ROAR!

Ok so this is the second time I've written a really neat entry and it's gotten deleted cuz the internet timed out... so sorry if this sucks.

Highlights of the day:
-Had 'Mystery Beijing':
We were given little slips of paper with locations written on them and were supposed to find them in Beijing. We were not allowed to use taxis or to ask anyone who was an American for directions. My group found our location with the help of one of the leaders(who somehow ended up with us), but were pretty tired, cold and HUNGRY by the time we got there. We ate pretty quickly and came back to Beiwai for lunch.

-Lunch:
Some people are just assholes and make me ashamed to be an American...I'm sorry

-After Lunch:
Boring Lecture.
Recieved our coursepacks for our language classes that we'll be starting next week. I tested into 320, which is sort of like the class between the intermediate and the advanced levels...which is probably where I belong and is what I had to get into to get credit from UPS. So yay!
Had the Yunnan trip lottery and got Trip C even without having to use the cripple card.
Cultural Simulation was silly. Couldn't we experience the actual culture? We are in Beijing after all...

-Dinner:
Me and some others somehow ended up with this same asshole from lunch. Nobody likes this guy, I wish he would realize it and buzz off. Kim, who is from Hong Kong and speaks very good Chinese ordered us some good (AND CHEAP) food.

-After Dinner:
Chinese Acrobats.
My eye for circus tricks is too critical as always. The highlight was the group of ladies with the diablos, or Chinese yo-yos who I thought were probably retired little girls from Cirque...glad to know they're still putting their skills to good use.

-Night:
Floor meeting to set community standards

-Pics:
For all of your information, I have to post via email because blogspot is blocked in China. Ergo, I cannot format pictures and make them pretty for you so you will have to bear   with me in that regard. I don't even know what order they'll be in when they post, but one is a pineapple with rice inside that we got at a Dai restaurant. One is my group and I at our destination for Mystery Beijing--Jiang Shan Gong Yuan. One is a picture of the fountain just inside West Campus. One is the front of BeiWai with the 'Beijing' part cut off (oops I'll try again another time). One is a picture of my dorm. And one is a picture of my favorite sign that's all around Beijing--NO BUGLING!!! I think it means no noise but I haven't asked anyone yet.

-Health:
Physical--Both my knees hurt very badly...I'm kind of glad that tomorrow we essentially have a free day. I feel bad that my desire to take in what Beijing has to offer does not override the pain that my body feels every moment that I'm walking around. Like I want to go out at night but sometimes my body is just too tired and hurts so much that I don't want to be miserable...Today was the first day I didn't wake up with out a headache and also the first day I didn't wake up before 7 in the morning! Maybe the rest of my body will follow suit.

Mental-- I don't even know. I guess I'm having a hard time making friends. It's weird for me to say that because this hasn't really been a problem for me in the past. I'm not used to not having someone to sit next to or walk beside or talk with. Maybe I'm just getting paranoid because even though its only the 4th? day I feel like I just don't have anyone that I can relate to yet. I guess its just I'm at a point where  everything would be so much  easier if I had a friend and being in a foreign place you just want something solid you can count on... Even though time is passing quickly, it seems so much slower when you're by yourself a lot of the time.

...who can say where the road goes...
...where the day goes
...only time...