Thoughts

So far, after living in Lanzhou for almost 2 weeks, I feel like I have pretty much fully adjusted. The weather here is still a little annoying because the temperature varies a lot during the day. I have learned to drink hot water instead of cold, I have learned how to really use chopsticks, I have learned to walk a mile-ish to class and the library every day, I have learned how it feels to be in a place where everything is new. It is difficult to explain the concept of everything being new. New language, new people, new university, new culture, new habits, new home, and a new family of sorts. 

I have come to appreciate so much here. I have come to really appreciate friends - it’s easy to forget how much better friends make life until you move to a place where you don’t know anybody. I have been invited to eat with my teachers and friends, and it literally is the highlight of the day when I see someone I know and experience that little bit of familiarity. 


I think I’ve just begun to reach the point where people are not freaked out by me and are asking me if I can hang out on the weekend - it’s Wednesday and my weekend just got booked! It is impossible to explain how much it means to me when I get invited to someone’s home for a simple meal - it really makes me feel like I’m important to somebody here and not just another student who doesn’t really matter. I can’t explain it, I really can’t. My value of friendship has exponentially grown and although I'm making friends here, that doesn't mean I don't miss people back home.

( My ETBU Roommates - great guys)



I have been given so much and I have been really humbled at times by people’s kindness. The first few days here were not very fun and they were lonely, to tell you the truth, but I believe I have found a good group of friends and support in a lot of good people. My teachers Ma Lin, Jodie (who, by the way both have awesome kids, they are really shy and hilarious), and Stacie have been especially kind to me because they have traveled abroad and know exactly how I feel here and they know the kind of advice to give and how to deal with the different issues that come up.

I have a completely new perspective on the international students of ETBU and anyone who is part of an exchange program now that I am a part of one as well. I have so much respect for those people who come to the U.S. to study for their entire college careers - that takes a lot of guts. One semester is not so much, but still not a weekend trip, but a year or 4 years is a long time to be away from family and familiarity.

It is hard to believe I have only been in Lanzhou for less than 2 weeks - I feel as if I’ve been here for a month already. I have already begun to lose a bunch of weight from the healthy food and the sheer amount of walking - it’s crazy! I certainly have learned a new respect for the complexity of the Chinese written language - GOOD GOD….hard as freaking anything I’ve ever done. 


I spent 4 or 5 hours translating 1.5 pages of Chinese - it took forever…..but of course, it’s what I want to do and expected to do. I knew it would be hard, but knowing it will be hard and actually sitting down and working are two different things. I will learn so much, I can already tell. Till next time!

1st Day of Classes

Early March (2011)

Had my first classes today - just two, I guess they wanted me to take it easy my first week. I appreciate that, because those two classes wore out my brain - especially the second one. I had my Comprehensive Chinese class and my Chinese Culture class. Mrs. Zhu (pronounced "Jew") is my Comprehensive teacher and Mr. Li is my Chinese Culture teacher.  The comprehensive class went very well, I feel like I'm going to learn a whole lot from Mrs. Zhu - she is clearly an experienced teacher. The stuff we went over today was review from what I already knew, really - but she made me write all in 汉字 (means 'Chinese Characters')，which was challenging - I haven't done much writing with my Chinese characters. She also gave me a Tang Dynasty poem to memorize called 春晓, (pronounced Choon She-ow) Chun Xiao, which means "Spring Dawn" - I copied it down, but I don't want to put it up on here right now.

Mr. Li's class was far harder because my textbook is all in the Chinese 汉字 and I couldn't really figure out what we were supposed to do before the first class, so I didn't really prepare much. He came in right off the bat and started asking me questions in Chinese that I had no idea what they were, which was very embarrassing, of course. He asked me to talk about myself in Chinese, which was some more embarrassment, because I hadn't really prepared anything...after all that, he asked me to read the first section of the textbook - which I said I couldn't - not even close. So, he went character-by-character of the first little section in the textbook while he interpreted and asked me to repeat and tell the meaning of the sentence.

It was all about the different minority groups of China and how they used to fight amongst themselves, but now are all at peace. It was really draining. From what I could infer, he's expecting me to learn how to read all this stuff and have everything translated before class starts and be ready to talk about it. If this is really the case, I expect to be pretty much fluent in reading by the time I get back to the States, but holy crap - it's a lot of work! I just translated a couple of paragraphs and it took me just about an hour or so! Man, this is hard.....but the rewards will be worth it

Gotta get back to it now, I'll talk to you all later! Remember - my Skype name is acousticmusic10 - add me