First, the good news – the swim competition was changed from Friday to Wednesday! Courtney, despite her clever ploys to be exempt from the competition, has been sucked back in and enjoyed her first day of practice on Wednesday. The company paid for us to go shopping for bathing suits, goggles, and caps. I think this is the first time I’ve actually used a cap and goggles. Mike, a Chinese employee here, took us to this tacky mall during work today. It had life-size nutcracker-like models of Santa, reindeer, pandas, and any other silly figure you can think of, wrapped in Christmas lights, lining the exterior of the mall. So, our reason to go was so that we could pick out our own gear, but that wasn’t quite the case. The salesgirl (I swear, she was no older than 10), saw the caps (with the Chinese flag on them) that Brian and I picked out and said that we shouldn’t get those. She also nixed our choices in bathing suits (Spandex… oh yeahhh) and picked out plain black ones for us. The goggles? Plain black. So glad I took time out of my day to go along for that trip…
Practice was a lot better than day 1, but I was still dying after a few laps. Our next and last practice isn’t until Monday. Not that any amount of practice will get me anywhere near ready for Wednesday…
Courtney and I went back to the noodle place for dinner Wednesday night and got two of the dishes that Chris advised us to get Monday night. I’ve been eating the leftovers ever since. It’s such a good feeling to have a menu item that I know I’ll actually enjoy (for days)!
I skyped with my BFF Annie from home the other day, and it was amazing! (Annie: An alternative title to this blog was “Sorry, I can’t read.”) I can’t even imagine studying/working abroad without the technology we have today. Honestly… so far, I’ve talked to my parents and friends for a relatively low cost, watched live performances of Bonnaroo, blogged to all my hordes of followers (sarcasm), and done plenty of other things that would be otherwise impossible a couple decades ago.
Walking home from the office last night, I saw this ferret-like animal cross the road. I need to ask someone here what the hell that thing was, because it’s the first foreign animal I’ve really seen. Annie said that her Chinese partner from Fudan was enchanted by the squirrels in Boone when she visited, so maybe I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it to avoid looking stupid.
Nanlan, one of the editors here, gave Courtney and me an event to cover this weekend. It’s a film festival with two different films – A Farmer’s Struggle and The Children in the Depths. I’ll be viewing and writing about the latter. It’s kind of sad, but I’m kind of living for the weekend right now. Our week is a bit of a drag with not much to do in this part of town except for eat and work out. Hopefully I’ll have fun stories to recount in my next post.
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