MY CURRENT LIFE!

Last, Last weekend I took a trip to Beijing just to get away from Tongliao for awhile. I mean, it's great here, don't get me wrong. But after teaching classes 2 months straight after a great vacation - I needed a little pick me up in the big city. I managed to meet up with Steve and Elisa (a wonderful Italian gal that I met while I was in Zhengzhou. She speaks like 40 languages and is currently studying Chinese in Beijing. Smarty Pants City) and we just had a great little 3 days together to have fun, and do, as the Chinese say, "Chi Hao, He Hao", aka, EAT GOOD, DRINK GOOD! It was great fun.

I stayed at Elisa's apartment which was in the WuDaoKou part of Beijing, and right next to BCLU, the super famous Beijing University. (I forget what the acronym stands for - sue me.) If anyone ever is in the WuDaoKou area in Beijing, they HAVE to go to "Lush", a little restaurant/pub/bar near the subway stop. The food is unbelieveable, good prices, and just seems great.

We also managed to make some time to spend in SanLiTun, aka, Foreigner Central, which is kind of a bar street/outdoors shopping village smack dab in the middle of Beijing. I bought a copy of Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm almost finished it now, and I'm going to have to pick up the next installment concerning Harry's time at Hogwarts next time I'm in the city!

Which.. conincidently - will be tomorrow! I'm taking a train tomorrow morning into Beijing, and should arrive in the city around 10pm tomorrow night. I'll be staying at my good friend Kristin's place, and then waking up at the CRACK of dawn to grab a train (6:45am, ugh.) that'll bring me directly to Qingdao, China. Qingdao is supposed to be a very beautiful beach town on the Chinese East coast, and I've been dying to check it out. Now that the weather is beautiful (and I was told about 3 days ago that I have no class this week) I've decided to make the trek out there to see it for myself! Meg and Christina, two of the girls that I live with here at Tongliao #1 School have already made the trip, and highly recommended it. So here I am, updating my blog before heading out! UNFORTUNATELY, my camera has suffered a very recent death, and it's going to make documenting this trip extremely difficult. However, I'm sure I'll persevere, and find a way to remember the place that doesn't involve photographs! And maybe I'll just buy a new camera. Who knows.

So that's the long and short of things right now! Aside from that, I've been studying Chinese pretty hard lately. I'm getting happier with my ability to string together sentences, but I still get very frustrated with my listening abilities. It's very hard for me to listen to Chinese people speak their native language, and to completely understand what they're telling me. I suppose that'll just come with more practice and study, but still, it's frustrating to know what I'm saying, then to have no idea what they reply. Argh.

Alas! Hold fast!

Let's see who can figure this out:

我今天有新工作！一个高中在郑州今天告诉我。 妈妈，，爸爸，， 妹妹。。。我很想你们！！！ 但是，我知道我回到在美国八月， 仁厚我们有一个z大聚会！！！