucked zither. It has 16-18 strings and movable bridges.The guzheng is a similar instrument to many Asian instruments such as the Japanese koto, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh”
Okay, so in English that means the gu-zheng is like a zither, or a flat-laying harp (in my opinion).  I was playing piano last night, and I walk by these gu-zhengs’s, and I asked the guy at the piano store, and the conversation went like this:

Kailin: “what are those!?”

Man: “Oh, those are gu-Zheng’s”

Kailin: “Do you offer lessons? ”

Man: “Ugh,” (he grunted).

Kailin: ”Oh! How much?”

Man: “100 Kuai!”

  “Cool!”

So I told my roommate, and she said that the school’s recreational center offers lessons for 29 kuai per hour, and you don’t have to pay to practice.  Not bad.  Ha, well when in China right?  I don’t exactly get the chance to play the 古筝in Phoenix, Arizona.

Other than that, I was up until 2 last night; my internet keeps going in and out.  But today was a rather slow, cloudy day.  Kind of strange, but the day started with a waitress asking me if I was done studying or not, or if I should order food.  I was only in the café for two hours?  Goodness!  I left, did some tone practice with my roommate before leaving today.  I get to Negative-journalism-broadcasting class (the teacher’s accent is so thick!!! – that class with only 10 people).  And for two hours, we spoke of main differences in East and West in regards to the topic.  Being the only person in the class from the West, of course, the end of the class he turns to me and says “and this American girl must have something to say about it.”  Ugh!  Such pressure!  I answered, but I was nervous, so it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but I put my ideas out there.  “ Blah blah bla, bla… and then -We’re not all as up font and straight, there are conservative opinions among Americans, you know.”

It seems the most common opinions between my teachers and classmates is that Americans are extremely independent.  We are independent, I mean we have an attitude about the right to have our ‘own’ this- that-and-the-other; but in one of my classes, for example I hear “oh you know, Americans are so independent,  Try and imagine it this way,  when raising kids they make them sleep in their own bed at a very early age.”  LOL My goodness it makes me feel like I live in a wolf-like society, my word- children not sleeping in bed with their parents when young…  that’s preposterous! Outrageous! Unheard of!  Actually I didn’t sleep by myself until older, my mom and I still fall asleep talking about boyfriends and nonsense into my teens and to this day.  I would never mention this or correct a teacher in the middle of class; however, you should know that is very impolite in Chinese culture!

Anyways, off to HSK class… We had to read out several papers she handed out to perfect our tones.  She is a sharp one, I feel like her eyes scratch away at my soul as she waits for my every little mistake~ eek!  “Oh good job Kailin, What’s your name, oh Kailin, so much better than last week!  You are a very 努力Nuli (hardworking) student, you all listen!”  -Yes folks,  if in class you outright suck at something, or are fantastic and deserve a gold star… everybody knows about it.  In this example, observe I obviously had horrible tones last week, she must have thought I was the worst student (out of five).  But now, everyone should work hard to get a gold star… like Kailin.  hehe

Sadly, at the end of class my coffee spilled on my papers, I bought a music CD for only 12 kuai and accidentally left it on a counter while I was paying for something, was hungry -but couldn’t think of something I was hungry for, got home –couldn’t get on the internet, one of my shirts fell into the great abyss from my bamboo poles where I dry my clothes outside my balcony, my mom asked how I was and I said it was a “cloudy” day, coincidentally Tim called and I couldn’t hear him (lately I don’t get service in my own house), shower water was cold, no snacks at home (too late to go out again), and then mom sent me a letter my friend Kyle sent me on Facebook… … and… when I saw it, I just started crying!  I don’t know why?  Maybe the shock factor of being away from loved ones?  Mixed in with the pressure of class today?  Is this culture shock? I don’t think so, that sounds like some sort of illness.  I’ll tough’n up, I have no idea, I think honestly, it was just a cloudy day – not every day can be sunshine =) or else, I think the good would become… ordinary.  Oh well, at least this weekend there is guzheng 古筝 practice to look forward to ;)

<3  爱   ~  凯琳

Day 20 – 21 The three week Milestone!

Good Afternoon, It’s tea time for me in Nanjing.  Actually I’d have to say it’s coffee time for me =)  Anyways, I have been unable to hook up to the internet in my house these last couple days.  Not quite sure why!  Quite frustrating!  No matter – it gives me an excuse to sit in a cute little café and meet people.  My roommate and I had lunch yesterday morning.  Fried little rice packages and pork, stir fried green onion and chicken, and some tofu soup.  Apparently my roommate was bitten by her household’s dog a month ago, and so she is getting a series of shots right now, which consequently means (according to her) that because of the type of the shots, she can’t drink tea, eat meat, or spicy things.  I asked if her dog had been vaccinated.  She said yes, but couldn’t be too safe!  Dinner was kind of funny the other night too.  I asked for some 酸辣汤 soup to-go.  They didn’t have any to-go boxes for soup, so she actually took this huge ceramic bowl of 酸辣汤, plastic-wrapped it for me, and then told me to bring it back the next day.  So I was walking through my apartment alley with this huge bowl lol, kind of a funny picture.  

Anyways.. Outside of homework and writing assignments, I had my first time practicing the piano -yesterday =)  The piano.  I got three songs printed off of the music sight called “soso.ganqinpu” – Free sheet music to print!  They had everything.  I only had time to print three songs : One by Chopin 夜曲，你不知道的事 Wang LiHong，and  那些花 It was a wonderful day~  Such a relief to touch the keys of a piano again.  I will go and practice at this store every Tuesday and Thursday from 6-7.  Even though it is a short time, it is time enough.   I was up late writing for class, we had to write about chu-lian “初恋”first love - LOL at least I have a good repertoire of stories.

Back to the grind,  公共关系 “Public Relations” class, piano practice, home  =)  LOVE YOU　！

Day 16-17 Huangdi’s sleeping place =)

Day 16-17 Huangdi’s sleeping place  =)

Good Evening – Today is day 16 - 17 and I just had the best pizza!  Now, I know what you’re thinking, I’m not being weak!  I swear!  I was invited out to dinner tonight with a group of friends.  I’m going to do this email in reverse I think… it makes me think of Jim Carey – is it Liar Liar? Or is it Ace Ventura? I remember one scene in which he actually acts backwards and it made me laugh until my side hurt.  So I am having a glass of red wine in bed right now.  I can’t get on the internet  =( u will receive this on day 18.

 I was going to look up music or a movie right now.  I came home and I think I almost walked in on my roomy and her bf!  Oops!  I looked near the front door for boy-shoes before I came into her room, but lol he must be wearing them. . .  Do the Chinese have a custom similar to the American one of putting a hat on the doorknob?  In my country, It is quite a useful custom.  I came home kind of late tonight – 11:00.  I went to check and see if Cali was alive.  Turns out she is doing much much better!  Good thing!  She looks about 9 pounds thinner, poor thing!  She is almost certain, according to her internet self-diagnosis that she had salmonella.  Horrible!  On the way to visit Cali, I was accompanied by Natalie (Mississippi classmate), on the way to Cali’s we stopped at McDonald’s for 3 kuai ice-cream cones!  Dinner was great, she had some 同学she knew from Beijing, who just happened to be in town and leaving for the states next week.  Why is it that the students here who are about to go to the U.S. want to eat Western food right before they go? LOL

I have to admit, the pizza was very good.  A little hole-in-the-wall place.  Apparently, the Chinese owner has some Italian in his family, he spent some time living in Italy and cooking on a cruise ship.  He definitely knew what he was doing! Before dinner I had to write a 2-3 page summary of my classes in Chinese in shumian yu书面语which means in-book Chinese.  For those of you unfamiliar, kouyu口语 (spoken Chinese) and 书面语 (formal Chinese) are quite different.  I have to do this weekly!       X_X

I had grabbed a coffee with hazelnut flavor (favorite) at the Chinese business school to aid me with this arduous task =)  jk, (it’s not that bad if you take detailed notes ;) ) -and ran into my good friends J.P. and his wife太太 (taitai).  Very sweet couple!  They invited me over for dinner sometime.  It is so comforting to see familiar faces.  I was tired after all – I had just come from an outing – I went to 中山陵.  Our professor described it as “中国皇帝睡觉的地方”Chinese Emperor’s sleeping place (tomb). - Very beautiful place.  I took many pictures, but also many pictures were taken of me.  I counted 12 people coming up to me (this is not counting the people who didn’t even ask and took my picture).  In the states one might be flattered, somebody wants my picture!  But, I do feel like some exotic animal like Natalie described before Lol.  I thought before China, maybe now that my hair is darker, it will make my 回头率 turn-head-rate go down, but I don’t think it matters what color my hair is after today, it seemed the same.  I started getting sassy with them and said “Ok一块钱” “okay, but it will be one dollar” My teacher told me that price was too low.  LOL

Other than that I had media class this morning.  Nothing special – it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.  I think I’ll stay indoors tomorrow and just study, maybe I’ll get into my art things and paint something?  Write a letter home or something?  I have quite a few pics I’d like to put up for you to see.  Miss you =) BTW – if any of my friends or teachers know anyone in Nanjing and happens to read this, I would love to meet more people!  I’m meeting new friends every day, but sometimes friends of friends are the best of the bunch!

蓝凯琳

Day 18-19 ~ Gurl Gotcha Nails Did

Heya!  So This weekend was very interesting!!  Okay, so girls will be girls.  I went ahead and got my nails done.  No particular reason.  I just felt like being independent and roaming the streets and checking out the shops.  Prior I had just gotten lunch with my engineering friend Adam from Gana.  He had helped me carry my luggage the first day I got here out of the taxi.  Quite a nice fellow, I’ve never known a Ganian? Ganese?  Somebody correct me on that one?

Exploring by oneself once in a while is a must while being here, adds confidence in general. The reality of being speaking a different tongue sinks especially when making appointments in a different language.  At 3:15 I was escorted to a lovely little corner in the nail salon.  To my surprise, they had an array of OPI colors (first time I saw that in China) AND they do acrylic and gels, <GASP>.  Two hours, a Korean sitcom, and two cups of tea later.  My nails were finally done.  My goodness she was detailed!  I didn’t do anything special.  There was a little 5 year old girl who sat next to me staring the entire time.  “ Is this your  xiao pengyou “小朋友” (little friend)?”  Ha -no I don’t have a little five year old tag-along yet.  Two teenagers came in as they probably do every four days, and started smoking while picking out colors.  At least I had already finished my two hours and I could zou “走”(go).

I met Natalie 丁盈 (Dingying) and Luke 戴宁(Daining) – (ha , I always mix their names, Dinying Daining Dingning Daiying? Help!)  and at our favorite coffee shop 雕刻时光 “Sculpting in Time” – we call it “sit” for short.  After studying very rigorously, the three of us, though white-as-‘Wonderbread’ spoke Chinese the entire night amongst ourselves to the shopping alley 新街口, where we had AmAzInG Japanese Ramen for dinner.  I bought some new black boots and a yoga mat for my room so I can do Pilates on days that I’m not running!  That night I stayed up until 2 studying!  INTENSE 挑灯夜战 burning the midnight oil! 

This SUNDAY morning at the kind hour of 7:00 AM I woke up to my neighbor drilling in his wall –the wall directly behind my bed.  Good morning indeed… No need for an alarm clock.  But seriously, I do not complain about much so far, but excuse me, sir, SEVEN in the MORNING on a SUNDAY asdlfja;lsdjfalsdjfaldskfjas;dsfjasld!!!!!!!!!!!!!  <Censored>   lol  this was me:  (X_X)

 I just put on a smile and said calmly, ” Jesus must really want me to go to church today”  –he just didn’t want me to miss it, so he allowed me to have a free alarm clock service for church this morning.  Dinying had invited me to church with some of the Johns Hopkins kids to an international church nearby.  Only foreigners, Taiwanese, Macao, and Hong Kong people were allowed to attend.  But the funny thing is, upon entering the church, I once again realized my wonderbread-whiteness as the majority of the people inside where African.  Not from America.  Fascinating, Chinese is never uninteresting to me.  But it was similar to a Baptist’s church.  Being raised more on the Catholic spectrum of Christian faith, it is a little much for me sometimes, dancing… the Blues Brothers comes to mind, but it was by all means, not to that extreme. Like I said, Jesus really wanted me to go today. 

When I got home, my roommate invited me to go study with her and her boyfriend in the science building.  That let time go by, I got to see Christian on Skype!  Other than that, nothing else fancy happened today.  I believe that my friend Kaytlin Holding is getting married today.  Please send her my best wishes.  I wish I could be there to see it, and I don’t have her skype. 

Love,

Caitlin

Day 14 - 15 Bicycle, Bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle......

Day 14 - 15 Bicycle, Bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle…

各位晚上好… Good evening everyone!  Actually – good morning to you ? I’m writing this and I realize it is actually your very early morning – what a day it has been – actually I am writing this a little later than usual, so it actually it has been a day-and-a-half.  So what’s new?  I’d love to hear about how everyone is doing at home?  So the most exciting thing that happened the other day was that Cali and I had dinner!  We just randomly decided to stop somewhere on 宁海路 and get somethin’ to eat.  Poor Cali though, supposedly it didn’t settle well with her and yesterday she couldn’t come to class because of food poisoning!  Awful!  That is definitely not what you want to happen your second week at Nanjing.  She thinks it was funky tofu or bad egg, but I have a suspicion it was the turn-table sushi place we went to.  I am highly cautious with sushi unless I am told it is known to be good.  During the time we went to the sushi place I stuck with seaweed salad, lots of ginger, and sweet-egg rolls; Cali had Salmon and yellow tail Nigiri.  Nothing happened to me so far; but I will say a prayer for Cali.

Yesterday after class I had to go to the bank to pay my study fee.  Everything is a process, as is in the U.S. it is also in China.  ASU paid the Flagship Chinese program, my director gave me cash in USD, then I signed a waiver, I went to the bank, pulled a ticket, stayed in line, exchanged the money, got a lot of stamped documents, and then the teller took the exchanged money and deposited it into Nanjing Universities account.  My Nanjing semester for 12 ASU credits costs:  1510 USD.  Now I have to pay ASU. Ha! Wrap your head around that!  I had coffee with me to pass the time, good thing!

On my way back to class (公共关系 ) at 4:00 I found a piano store, and I thought, why don’t I have a look-sy?  Even though I don’t have my music, I thought they may have practice times available.  All I have to do is call their business card, schedule a time, and then pay 20 kuai per hour -awesome!  I may have my mom send me my music!

Class today was good – I got to go to 负面新闻转播 – negative journalism broadcasting.  It is directly related to my Boren thesis so I’m particularly happy about that.  It was very interesting!  There were a total of 10 students including myself.  The teacher has kind of a thick accent – all of his sh’s, ch’s, z’s and c’s blend into a lovely “scz” sound…  I’ll get used to it!  At least he has very detailed powerpoints!

Now the highlight of the evening is the bicycle story: One of my classmates, Adam, was given a bike as a gift from his neighbor.  He really liked this bike!  But he forgot to lock it when he went to class – big mistake!  It was stolen while he was in class, so poor Adam had to walk quite a long way for HSK class and ended up being late.  After dinner, I ran into Adam at a bicycle repair stand.  Apparently he asked the repair stand if they had bikes for sale.  The laoban 老板 (boss) said, “Why yes, yes we do, how about this nice black one?”  Low and behold, his lock was on the bike – locked.  “That’s strange?” said Adam, “My bike was not black!?” How qiguai 奇怪 (strange).  So Adam tries opening the lock with his key, and as if magic –it opens!  Wow!  Someone had stolen his bike within two hours, spray painted it, sold it, and politely re-locked it for him… how sweet? LOL The Laoban said he would be happy to sell it to Adam for 40 kuai and then fix it for him for free!  How do you like that?  Well, to uphold his honor to his neighbor who was so kind to give him the gift, Adam gave the bike repair stand the $5-$6 dollars for his stolen bike.  The end!  =-)

Day 13 - The homework begins!

哎呀! ayya!  Homework homework homework.   Our roommates are mandated by our living contracts to tutor us every week for five hours.  So what I have planned is to have her help me translate this - my daily diary, every weekday for one hour. It is a useful thing to do, i will be forced to write daily.  However some of my diary entries I have realized are painfully long. LOL so it literally took me an hour to translate, and an hour to discuss my last writing with 李岳.  ha, The 'day 3' entry turned out to be about 1600 chinese characters long.  She was so funny reading it, it just happened to be the journal entry where I meet her.  I told her, "Now 李岳，you are the only person I'll let see my diary," (well she doesn't exactly know this is a blog）she was funny, "ohhh, lol" she made fun of me. And then when we got to the part where she came in she was like， "oh this is where I come in!  Let's see if you wrote any 坏事 thing bad LOL"  It was fun.  It seems when I write just a Chinese article without translating too much English I do much better than when I translate directly from English.  For example, I wrote that I liked my room and apartment so much that I felt spoiled.  In average Chinese writing, one might not usually write that - but when I told her it is a 'silly' thing to say, she understood and was laughing hysterically - "Oh my goodness, you are soo cute!  I'm defintely going to find a man for you..."  haha ok 李岳 Liyue... but here we can see two things - quick before I run off to class 1 - Chinese people are very careful how they describe things, for example: being spoiled is more literal, kind of a bad thing, and would not be used in such a cutesy way, and second: the more child-like, the more youthful, the more attractive a young girl is.  It seems like Cute = Eastern Aesthetic beauty  Sexy = Western Aesthetic beauty. Interesting!  Gotta go 上课 (shangke) to class！

Love 蓝-可爱