Julia's China Blog: August 1

August 1 - 15

Well hello again everyone.

So far this month has been ok. Not too much new, less rain, a trip to the beach, but still really busy.

Life seems to go by really quickly these days. I guess I am just praying to get through days as quickly as possible and my prayers are being answered. I really can't wait till September though when my schedule will take on a more relaxed pace once again. Between Jordan's Language School, private lessons , my Chinese lessons and study groups it seems I have very little time left to just relax. I have become very accustomed to having days to myself and have learned it's not necessarily a bad thing to enjoy the time off.

School for me has been insanely busy. We have our normal schedules and then we have summer camp classes added to that. It’s not overwhelmingly busy but with my added private lessons it doesn't leave much time for relaxing. Two groups of private lessons finishes at the end of this month, so that will give me back 4 afternoons and I think my other lesson will end shortly after September since the girl is a teacher and has to go back to school.

I have this master plan (that I haven’t been following very well) to save up money and collect enough private lessons to support myself. I’d love to stay another year if it meant not having to work at a school, because then I can do more traveling and concentrate more on learning Chinese. ^_^ First and foremost though, before I make any further decisions on that I’ll see how this year goes.

I've learned that my roommate is a lesbian, which I kinda thought was the case but didn't want to assume. It freaked me out at the start but seems to be ok now; she totally looks like a boy. Ideally I would like to get my own place but at the same time this one is SO close to my school that I don’t want to give it up. I’ll see how the coming months go. I’ve been noticing an increase of cockroaches though since she arrived and I don’t know if it’s because of the weather or if it’s because of her. Seriously some of them are half the size of my palm. It’s so gross! Those ones even make noise when they walk, you can hear the click-click-click-click along the floor as they move around. It’s disgusting and has made me appreciate my mesh tent on my bed that much more.

My Chinese is picking up. I have had a few people tell me I have a really good accent. I was happy about that since it was starting to become a very discouraging learning process.

I’ve gotten to travel to a couple nearby places for day trips. They were nice and I’m hoping I get to go again for more time so I can really see the cities. One was Hangzhou (again), and the other was a lake…the Wenzhounese call it the golden lake because of the sand but I don't know it's real name. I never noticed how long the hoses are at the gas stations here; a car will pull up and the hose can reach around the car… or across the lane. I have also learned that when an accident happens the cars will stay in the exact position until the insurance company comes to view the scene of the accident. It's a pain in the butt for the rest of the cars who are trying to get through.

It's been so hot this past month that I have developed a heat rash behind my knees. It's insanely itchy and is sore when I bend my knees. At first I was told to put baby powder on it to keep it from getting too irritated but now it has gotten serious enough that I have to put this cream on it.

I went to a water park with some of my students and got my first sunburn of the year, that was fun. It's funny though the kids didn't want to go on any of the slides; they were afraid.

Well I think that’s all for now; once September comes I think my schedule will calm down a bit and I will be able to have more interesting activities to add to my blogs.