On Friday morning, I got up around 7:30 to go to the sports day parade on Campus D. I had told Sean about it the night before, and he was interesting in going, but no one else was. So we headed over together, trying to find the playground by the bus stop that Amanda had mentioned. I was still a bit disappointed that we weren't able to join in the parade, but we were told we couldn't because we couldn't participate in the practices.
Nevertheless, I came out to support Amanda, and the others in the parade. Sean and I found a seat, and sat there, chatting and trying to pay attention to the proceedings, and trying to not let the repetitive, militaristic music get on our nerves.
Student military
traditional Chinese club
The way the parade was set up, each club would give a little presentation in front of the judges, and then keep marching onwards, with the name of their club in Chinese held by the guy in front. As I can't read Chinese, for some of the pictures, I've made an educated guess as to what club they are from.
Probably baseball or softball club
Cycling club
The strange thing was that the exact same day back at UC, they were having the club parade as well. And the one thing that I would have been the best suited for here (the international student community, although I would have been able to march with JCI too), I would march with back home too, as I'm an Ipal, a volunteer for UC International. Seeing the international students march, I was struck by how we weren't connected to the international community at all here, and I decided to bring that up at the end of the semester debriefing meeting when we get back into Cincinnati.
Windmill club? Or environmental protection club?
Miner's club?
our very own JCI! (We aren't sure why Baymax is there....)
Typing club, I think (they're carrying keyboard keys)
Transformers club?
The aforementioned Transformers
Costumes which confused me until I realized that they were international students wearing their home country clothes
More international students with their flags!
Traditional Chinese countryside dancers
After the parade, and while there was a dance troupe performing, I messaged Amanda to see if she wanted to get lunch with us, and I messaged my Pakistani friend that I recognized in the international student group to tell him congrats. Amanda never messaged back, so Sean and I shrugged it off and went to get food at the cafeteria before it got too crowded.
We started talking about relationship stuff, and life back at home, and it was good to hear his perspective on things. Amanda eventually came in, and we were surprised to see her. She said that she hadn't had her phone with her, so she didn't see my messages. I congratulated her on being in the parade (she was with JCI), and she thanked us, going to get food, and sit with her friends.
After talking with Sean, I took my leftovers, and decided to sit on the hill overlooking the lotus pond to grade models quizzes, and sit by the pond to draw as well. It was a gorgeous day, and I was wearing the new dress I had bought the day before, so I planned on staying out a few hours.
About halfway through, an older couple sat down for a picnic, and was watching me work. They came over to me, and gave me a few snacks, which was sweet of them. I ate the candied date, and saved the others for later.
After a couple hours of grading, and then drawing, I headed home, since I was absolutely starving, and needed to eat. I worked on grading models homework, and other things on my computer. I also watched a movie with Nick and Sean in their apartment before heading to sleep.
On Saturday, I got up, worked on stuff on my computer (including grading), and then headed out to the English conversation hour. Nick decided to go get lunch for both of us, getting sushi and milk tea. We messaged the group chat to try to get them to come, but Rebecca said that they had more sports day events to attend! However, we were already there, and getting paid to be there, so we ate our sushi, and milk tea, and watched "The Lego Movie", which Nick had downloaded onto his computer.
I was also directed to the only cold water fountain on campus by Nick, which was a relief, so I didn't have to buy another water bottle.
Afterwards, I went back to the apartment for a few hours, grading more models homework. When I was sick of staring at the computer screen, I went out to work on the same drawing as yesterday, and grab dinner. At dinner, the people selling the food at the first dining hall treated me as if I was entirely new to China, which is unfortunately something I'm used to.
The first dining hall
After I finished dinner, I packed up my leftovers, went back home, graded a few more hours, waiting to make a video call to someone in Cincinnati. After the call, I headed to sleep, completely exhausted.
On Sunday, I had to go to Campus A, because the JCI office had moved the Friday class to Sunday at 2:30 pm. I caught the 1:00 bus with Dom and Jessica (who were heading to the other campus for the English conversation hour), and headed over.
Building 5 on campus A
The room we were in was a study room, and when I walked in, I took a double take to make sure I was in the right room. However, one of my students was in there, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
When time came for the class, there were still students in there trying to study, and Pablo had to ask Sue to make an announcement in Chinese that the class was about to start. They were confused, but they all decided to leave during the class and study somewhere else.
After class, Pablo and I went to D Café to meet up with Jessica and Dom at their conversation hour. I was talking with them about a dinner that one of the Pakistani friends I have made here invited me to, and after a lot of conversation, we decided that Pablo would go with me so I would have company that I knew better.
We stuck around until 5, with Pablo ordering dinner, and Amanda dropping by, since she was chatting with a friend that she had made in France at D Café. Robert and his roommate dropped by to pick us up for the movie, and we headed out. Dom and Jessica had told Pablo about a café called Stonehouse Coffee. We decided to walk back to find it, and Dom was telling us about a coffee that he had gotten there called "pot coffee". He thought it was going to be a pot of coffee, but it was a cup of coffee covered with oreo crumbs, a mint sprig, and a shovel (like a potted plant!).
After going to the place, we went to the movie theatre to see "Ghost in the Shell", which was amazing! A mecha adventure based on a manga and anime, that I now want to read and watch, respectively. But one word to be said about watching it in a Chinese theatre, is that the Japanese in the movie itself was subtitled in Chinese, so we didn't know what they were saying during those parts.
Afterwards, we went to the chestnut chicken place that we had gone to at the beginning of the semester during KTV. Pablo went home, but another one of Robert's friends joined us. Everyone was there except for Alexandra, and we joked the entire night about the hijinks in Chengdu, what we were going to do with the JCI students when they got to UC around Cincinnati, and made Dom the butt of a lot of jokes. It was a truly fantastic evening full of wonderful conversation and people.
We had to head out around 9:30 to catch the last subway back home, and we said our goodbyes for now, looking forward to hanging out the next weekend. After getting back home, I went to sleep rather quickly, exhausted for the night.
-Zoe
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