Days 60 and 61: My First Chinese Party

Saturday morning, I started the day with sleeping in and working on various things, as per my normal. But early in the morning, the Chinese TAs invited us to a party. I don't party much, to be honest, but I decided, why not? I'm only in China once, I might as well at least see what a Chinese party is like.

So I got dressed up for it in a newer dress that I had, and did a bit of grading while we waited for the Chinese TAs to get here from Campus A.

Around 4:00, me, Jessica, and Nick all headed out (since Dom was still getting ready and told us to go on ahead). We went over to meet the Chinese TAs at Campus A. Celia had gone on ahead to the party, and it turned out that Alexandra didn't come (I found out Monday that she had had a dentist's appointment) and so we met Robert and Suri, and they took us down to the party.

They took us in the opposite direction from our apartment as usual, that is, away from campus. I was astonished to realize that after almost two months, I had never been this way before, and I saw a pretty park on the way there that I hoped I could come back and visit.

I also saw a fence that only had red rust at the top of its spokes while the rest of it was black, and I commented on how it appeared as if people had gotten impaled on the fence in the past and their blood had remained. The others were shocked by my vivid imagination, but amused as I realized just how active my imagination really was.

view of a park with planters

gorgeous fountain on the way to the party room

As we kept going, we found a sign for the SkyMall, which looked interesting. I had heard of a giant slide in a mall in Chong Qing, and asked if this was the place. Neither Robert nor Suri knew, and I decided to look it up later.

We headed further in, seeing that it was somewhat deserted, with entire buildings that appeared devoid of stores. Apparently they had just built some of the buildings and they hadn't found tenants yet for them.

We got a bit turned around, but Robert called Celia and got directions from there. We met up with her, and she took us down a side path, and we saw kids' horses for them to swing on. Suri wanted to get on one, and Jessica and Nick followed. I looked on (and snapped a picture) amused as they relived their childhoods.

Reliving their childhoods

Cool painted tires and barrels

Getting in, we were impressed by the setup of the room. There were couches, chairs, a TV for video games, computers for RPGs, 2 tables for playing card games or gathering around, a pool table, a KTV (karaoke) room, and even beds upstairs for sleeping. It was basically a mini house people rent for parties so they don't wreck their own rooms. It was a very interesting concept, which would make a lot of money in the US if implemented.

We didn't know most of the students, so at first we all went into the KTV room, and picked from the very limited selection of English songs. We kept the door open for students to come in and join us, and Celia brought some fruit in to the room for us as well. Eventually Robert closed the door to try to keep the noise down. One student did come in and talk to us about the program. It turned out none of us TA'ed their classes (they were 3rd year EEs) and none of them, including the student (who we found out was named Slim after Slim Shady) knew us.

We went outside to try to play pool, as well as try to interact with the students in other ways. They were playing games of Midnight Werewolf, which is their version of Mafia. I wanted to try to play a game of Mafia in English with them, but I never got to.

Jessica and Nick were feeling a bit bored, and they headed out to get some western food. I decided to stay, and I'm very glad I did. I wanted to stay for dinner in order to save some money, and stay in the tradition of Chinese eating. A lot of students had gone out to get the food, and there were students on the side making French fries on the stove. Without anything else to do, I helped them peel the boiled potatoes to make things easier. Soon after, they came back with the food, and we dug in.

Lots of delicious food

Celia asked if we (the Americans, that is) didn't really like Chinese food, because we didn't seem to eat too much of it. I explained to her, that we just weren't used to it, especially with all of the oil, and that I didn't eat too much in the first place. We then got to talking about co-op, and I found out that co-op in China only paid enough for living expenses for that semester, where in the US, lots of co-ops pay enough to cover tuition for subsequent semesters. I talked to Celia about my plans for co-op, and my past jobs, and that it is somewhat hard to juggle everything and still make money in the US at times. She found the fact that I had to work "cool" and I was reminded that these students get a lot more help from their parents that I'm used to.

After we talked, I played some of the video game in the corner. It was a Naruto video game, and they kept asking me if I knew what it was, and I was laughing internally, because I love anime, and it's one of the most famous ones worldwide. It was an Xbox game, so sometimes I did better than other times, but I had a couple of the students helping me, so it all worked out.

Then I started talking to Celia about the other foreigners that I had met in China, and said that the Australian guy that we had met in Xi'an had been contacting me about poetry. We then started talking about different forms of poetry, both writing it (on my end) and memorizing it (on her end). She said Chinese poetry was like a song, and that's why people often memorized them. We even talked about Shakespeare, (she had read some translated into Chinese) and I taught her what a Shakespearean sonnet was, telling her that they were hard to write, and that was why I normally wrote free verse poetry.

Tree that has pictures from past parties hanging up

When we went to leave, my friends were asking me to help them use Facebook, because they just got the VPN to work. In China, several websites are blocked unless you use a VPN to access them, and Facebook is one of them. I said goodbye to the birthday guy, but he asked us to stay for the cake. We had to wait longer, but I was wondering when it was going to be cut, because the others had to catch the bus back to Campus A. Eventually, it was unveiled, and it looked magnificient. Interestingly, all big cakes in China had fruit on them, including kiwi peaches, dragonfruit, and tomatoes....because, technically, tomatoes are fruit. They turned the lights out, and put the candles on it. They sang Happy Birthday to the birthday guy in English (probably for my benefit), and then they cut the cake. They tried to give the first piece to me. I tried to refuse, and give it back to the birthday guy, but the guy who was helping me with the video games joked that the first piece was for the foreigner. I ended up giving my tomato to Suri, but enjoyed the rest of the cake.

After that, we headed out. It turned out that the others had missed their subway, and they were in no rush. I passed the time by talking to them about my life in Cincinnati, the food, and fun things to do there. They were very impressed, and said that they would make sure to ask me questions when they got to Cincinnati. I laughed because I'm pretty used to that at home as well, from both international and domestic friends. I crossed the street to get to the apartment complex, wishing them goodbye. Heading inside, I talked to Jessica about the rest of her night, and made a video call before I went to sleep.

The next day, I went out biking soon after I got up, because I was feeling pretty homesick, and needed to get out and get some fresh air. I decided to go the same way as we had gone the day before with the party. I biked down, and saw the same river area and a park that looked interesting. I backtracked towards the apartment complex trying to find a way in. I didn't find one, so I continued down the original way, and found a way in.

I walked past a city cleaning worker, and walked my bike into the park. I saw a large building that looked a lot like a church, but I knew it wasn't, because according to the map app, the nearest church was several miles away.

I saw lots of families and friends out enjoying the park, flying kites, and it brought a smile to my face. Watching all the people with their loved ones, I felt nostalgic for home, and realized that the next time I went to this park, I should bring my phoenix kite to try out.

I continued to walk around, seeing lots of small rivers and bridges over them. I also saw people fishing, and realized that it was a great family park.

Catching sight of some chairs overlooking another manmade river, I decided to sit there, snacking, reading, and finishing up some grading. I stayed for a couple hours, soaking in the peace of the area to try to calm my mind. Some people decided to sit at some of the other tables, but some people decided to go away, put off by a foreigner sitting at the table, trying to blend in. One guy came up to me trying to give me an advertisement, but gave up on me when I couldn't understand what he was saying.

After I finished grading, I walked around a bit more, admiring how much work that they had put into making this an urban oasis.

I biked back to campus to get some lunch, and ended up getting a vegetable dish that was very slimy (and almost tasted fatty), with a salad, some clear, salty broth, and rice, for only 11 quai total.

After lunch, I biked back to the apartment and talked with Jessica for a bit about my ride. At 4, we went out to get groceries at Sunny Block, and saw workers for the phone stores doing synchronized dances to try to get customers. We got our groceries, and came back for bible study. We felt like it was the most productive bible study yet, as we were able to pray together, and really bond. We continued talking for a bit afterwards, and the guys came by to invite us to go out for food. Neither of us went, but we decided to continue talking for a bit.

Before heading to sleep, I worked on some more stuff, and made a call. During the call, I got a cooking lesson of sorts, and when the "chef" said, "Who doesn't like cheese?" I exclaimed that the Chinese don't. That was utterly perfect timing, because right at that moment, his Chinese housemate walked by and gave me (i.e. the computer) a digusted look. We both cracked up at the coincidence.

Satisfied with my day, I gave myself to dreamland.

-Zoe

Days 58 and 59: The Sandman is Catching up with Me

On Thursday, the American dean of JCI (the program that I work for at CQU) was giving several presentations about the requirements for students to be able to go to UC. The one for the 4th years was on Campus A, and they wanted some of the American TAs to go over there, to sit in and give advice to everyone about UC's campus. Jessica and I decided to go, while Dom and Nick sat in on the models lecture.

When we woke up in the morning at 6, we found out that the meeting was at 10, not 8, so we turned over and slept for another hour or so. We headed to Campus A on the 8:30 bus, and we were able to get there a bit before the meeting started. Dean Orkwist talked about academic deficiencies, the TOEFL test, scheduling for the fall semester, and housing for the students. We were able to give them some advice about UC, mainly pertaining to scheduling and housing, but overall, we were somewhat bored.

After the meeting, we talked to Dean Orkwist a bit more, and then headed out for lunch. I invited Celia to come along, but, truth be told, we had no clue where we were going to eat. I was personally hoping a cheaper place, but Celia showed us a more upscale place with fish soup that we agreed to.

Getting in, it was a similar setup to hotpot, but she made sure it was tomato soup rather than a spicy broth.

Appetizer of dough sticks with the sweet syrup

As we waited, we talked with Celia about what she had thought of the meeting, as well as her plans for when she came to UC. After a bit of time, they brought a bowl of green herbs out, which the waiter ladled the soup over, so it could soak into the leaves.

Jessica and I both made the mistake of trying to eat the leaves, but Celia said that it was just to put the fish and other things in the soup in before you eat them. That being clarified, we started eating the fish. I tried a couple times to put the vegetables on the side in the pot, but I was stopped both times. Eventually I realized that we had to wait on the vegetables to ensure we didn't eat the fish bones by accident. After we were done with the fish, the worker came over, and ladled most of the fish out of the bottom, putting it into a bowl for us.

She talked to Celia in Chinese, and Celia translated to say that the lady thought that we "weren't very good at eating", because we didn't eat much food, and we didn't really want to touch the fish head. We were a bit taken aback by the idea of eating it, but after some thought, I decided to try it. I picked at the fish brain, which looked like overcooked gelatin, unsure at first. But I pulled off a piece, popped it in my mouth, and immediately disliked it enough that I didn't want to have another piece.

However, the vegetables were cauliflower, bean sprouts, and potatoes, and were, as a result, pretty good in the tomato soup. When we were getting ready to leave, we realized that almost two hours had passed, and we were reminded of the leisurely way the Chinese tend to eat in groups of people.

Celia went up to the register, and paid with her Alipay, which is an app on phones connected to Chinese bank accounts. We got change from the lady at the register (which was a bit of a hassle) and paid her our parts of the bill.

Beautiful mural on the wall

After heading out around 1, Jessica and I were going to head down to Starbucks to kill time and to use their wifi. I had my office hour at 3:30 for Heat Transfer, and she had Prob and Stats at 7. We walked down to Sanxia Square, and wandered around, looking around for Starbucks. It was a bit of a miserable day. The good weather had dissipated earlier in the week and it was raining heavily (at least heavily by Chinese standards). We wandered for a while through puddles, while people were cowering in doorways, and slipping on non-rain-friendly tiles, and realized we were lost.

We got our bearings underneath a staircase, and decided to retrace our steps and figure out exactly where it was. After a bit of thinking, we realized that we had simply gone too far, and that it was a lot closer to the entrance of the square than we thought. Getting inside, feeling like soaked puppies (and wondering if maybe I should have bought an umbrella from one of the people standing outside selling them), we gladly bought our hot drinks, a hot chocolate for Jessica and a vanilla latte for me.

We went upstairs, sitting at a very long table, and tried to connect to wifi. I was having trouble, so I gave up and decided to grade papers, and Jessica eventually decided to work on Prob and Stats problems. We noted that both of our answer keys for the classes were flawed/incomplete, and we agreed that that doesn't help the textbook publishers' business. (In fact, most of the students share digital copies here, so they don't get much Chinese revenue.)

When Jessica decided to use the restroom, the lady sitting next to me asked me about what I was doing. I tried to explain my job to her, but she didn't know what engineering was in English. She was studying some sort of literature, or the Chinese way of thinking, and I found that interesting. At around 3:00, I stopped grading, and headed back to campus so I could make it to the office hour.

The walk was longer than I thought, so I ended up being a bit late, especially because the elevator was taking a while, but there were no students in there, but Pablo, Robert and Suri were already inside. I had asked the Chinese TAs at the meeting earlier with Prof Orkwist if they could help me use the scanner in the office (since it was all in Chinese). It took them a while, but they eventually figured out how to scan it....the only issue was that they weren't able to get the scans onto a flash drive. Even though it was connected to a computer, the scans somehow didn't transfer.

So Robert showed me a scanning app on his phone that he used, and he used it to scan the two papers I had, sending me the documents on WeChat. However, we realized that most phone cameras would be adequate on their own for the job, and I decided to use that in the future. While we were chatting, Pablo was working on various things, but offered us teabags from his hometown, Loja, Ecuador. The tea was called horchata, and it's world famous. It wasn't even close to the horchata water we had had at the Mexican restaurant, but it was a tea made with special herbs and flowers in this town. He said that the teabags were nowhere near the quality of the fresh tea in Ecuador, but I was still excited to try it.

After Robert and Suri left, Pablo and I chatted for a bit about my blog, about my travels, and strangely enough, about our views on Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's philosophy, objectivism. (The topic came up after saying that I joined the libertarian group on campus because they were giving away samplers of part of her works.)

Around the time I went to leave to catch the bus, Pablo went to walk up and down some stairs, so I headed out a bit after, locking the door behind me to ensure his stuff was safe. I got on the bus back home, and started feeling sick. I realized that the lunch had probably caught up with me, and when I got home, I cooked myself a dinner of eggs and carrots, eating peanuts, Gatorade, a pear, and yogurt as well, to try to get all of my food groups.

The dinner I fixed, and the bag of Horchata tea that Pablo gave me and the other TAs

Friday started bright and early, with a Heat Transfer class at 8 am on Campus A. So I got up at 6 am to fix breakfast and get ready, and then I headed out to catch the bus.

I handed back the two paper copies of Homework #1, and I then took notes for classes, as per my usual. Pablo asked if I could stay to proctor the embedded systems quiz, and I stayed for a bit longer in order to do so. The other TAs were all at the Engineering Models lab on Campus D, but I needed to be at Heat Transfer, in order to take notes and ensure that I could keep up with the class material enough to grade it.

As I was returning from Campus D, I was deep in conversation on my phone (digital conversation, obviously), and thought I heard my name being yelled. However, the conversation was forefront on my mind, and I dismissed it as a auditory hallucination. That sort of thing, with people yelling my name to get my attention, often happened at UC, and I was thinking my brain conjured it to trick me, because hardly anyone on this campus knew me that well. The calling persisted, though, and I turned around in surprise to see Dom, Jessica, Nick, Sean, Celia, and Alexandra, almost all of the people I did know!

They were going to eat, and even though I had just had a PB&J sandwich and half of a carrot on the bus, I decided to join them. We went to the top level of the food court, which I still hadn't eaten at, and went to the sushi place with them. I got an Oreo coffee milk tea, and salmon sushi, with the help of Celia and Alexandra. The tea tasted like both coffee and tea, which was interesting, and the "whipped cream" didn't melt into the drink, hanging at the top, proving it was actually cool whip. The salmon sushi tasted just as good as premium sushi back home though, and it wasn't nearly as expensive as in America.

While we ate, they didn't talk about Models lab much (because there were over 100 students), but Sean was grateful for their help. Since I was at Heat Transfer, and was commenting on how some of it went over my head at times, Sean also offered his help with that, as he had worked on that with his research when he was in graduate school.

We commented on Celia's sushi, which had red stuff on top. We were hoping it wasn't ketchup. She said that it was actually octopus, which we all decided to try at some point in the future.

Nick's cup of hot oreo coffee milk tea had a mustache and a red and white background on it as well, which reminded us Americans of the Cincinnati Reds. We told Celia and Alexandra about our famous baseball team, and the four mascots we had, especially Mr. Redlegs, the one with the mustache, and they seemed interested in it.

cup reminiscent of the Cincinnati Reds

After lunch, we stood outside talking about classes and plans for the weekend, but eventually took Dom's suggestion to take the conversation into the TA office. Getting in there, we started talking about American culture (with Nick talking about all the greasy fried food in his state fair as well as hunting) and what was good, and not good about it.

We also asked about their worst foods (they said it would probably be hotpot because of all the oil) and what they wanted to do in America when they went in their fifth year. Nick also asked them to write our Chinese names on the board next to our English names on the TA sign. They said that we could theoretically choose our own names (one professor last semester picked a name that meant "Tall, Rich, and Handsome") but we wanted the actual translations. For my name, they put one translation, and then erased it. I asked why, and they said the first one meant Monday. I grimaced at that, and they told me that the second one meant sweet, and I was flattered. They told me that there were often several translations for the same name, which clarified my confusion.

The Americans' Chinese names

After everyone left, I sat in the office, leaving the door shut to keep the heat in, but putting a sign on the door to say that office hours are indeed in session. I started working on questions for the UC advertising lady who wanted to feature me in promotional items to pass the time. The hour and a half passed quickly, and no students showed up. I decided to stay in the office a bit longer and grade some more before going to dinner. I also found out that Greg, our supervisor, may not be back until after the semester was over, which made pay and supervisor meetings be run through Prof Wei Wei, one of the professors who had just come, but who has worked with JCI for years now.

At dinner, it was a beef and potato broth, with rice, and the additional soup. After all of this time, I figured out the additional soup was to cool down the spice of the main dish. It really did serve its purpose well.

Walking home, I couldn't help but enjoy that it wasn't raining, although it was still cold.

Getting home, I worked on various things on my computer, hitting the sack relatively early as well.
-Zoe

Days 55, 56, and 57: Back to Classes

On Monday morning, I did get up bright and early, but for a call, not for a class. This way, I was sure to start off my week on a good note. After that, I hung around the apartment for a bit longer, working on blog posts, and various other things before heading over to Campus D with Jessica. She walked me to the bus stop, and then went back to the dining hall.  I had a ham sandwich, chips, and a pear packed for lunch, and I ate it on the bus while I read a book on my e reader.

I had gotten on the early bus, so I still had about an hour and a half before class started. It was a nice day, so I decided to stay outside for a while, and then go to class about 30 minutes before it started. Most of the time outside, I was looking or planning different class things for the week, so I decided to count myself as still "on the clock".

During that time, though, Chris, the Australian guy we had met in Xi'an messaged me about trading poetry back and forth. I wasn't sure what to say at the moment, so I decided to reply later.

 A bit before class started, I headed inside. I went to Heat Transfer, talking to the three students who were already in the class about how their break had gone, as well as describing my own. They were a bit worried about the homework that was due that day, because Pablo had made several last minute changes, but I reassured them that they would be fine. Sure enough, when Pablo came in, he gave the students an extension until Wednesday, but told them that their questions should have been asked earlier than the weekend before it was due, since they had had a month to complete it.

But anyway, I sat through heat transfer, taking notes, like normal (as it is a 4th year Mech Engineering class, and I am a 2nd year Mech E), and then sat through the other newly arrived professor's class. His name was Professor Wei Wei, and he had taught at CQU several times before (including the semester before, but visa issues with another professor necessitated he come back this semester too). It was an electronics class, but most of what he was teaching was basic vector notation, so I zoned out for most of it. There was no wifi, so I started going through my philosophy book to pass time.

After that class, I asked Robert what he was going to do, and he said that he was going to go for dinner at a dining hall that I haven't been to. I was tempted to go along, but knew that I needed to get groceries, and I declined. At this point, I was tired and low on blood sugar, but I knew that cooking when I got home would save me money. I saw that the bus left in 30 minutes, and I figured that I would be able to get the basics of what I needed and get back, at least to Campus B, in that time.

However, when I walked off campus, I immediately started walking the wrong way, and I laughed at my foolishness when I realized it. Walking back toward the store, I knew that time was ticking down, and as time progressed, I realized more and more that I would either have to catch the subway back or just wait for the next bus. Going all the way to the subway station with the groceries seemed tedious though, so I decided to just take my time at the store.

I went in, finding some of the stuff through visual memory. My main mission for going was to try to find peanut butter, which is very, very rare in China, unfortunately. Apparently, the guys had found peanut butter on a previous mission to Wal Mart near the cookie section. So I made my way back to the cookie aisle, picking up a large pack of regular Oreos (since they had more in them than the chocolate cream ones), and being indecisive on breakfast biscuits and blueberry Pocky, as well as moon pies. After a bit of pacing around, I decided to get the first two things, but not the moon pies.

Very grateful for signs in both English and Chinese

I went over to the vegetables after getting one jar of peanut butter (and I eventually went back for a second one). It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be, only a little bit over two US dollars. I picked up some small potatoes and looked around to see if there were any other familiar vegetables. I saw some things that looked like carrots, but they were suspiciously long and narrow. I sniffed one, and it did indeed smell like a carrot. I got two to supplement my diet.

As I walked around, I didn't see any fresh eggs anywhere, only frozen quail eggs in a bag, so I decided to go ask the lady who was giving out free samples. She was talking to someone, but I asked her via the translator where they were, and she shook her head no at me. I thought they maybe they had ran out, and moved on, but found them soon after (although in an interesting bag your own eggs concept). I decided that I could put the eggs into my lunch container to make sure they wouldn't break. I was somewhat offended, but talking to Jessica a few days later, she said that maybe the lady worked for another company giving out the samples.

Interesting looking carrots, to say the least

Whole unpackaged raw chickens for sale

When I was wandering around trying to find the fresh eggs, I saw that they had live frogs and turtles for sale in the "seafood" department. One of the turtles was desperately clawing at the barrier, trying to escape, and it broke my heart. I had half a mind to take it home as a pet, but I didn't have any place to put it, and I walked away, broken hearted.

After I had gotten everything I wanted/needed due to going back and forth within the store (two jars of peanut butter, twelve eggs, a bottle of blueberry Gatorade, 4 small potatoes, 2 carrots, oreos, breakfast biscuits, blueberry pocky, and some more packaged ham) I started to head to the bus stop. Getting there, though, there was a sign with Chinese writing on it, and I assumed it meant the stop was closed, so I walked to Campus B's bus stop for about 20 minutes to try to catch it. I got lost for a few minutes, but made my way there.

After I got to campus, I had to walk the rest of the way home. I was texting a friend and a girl stopped me all of a sudden. She said she was from France, which surprised me because she appeared to be Chinese. I confirmed with her twice and she did say that she was from there. At first, I thought I had already talked to her before, but when I asked her name (which turned out to be Elsa) I realized she was a different person. She started making small talk with me, and I talked to her about her different interests. She said that she was interested in sports, and asked me what sports I played. I told her I tried to stay in shape, but I didn't really play sports since I'm a bit uncoordinated. But she went on, saying that I looked athletic, and she asked if we liked to mountain climb, and I had told her about just climbing the mountain. I mentioned that we were going to possibly climb the mountains in Chong Qing, and I told her that if we went, I'd invite her. She told me that she was studying English here, and I told her that she could practice English together if she needed help. We exchanged Wechats and she took a picture with me.

After that, I started heading home, and she sent me a voice message saying that I was a very beautiful girl. I was shocked, but not overly shocked. I sent her a message asking if we could practice French, and she said that she didn't speak French very well. Through another series of messages, I realized that I had misunderstood her, and that she was simply working in Chong Qing and learning English. Jessica suggested the next day, when I talked to her, that maybe the girl had only visited France at some point.

I finished myself dinner, read some more, and headed to sleep.

On Tuesday, I stayed in for a while, and tried to get my blog updated, as well as the Astronomy Club powerpoint for the meeting later that night. Around 11 pm though, the wifi in the apartment went out and I went to campus to grab a bite to eat. I ran into Alexandra, and she told me about the digital design lab later that day, and that I could head to the lab with Suri to find out the location of it.

I sat down in the main dining hall, and the wifi was running too slow, so I eventually went to the dining hall next door, and got a blog post published, and most, but not all of the Astro powerpoint. While sitting, I was sipping on juice that I randomly selected from the menu (which turned out to be lemonade) and at the end, I tried to eat the tiny green fruits that were in the lemonade, but I gave up quickly because it tasted like a lime.

I then went to the TA office to meet Suri and get the digital design labs because I wasn't able to download them with the bad wifi. The office didn't have wifi either (and even the Ethernet cable didn't work). I told her about my wifi struggles all day, and she told me about a coffee shop on campus that I could go to.

I sat through digital design lab, learning a bit, and passing out gates for the students' circuits. Suri led the class, because she had taken the class before. It turned out that lots of the desks had been thrown out over the break (literally, thrown out, looking out the window, we saw lots of discarded desks) and the equipment no longer worked with the power outlets (American equipment and Chinese outlets) and at first, we thought they would have to trade our power adapters around the classroom. But Alexandra found a couple power strips, so we only had to use one.

The room was unnaturally cold, and as I had expected the weather to be as nice as the day it was before, I didn't have my coat. During the lab, Prof Wei Wei asked if we could go ahead to the next lab and try to get the materials together for the next week's lab. I didn't know how to do much of it, so Dom helped me with his knowledge of circuits and truth tables. Eventually I figured it out, and I was very proud that I had learned something from it.

For the rest of the 4 hours, I worked on my curriculum vitae, and chatted with Dom to pass the time.

During the break, Dom, Suri and Alexandra went to eat, and I made my way over to the coffee shop to use their wifi. I ordered a rose tea (with a bit of difficulty) and sat down to use the wifi. Unfortunately, the wifi was even worse than other places on campus, and after I finished the tea, which was delicious, I headed to a place outside that the wifi had worked before.

I froze outside, but managed to get it sent (although not completely finished). I got to the lecture part of the class about 3 minutes before it started, and all Nick and Jessica were also there. It turned out that the others had been on Campus A all day sitting in on other labs.

During the class I learned more about binary and was wondering how much I could learn from this class. However, the professor ended the class early because he was really sick for the first time in 15 years (which is against CQU rules, but none of us were complaining). Everyone else went home and I went for dinner. Jessica also told me that my lips were purple before leaving, so I realized just how cold I actually was.... But at dinner, I decided to save most of the rice for breakfast in the morning with blueberry jam.

After getting home, the wifi was fixed, thank the heavens (everyone else had had trouble getting it too), and I finished the powerpoint, and sent it in.

Wednesday wasn't much of an adventure. I went to statics first thing in the morning with Nick, and realized that just like the students, I was out of practice, as evidenced by the .

After statics, the rush of people in and out of the class and surrounding hallways caused me to be separated from Nick. I took it in stride though, and I just decided to practice French through chatting with my friend, who was a native French speaker, until it was time to go to campus A for heat transfer. After he went to sleep, I graded some papers, and got on the shuttle to campus A. I got there early, but as it was cold again, I decided to go to the classroom, review my notes, and work on other paperwork.

About 20 minutes before the class started, a strange professor came in, and started a conversation with me. He knew I was a TA, but knew nothing of the TA program with UC. I explained to him how the program worked, and how long I was here for, but his English wasn't the best, so I had to explain some things several times. Pablo then came in, and joined the conversation. The man was from CQU, and was there to observe Pablo's class for an hour, and asked us how we liked the country, not understanding at first that Pablo had been there last semester too. He mainly asked about the food, because he said he had visited UC for a month once, but didn't like American food, and it was way too expensive. He asked where the students were, and I said they would be there. He scolded that they should be on time (this was still 10 minutes before class started) and I said that they would be.

Unfortunately, a few of them were late, but the rest of the class ran smoothly. I took notes, as per my normal, and during the break, the man pulled Pablo out to the hallway, and took his leave. After class was over, I collected the students' second homework and ran to catch the bus back. It turned out the bus stop that I had thought was closed before wasn't actually closed, but moved a bit, and I was very relieved that I had found out for next time.

Getting back to Campus D, I got dinner, taking some home for later, and then heading home, doing some grading, reading (I've done more reading this semester than I have since I started college) and going to sleep.

-Zoe