Update:

Appetite has left again, to be replaced by diarrohea. Argh. I'm working through that bottle of ciproflaxin the travel doctor gave me. I'm headed to the pharmacy this morning to pick up some other pills that were prescribed to me at first hospital. SO frustrating.

In other news, I have a date...with the boy's big sister and mother! Um, nervous? Weige has assured me though that they are his family and therefore my family and I have absolutely nothing to be worried about. We'll see how it goes.

Stomach viruses are a GREAT way to lose those pesky five pounds. Seriously, they just melt the excess poundage right off.

Stomach viruses are NOT great for doing other important things like your job, walking around, maintaining social relations and otherwise existing. It's a tough call but as much as we'd all like to be five pounds lighter, corpse status just doesn't quite cut it.

Yes, that's been me for the last few days. I've had my fill of Chinese hospitals to last me for at least three years and hopefully now I've learned enough to keep myself out of them for awhile. It all started last week when I contracted some sort of a cold. I'd been getting stomach pains in the evenings for the last few days but nothing serious and my appetite wasn't affected at all so I didn't think much of it. The cold wasn't like normal colds, mainly centered in my chest. Now I'm not normally one to get sick but I get a little nervous when you start talking infection and pneumonia and so upon Weige's urging, I had a friend accompany me to the doctor. We went to the fourth hospital (hospitals are numbered, not sure if it's based on level of service/cleanliness or when they were built, my guess is cleanliness) and met with the afterhours ER doc. Fourth hospital is a traditional Chinese hospital meaning that payment for services rendered is a little different than hospitals in the states. Basically, if you have money and either you or someone you're with can walk, you're fine. If not, well, then you're in for a really uncomfortable ordeal. Chinese hospitals require you to pay upfront for all services rendered. Here's how a typical visit might look: (mind you, offices and windows are not necessarily right next to each other, nor are they always clearly marked)

Arrive at hospital, report to registration to get a record card
Go to cashier window, pay examination fee (usually around 5 kuai)
Go to examination area, receive doctor's request for tests
Go to cashier window and pay for tests
Go to lab, get tests done (may require another trip to cashier window to pay for test tubes, needles, supplies, etc.)
Wait wait wait
Pick up test results, take them to exam area to show the doctor
Receive doctor's recommendation for treatment, dispense of medicine, etc.
Go to pharmacy window to get charge ticket for the medication
Go to cashier window to pay for charge ticket
Return to pharmacy window with receipt and get medicine

So my trip to fourth hospital went something like this. In the Chinese defense, they were pretty efficient, so long as you're willing to do the walking. Turns out I just had a bad cold and they gave me some meds and sent me on my way. No biggie. That was Monday.

Depending on your affliction and how organized the hospital is, your trips to the cashier window could be even more numerous. Of course if you don't have money, you're SOL. A friend of mine recounted a story of a man who had broken his back and was sitting on a gurney in the middle of the waiting room screaming in pain and no one would help him...he had no money and his brother had gone home to get money from his relatives so they could pay the doctors. Until you can pay, there is no medical treatment. Very sad and potentially terrifying if you should happen to be on the lower end of the income bracket. I'm told insurance does exist here in various forms but it's still a very new concept and most people still rely on the cash system. I've heard stories of doctors studying medicine and wanting to open a practice but become so disillusioned and disgusted with the backwards dependence/expectation of money for service. Doctors are trained to heal, regardless of their patients financial status and for some, it's enough of an ethical dilemma for them to find other work. For the rest it is merely a fact of life here in China.

An observation in all of this: sickness is serious in the minds of many Chinese, particularly the older generation. Therefore when a family member or friend becomes ill, it becomes a family affair to accompany said patient to hospital. I thought it was just a student being silly when she asked me whether being accompanied by just one person was enough (of course it's enough, right?) Apparently it wasn't silly at all, in fact, many people seemed to have at least 3 or 4 people in attendance. Granted, these were much more serious cases than mine, but you can see the point.

Another observation: sanitation is not nearly as hypersensitive as in the US. To what end, I'm not sure, but I'll relay my experiences and let the doctors in the audience cringe. At fourth hospital, despite signs doscouraging the practice, I still observed several people spit on the floor (typical in China, although becoming less common, particularly after SARS) Unsure of the use of bleach to sanitize spaces (i.e. if at all) I try not to think too much about that one. Tongue depressor, made from a dark type of wood, pulled from ventilated metal box, used, then put in mug in (what I assumed to be) some sort of sterilizing solution. Urine tests: flimsy molded plastic cups, no cover. Nurse (gloveless) uses communal (read: unwashed between uses) baster (i can't remember the technical term, I call it a baster cause we use a big one on the turkey on thanksgiving) to transfer from cup to test tubes. Patient restrooms had no soap or towels (typical throughout China). Did notice sharps bins in various key locations. Of all my blood tests, no nurse has worn gloves. Not sure how the doctor handwashing thing works. It's a little scary, yes. But part of my coping strategy here is to realize that when it's different (i.e. less clean or to the standard that it might be expected in the US) I recall that it works for 1.6 billion Chinese people, they can't ALL be wrong and therefore, I can stand to be brave. Or something like that.

Tuesday, I taught in the morning, but was feeling really run down by the afternoon so I cancelled my grad class and went home. I ate at my favorite noodle place that evening for dinner and then went to bed. I was awoken by stomach pain, diarrohea and even a bout of what the Chinese call "sick up" (which I never do, so you know I was feeling icky) I could stand for very long that morning without feeling nauseated and exhausted and so I cancelled my classes for the day. And then I slept.

I had absolutely no appetite whatsoever and could hardly sit up without feeling puny. Weige, knowing I was sick and without any way of helping me was quite beside himself and threatened to call his friends up to come take me to the doctor if I didn't go myself. Thursday morning I woke up and was feeling a little better but still not great with no appetite so decided it was time to go to the hospital again. This time I called my contact from the office and within a half an hour, literally everyone from the dean on down to the cleaning staff in the office knew I was sick. They were all quite concerned.

Ariel and the Dean decided I should be taken to First Hospital (see note above about cleanliness) Events proceeded similar to previous hospital visit, but with more people and made slightly more tricky by my lightheadedness. Oh, and bigger needles. I hate needles. They ended up giving me an IV with some sort of medicine that supposedly would clear up the problem quickly. My first experience with an IV, which was apparently shocking to my Chinese counterpart as IVs are about as common in China as a doctor putting a tongue depressor in your mouth and making you say 'ah'. Whatever the case, I was wiped out afterwards so i came home and slept.

Woke up this morning, famished (yay!) and feeling quite a lot better. Taking it easy today as i'm not at 100% just yet, avoiding doing anything too straining (i really like just sleeping when I'm tired, resting, very peaceful) and hopefully going to knock this thing by the end of this weekend. All in all, an interesting experience, but one that I'm happy to not have to repeat again soon.

If anyone can tell me what they think I had or what they gave me, I'd be interested:

For about a week prior, experienced stomach pain in the evenings and after eating, most severe before bed. Diarrohea, upset stomach and threw up once. Following day was completely wiped out, couldn't sit up or stand without feeling nauseated. Absolutely NO appetite. Slept basically all day. Next day feeling less nauseated but still puny with no appetite. They gave me an IV of some sort of yellowish fluid which made me slightly nauseated, came home and slept. This morning have regained appetite and diarrohea and upset stomach seems to have ceased.
Blood work:
MID 17.9 (Normal 2-15%)
MCH 31.1 (2-31pg)
PDW 10.5 (15.5-18.1 10(GSD))
MPV 8.5 (9.4-12.5 fL)

Any diagnoses?

A quick post:

This week was busy and was a turning point of sorts for me in several ways. As expected, it was tough for my students to get back into the swing of learning and in anticipation of this, I scheduled in quite a few games and energetic activities. It went over ok but in talking to the other english teachers, it sounded as if everybody was having a rough time with their classes. Some classes are great, really eager to learn, others definitely have an attitude. Frustrating, but as a friend of mine here assured me, it's tough teaching today's generation so just do the best you can and hope they learn something because the learning part is their responsibility. True enough.

I've been meeting often with my tutor and she and I are really starting to step it up as far as my expectations and commitment to learning chinese. I took a practice HSK test (the chinese equivalent of the TOEFL) and did miserably so I'm currently working on improving that score. It will be good to have some sort of certification of my ability so I hope to do well on that while I'm here. I'll probably take the higher level ones in the future. We've also been attacking my pronunciation and tones (which suck apparently) so as to make myself better understood. It's been a humbling week and even a little disappointing, but also good for me to have something to work towards. Time to get organized and serious.

Part of this ramp up in effort came after a night of hanging out with some foreign friends here. We played poker and I hung out for several hours late into the night and when i came home, noticed my tongue was black from all of the smoke that I'd inhaled. (I didn't smoke myself, this was all second hand) Disgusting. It was at that point where I was like, Jess, you're a loser, you just spent the last five hours losing sleep and killing brain and lung cells. Clean your apartment and get to work on your Chinese. No more monkey shines. Yes ma'am. So I've started spartanizing my life a little, eating better, keeping the place a little cleaner, getting to bed at a decent hour. Time to grow up and get responsible.

Things continue to be up in the air with the boy. I hate drama.

I love my grad school classes. Next semester I'm going to request those specifically. More mature and a little older, better English level so we can atually have interesting conversations and just all around neat people.

Went to the tailor to pick up some of my clothes but apparently I've gotten taller and lost more weight so he had to readjust some seams. sigh.

I'm meeting with some of my students tomorrow, they're teaching me to cook something...I'm not sure what but it should be fun. Other than that, just working away.

A collection of observations, thoughts, recollections and things barely worth posting:

Yesterday was Jill's birthday and she made tacos and a chocolate cake and basically had a ton of food. It was a big foreigners' party which moved to karaoke fairly early in the evening. A really good time and a chance to develop some deeper relationships with some of my new friends here. There's a group of about 4 or 5 guys here that have kind of taken me in and adopted me as their little sister and they've kind of become my family away from family here as older brothers.

At one point I found myself looking around the room and being greeted by smiles from all sorts of people--Chinese, Aussie, American, Brit. What a diverse and interesting little community I've found myself in, full of people whom I would consider friends. My social life here as truly blossomed and I'm loving it.

I'm very excited about classes this week even though I'm sad to see the vacation come to end. I decided to teach exactly what my students wanted me to teach: how to talk with foreigners. I'm thinking it will be highly entertaining (at least for me) and my students will just eat it up because it's what they seem to be most concerned about.

Friday was Mid-Autumn Festival and it's best understood as the Chinese Thanksgiving. Everybody visits family, eats lots, etc. Even though I'm not Chinese and have never celebrated this festival, I was nevertheless struck by it. Holiday spirit was in the air and for the first time since being here, I was a little homesick. To not have family to be with left me unsettled and a little sad. Darren and Wang Yang were around and Wang Yang was feeling similarly so we decided to go to Government Square to see the full moon and take in the evening sights and sounds of people out enjoying the holiday. Government Square is this big plaza in the middle of town and there were all sorts of folks out. They had a roller skating "rink" set up and there were older people dancing and there were jump roping contests and Chinese "hackysack" tournaments. The fountains were on and there were beautiful lit flower arrangements and it was all very festive. It was a good idea to get out and see it. I've found when I'm lonely, the easiest way to take care of that is to find Chinese people and let their sense of family kick in. We found an ethnic restaurant and had a late meal and then walked part of the way back to campus before deciding it was too long and too late and we were too tired to walk all the way back.

There's an Town Hall meeting at the American Consulate on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it because it will be a fabulous opportunity to do some networking and just meet other Americans and see what other kinds of jobs there are for foreigners here in Shenyang. I've decided I'm probably going to stay on longer than a year but that it won't be as an English teacher. This is a good way of getting the foot in the door, but not something I want to do long term in any sense of the word. I started doing some internet research and it seems that the opportunities are available, I just need to meet the right people.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this in my blog but I'll speak about it again anyway. One of the things I'm struggling with here is finding my place as a working foreign woman. This city (and country) is overrun with Western men but there is a significant absence of women. This is troubling, or at least makes things tricky, because for someone who's new here, it's hard to know what my role is, what is acceptable behavior, what I can get away with and what I need to be doing in order to establish my place. The water is relatively untreaded for people in my situation and it's a little daunting trying to figure out just how to get myself in the position I want as far as jobs, career, networking and social life in general. My dad put it best when he said I'm somewhat of a pioneer in all of this. I'm looking forward to the deal at the consulate because hopefully I'll meet some like-minded people who can at least share some of their experience. Here's to hoping.

I'm finding myself starting to grow out of the just play mentality. China is dangerous in the sense that it's very (VERY) easy to become complacent. If you don't want to study Chinese, you can get by without it. If you don't want to do anything other than teach English, there's no shortage of opportunity there either. Bottom line: effort required to move forward and I'm feeling the call to push on to make more opportunities for myself.

Current mood: Motivated, but feeling a little disorganized.

This week has been what the Chinese call Golden Week, essentially a week long holiday bookended by National Day on Oct 1 and the Mid-Autumn Festival today, Oct 6. It has been particularly Golden for me.

On Monday, I went with Darren and Hans and Kurt to visit the 9-18 Memorial Museum. The museum commemorates the 1931 railway explosion setup by the Japanese in order to frame the locals Chinese revolutionaries and begin Japanese aggression here in the NE. It was incredibly powerful and really did a lot to help me understand just why there is so much hatred towards the Japanese in these parts. The Japanese were a particularly evil military force. In America, we suffered from their attacks, but NOTHING like what the Chinese suffered. We were never colonized, never forced into military slavery, our men were never executed, our women were never raped and we never had to live in the daily constant fear that the Chinese people did. Putting this event in perspective with the rest of China's history, it's really something to grasp the resiliency and unwavering spirit of the Chinese people. They are such a proud people, proud of their history, their identity, their country, everything. Although I may not agree with everything Chinese or have complete faith in the government (to hear a Chinese tell it, there are actually not that many who do) I'm nevertheless a little envious of the national identity that all these people possess. It's exciting to be a part of it and to witness the true Chinese spirit.

More fun with military toys--this time a real live tank!



What the kid at Tiananmen must have seen...yikes!

The time away from any sorts of responsibilities has brought out the 10 year olds in all of the foreign teachers. We've been spending most of our afternoons playing sports. We usually start with a couple games of volleyball and then move to soccer or basketball (or both). All told, we've been clocking between 4-5 hours each day. Ah, feels so good to be playing team sports again. After our afternoon sports, we've been going out to eat to different restaurants...Korean bbq, spicy oil fish, even a Muslim restaurant that served homemade yogurt, naan and lamb kebobs. (Shahim, one of the foreigners, is on Ramadan and he introduced us to it) Such a contented way of living.

On Wednesday, I hopped on an early bus to Dalian, a coastal town about 4 hours south of Shenyang. I was so proud of myself, I got myself to the station, bought my ticket and got to Dalian all by myself! No English assistance necessary! Being foreign however meant I was never far from help of various locals. The kiosk where I bought my ticket was a couple of blocks from where I'd actually board the bus and as I walked along, I had no fewer than 4 people in about a 300 yard span ask to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Not sure if they had walkie talkies or phones and were relaying my position or if they were just being extra helpful. Whatever the case, I was impressed...I will never get lost in this country, that's for sure.

In Dalian, I met one of my students and he took me to get a hotel and then we went to a park by the sea. Unfortunately it was extremely foggy so we just walked around and found some interesting things in the park which was fine as I enjoyed being back in a humid climate. Afterwards, he took me to a famous roast duck restaurant and then I went back to the hotel. Seeing as it was still a little early, I decided to walk around the neighborhoods and back alleys near my hotel. It was, in some ways, a chance to see how the other half lives--the one story, one room apartments, lots of people and smells. I enjoy just exploring and it was neat to see it all in a different city. Since it was dark, people generally couldn't tell I was foreign or at least didn't seem to care which was just as well. I've found that if I walk around with a sense of purpose, or at least not looking wide-eyed and in shock, people generally pay little attention to me which is just fine with me.

Dalian reminds me A LOT of Portland. In fact there are some places where I felt as though I was going through the downtown/NE23rd/Pearl districts. Even the climate is similar. Eery, but also very homey feeling. Like returning someplace familiar after a long sojourn. It will be an easy way to give the people I meet a better sense of what type of place I'm from..."just like Dalian, minus the beach"

Thursday morning, one of my other students came to pick me up with her driver and then we went to a new amusement park that opened within the last year. Was a lot like Disneyland...I even saw some Mickey Mouse silhouettes in the interior decorating. Being as this is a national holiday week, there were a lot of lines. We all know how much I love lines. But it turned out to be ok and it was a good chance to spend time with a new friend. After the amusement park we went to this little restaurant with an amazing view of Bohai Bay. The sun was just getting ready to set on the water while we ate. Just lovely.

My bus got to Shenyang about 11pm last night and I was "greeted" by a slew of cab drivers showing me their keys and yelling hello and saying Taxi! Taxi! I was told before I came to avoid cab drivers outside of the train stations as it's not always a guaranteed that you're going to end up where you tell them you want to go. I told the drivers that were following me around that a friend was meeting me so they'd leave me alone, walked a couple of blocks and found a far less offensive driver who quickly took me back to campus. I am becoming a street saavy little foreigner.

Mom, you have nothing to fear for me in this country. Just as I said I'd never get lost, I would never actually be able to find myself in any sort of real trouble either. My hosts were/continue to be extremely doting and attentive and would never think to let me falter or have need of anything while in their care. I know the special treatment is because I'm a foreigner and you know what, so be it.

Speaking of foreigners, however, I'm coming to some sort of reconciliation as to what my role will be here in China. While at the amusement park, Athena and I saw a stunt show--you know, explosions, martial arts, people on fire, speeding cars and motorcycles, etc. The catch--all the actors were foreigners. They lipsynced their dialogue which was dubbed over the PA system in Chinese and they were basically nothing more than foreign monkeys performing tricks for the Chinese audience. After the show, the cast positioned themselves around the stage so that people could take pictures of themselves with the foreign actors in the background. It reminded me of when I was at the Sea Life park last weekend in Shanhaiguan where we saw a very old, tired and sick looking seal perform ring toss and ball acrobatics for a mildly enthused audience. I watched the female villain in particular while she posed expressionless for the crowds and couldn't help but notice the same tired, unenthusiastic and restless look on her face that I had seen in the seal the previous week. I decided right then and there that no matter what, I was not going to resign myself to being some foreign seal here. I will not do tricks, I will not "entertain". The goal: learn Chinese such that I can gain real respect for my ideas and opinions here, that I can do a real job and interact on the same level as my Chinese counterparts. It's a hard road to hoe, particularly since I'm a woman in a culture which is still about 30 years behind America in realizing gender equality, but for me, there is no other option.

That said, I am entertained at the moment by my ability to surprise the Chinese people around me when they realize that I can speak Chinese. My favorite was when I was on an escalator recently and the man standing next to me asked the man standing in front of me where he thought I was from. The second man turned and said he didn't know and I told them both that I'm from America. Oh the look on their faces when they realized I understood what they were saying! Of course they were all too happy to continue having a conversation with me for the rest of our escalator trip haha. I've had several experiences like that since that first one and it still cracks me up.

Alright, time to actually get some work done. Take care all--I'm glad so many of you are enjoying my entries. Please post a comment or shoot me an email! I'm always curious to see who's actually reading this thing.

My dislike of sitting in front of my computer has heightened recently when I realized my apparent lack of productivity is caused in part by my propensity to become quickly and utterly distracted by internet blogs, facebook and checking my email several times over the course of successive five minute periods. As such I have made a conscious effort to significantly reduce amount of time wasted on said...um, wastes of time.

However, I will make time for the occasional post as there is actually something interesting to post this time around. Seeing as it's 3am and I just returned from some mellow karaoke with friends, I'm not quite ready to go to sleep yet so I'll type as long as I last about my adventures over the last few days.

The department took all of the foreign teachers on an excursion on Friday and Saturday. We left early Friday morning and bussed south towards Beijing. We stopped in a city called 盘锦 Panjin (if you're looking at a map of China and Liaoning Province, Panjin is in the little "armpit" between the rest of the continent and the little peninsula that separates the north part of Bohai bay from the Yellow Sea.) In Panjin, we visited a wetlands area. It was a huge field of reeds and some sort of a really tall grass and it was relaxing to walk through on the raised wooden plank platforms and to be able to look across as far as you could see and just watch the reeds blowing in the wind. They also had a collection of "recreational bridges" which were kind of like an obstacle course. We were entertained.





In Panjin we also stopped to see 红海滩Honghaitan, or red beach. The red color comes from the native grass that is naturally red and turns purpleish in September. Quite impressive and several of us made the comment that it's not the image we think of when we think of China. Along the shore were many of these little black or blue pincher crabs. They had poles you could use to try and catch some. The poles were long stalks of bamboo with a string and a nail tied to the end. The trick is to place the nail close to the crab but not so close that you actually touch it cause otherwise they'll run away. You then manuever the string so that it wraps around a couple of the crab legs so it can't get away when you pull it up. I had a great time with this (it's actually pretty tricky and harder than it sounds) and I even caught one! Crikey!

After Panjin we headed further south to a town called 兴城 Xingcheng. The Chinese, you see, really love their walls and in the dynasty days, large cities often constructed walls around their territories. In Xingcheng, the buildings within the walls have all been very well preserved--very ancient, traditional looking, you know, cobblestone roads, old architecture, etc. ironically however (although not all that surprising) these buildings now contain a wide variety of touristy type shops, trendy clothing and shoe stores and even a flatscreen television store. The contrasts in this place never cease to amaze me.





Check out the hair on the little girl...


Hans, in his natural state.


David (Britain), Kurt (Minnesota), me, Hans (Minnesota), Jill (Minnesota), Yang Lu (China -- one of the folks we work for)


The university has relations all over the place and so we were able to get cheap lodging for the night in Xingcheng at a health care/rehabilitation facility. It was clean and comfortable and although a little weird checking into a "hospital" at first, the staff were trained to give massages (I'm becoming a bit of an addict) and so I was content. Oddly enough, we were all awoken at 3:30am by fireworks outside. The Chinese also really like their fireworks and for whatever reason, decided it was a fine time for a show...yeah, I don't know, I don't try to explain it, I just go with it.

The next morning we were back on our way heading south again to 山海关 (Shanhaiguan) or Sea Mountain Pass. Shanhaiguan is actually in Hebei province, the province just to the south of Liaoning on the coast. This is the beginning of the Great Wall, where the wall meets the sea. Even though I've seen the wall before near Beijing, it's still incredibly impressive to see the massiveness and begin to comprehend the millions of people and the billions of bricks that went into creating it. It is truly something to reckon with and I still can't quite wrap my head around it.



Darren and I have been talking about organizing a backpacking trip from Shanhaiguan to Beijing maybe sometime next summer. It might be fun even to do it on motorbikes, not sure yet though. TBD

Other photos from Shanhaiguan:
Statues "rock" my world.


I think I see my house!

We were wandering around and found a Korean war era mig just sitting in the middle of this park. Seeing as there were no guards, fences or signs telling us to keep our grubby yankee hands off, we did what any adventurous gang of foreigners would do when faced with a relic of enemy warfare of the past: recite the quintessential Top Gun quotes, hop in and pose! We figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity as these things are usually only accessible from a distance behind velvet ropes in airplane museums. It even had the controls and seats still intact! Way cool!


Finally, we stopped at the First Gate Under Heaven (the first main access point through the wall) and took some pictures and then were headed back on our way to Shenyang. If you look closely, you can just see the wall snaking up through the hillside.


Good trip, ate lots, got some great pictures, laughed and talked a lot with new friends and just had a really fabulous time.

This morning I was feeling the effects of having eaten so much and made my way out to the basketball courts for some pickup basketball. Ended up meeting and playing for two and a half hours with some recently graduated students here. I did alright, held my own and just had the best time. Hooray for new Chinese friends! Team sports SO beat running solo.

A friend called later in the afternoon inviting me to come play volleyball and not being one to miss out on a little competition, I agreed. I'm going to sleep well for sure...if I ever get there that is seeing as it's already 4:30...

One last thing and then I'm hitting the hay...I'm thinking of making two major purchases. One: a moped. They're dirt cheap, super efficient, loads of fun and cheaper and more convenient than taking a taxi or bus within the city. I probably won't buy until the spring because I'm not keen on riding on ice but I'll let you know how things go. Two: not really a purchase so much a diversion of funds...Next semester I'm planning on living off campus in one of the apartments nearby. Reasoning: no 11pm curfew (they lock the doors and everything!), no front desk registration for guests and friends (so annoying, all my Chinese friends have to sign in and they get the third degree whenever they come visit a foreigner), 24 hour hot water (right now, it's only available 6:30-8:30 and 19:30-22:30 which makes working out during the day a real drag afterwards), close to campus but far enough off that you can't hear the techno music blaring from student dorms, highly affordable particularly if I find a roommate and even better if that roommate is Chinese or Korean with whom I'll have to use Chinese. The pros are definitely outweighing the cons on this one and it might even be sooner than next semester depending on how long I want to hold out. We shall see.

Phew--this has been a long post...to bed I go! 晚安！Wan an!