Day 22 and 23: Wrapping up Classes before the Chinese New Year

The Wednesday and Thursday of this week weren't as exciting as Tuesday, but there were a few notable events I wanted to document.

Wednesday started off with statics. I had to get up early to work on practice problems beforehand, but didn't do as much as I wanted to. Talking to my friend Apollo in class, he also agreed to show me and the other TAs around Chong Qing after we got back from traveling the country.

After that, we had to head to TA training and heat transfer on the other campus. Will tried to take us to a good restaurant right off campus, but it turned out that they were closed (although they had a LOT of onions outside.) We decided to head down to Sunny Block for some food. On the way down there, we started talking about American fried foods at the classic county fair, and that gave me the idea to try the KFC here. Dom and Nick got some coffee at Starbucks, and Jessica and I went ahead to the KFC.

 We both ordered a combo meal, which came with two chicken wings, a spicy chicken sandwich, a Pepsi, and a egg tart for dessert. I was very relieved that the chicken was not sweet (unlike a lot of the meat here), and realized that I was quickly getting used to the spicy food here. Dom got some fries with his meal, and trying them, they were much better than the fries in the dining hall. The only things that the KFC was missing were the mashed potatoes and the macaroni and cheese, the first of which would have been just like home.

Heading out, we walked towards the subway station, seeing lots of sculptures and wall art/graffiti from the neighboring Sichuan Art Institute. We had to take the subway because we didn't know how to take the public bus to campus, and the campus bus was only running four times a day starting that day, due to the holiday.

At the subway station, we put our bags through the scanner and got on the bus to Campus A. We made our way to training, where we talked about our week and listened to Greg talk about a brief powerpoint. I headed out early to make it to Heat Transfer, and the others came in about halfway through. However, the campus bus left at the same time the class ended, so Jessica and I headed out a bit early to catch it, while the others stayed on Campus A for drinks at D Café.

Getting home, I was so tired, I had to take a nap for an hour and a half, but waking up, I did some work on my laptop for a few hours, and headed back to sleep for the night.

Thursday was also a lot of running around. In the morning, we had to head to Campus A right away, so we took a taxi to the subway station. We had a little bit of time to kill before class, so we decided to explore the area around the subway station. We tried to go into the indoor shopping mall for a bit, but it was blockaded. But we saw a man writing Chinese characters on the ground with a waterbrush (see picture below), and we thought it was a novel concept.

 We went into the McDonalds to grab a quick snack, and was confused by all the "Franke" markings on the coffee machine. But I got a hash brown and a mango Frappe, both of which tasted like things you could get in an American McDonalds.

Then we went to Prob and Stats, and afterwards, a professor who worked with the JCI program, Professor Orkwist, had a Skype call to inform the JCI students of everything that they needed to do before they came to UC. As I've stated in this blog before, the premise of the program is that in the students' 5th year of study, they come to UC for senior design projects. He talked to students about getting their visas from the American Embassies, getting housing arranged for next year, and proving that they could pay for the year of study at UC (which is practically a requirement to be accepted into the program, so that wasn't an issue). I also managed to finish Python, which was a big accomplishment for me (and resume booster).

Apparently there is a two strike policy in China about visas. If Chinese citizens are denied for visas twice, they will never be able to get visas again, so some of the students were nervous about that. Greg reassured them that they would not be denied, because this program has a good reputation with the embassies and to not use a visa agent. However, this is the first year students are able to go from CQU to UC, so there were a lot more questions that people anticipated. Nick and I helped answer some questions about housing and where the engineering buildings were.

Afterwards, we (meaning the 4 UC TAs, the 4 JCI TAs, Greg, Pablo, and Will) headed to D Café to have our weekly meeting because the dining hall where we went last time was already closed for the break. We ordered and sat down, talking about the issues that affected all of us this past week. Some food came out quicker than others. My pizza took an hour to come out.....but it was pretty good (a Four Seasons Pizza with olives, mushrooms, and ham).

 Jessica got the cold cut plate, which was the most expensive dish, and for some reason took the longest. She enjoyed it, but it didn't come with cheese, and it wasn't the most filling meal.
While we were finishing up our meal, we were waiting on Pablo to get back to the café with his passport so we could go verify it at the train station and buy some train tickets for our upcoming train travels.

 Once he got back, we started walking towards the middle gate of Campus A, having to stop by two ATMs along the way (with the first one malfunctioning), and a little bakery area, where Dom got some sweet sesame wafers, and shared them with us. They were really good, so I might get them again another time. I hopped in a taxi with Jessica, Robert, and Suri, and we made our way there.

 The train station was huge, with several floors of desks and several terminals. We headed upstairs to get our passports verified, with lots of help from Robert, Suri, and Celia, and found out that we were at the wrong desk, and had to go to a different one across the outside pavilion. We eventually got them verified, also buying our tickets from Shanghai to Hangzhou (which was going to be the 4 US TAs). We also reconvened, getting our tickets for Chong Qing to Xi'an (which was going to have Pablo replace Nick, as Nick was going to get to go around China with his mom, who was visiting for a bit).

After everything, we took a taxi back to the subway station at Shapingba. At first, we had to wait in a pretty long line, and the ride itself took a lot longer than expected, because we got stuck in a traffic jam. Getting off, we got out some money from the ATM to pay back Celia and Robert who paid for our tickets, and we stopped at a take out chicken place, where I tried some of Jessica's chicken.

Getting back home after riding the subway, I still had grading to do for statics.It was the first time that I was grading myself, but Nick had graded in class problems before, and helped me out.  I discovered that two students were cheating (as all of their answers were 100% identical) and unfortunately had to give them zeros. Greg commented on how much I had been working, and commended me for it. He and Dom went out, and came back with lots of fruit and a dark chocolate bar for me, which made my night better. Afterwards, I went back into the apartment, talked to Jessica for a while, and went to sleep, getting ready for my early Friday the next day.

-Zoe