Procrastination (on multiple levels)

So it's been about a week since I last posted.

And SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED.

But, in addition to putting off posting on my blog, I also have quite a bit of studying for tomorrow's quiz, which covers all of this week's material (8 lessons, about 300 phrases, 83 grammar rules).

So for now, I'll just give some of the highlights of the week (intellectual thoughts to come in a later post).

The Friday afternoon I arrived in Beijing, I went to a restaurant across the street from where our dorm is. Thirteen of us went, and the food was good and cheap (10 kuai for a huge bowl of spicy beef noodles). Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip was when we caught one of the waiter's older children trying to take pictures of us. The older child then proceeded to enlist his younger sibling to take a picture of us.

[At that point, it was kind of obvious what they were doing, and we gladly obliged.]

On Saturday, we had our placement test, and as expected, I was placed into third year Chinese. (This past year I took first year Chinese for heritage learners.) There was a bit of a hitch, since my oral exam wasn't spectacular, but so far, third year Chinese has been pretty good (not to say that it's at all easy, however).

[Xinsong Gongyu (XSGY), i.e. home for the next two months]

On Sunday, we had orientation and we were split up into our respective years (lots of handouts explaining the schedule for the week). Although that day was pretty busy, we still managed to get out and drop by Tiananmen Square and the Wangfujing Snack Street.

[On the edge of Tiananmen Square; not exactly sure what the two guys standing with the guards are up to]

 

[Scorpions at Wangfujing (which I opted out of eating)]

 

All in all, besides these adventures on this past weekend and venturing into different restaurants/food carts around town, I've been pretty guilty of burying my head in the books this week.

[an interesting sign on Beijing Normal University's campus]

But,  even with the little time I've spent to go out to see the city, I've learned a lot, in terms of Beijing itself, as well as understanding my own identity, between being American and Chinese.

So, that being said, I'm certainly hoping to get a better handle on the workload this coming week and get some more exploring done along the way.

-艾琳