Thursday, July 10
6:02 PM

I missed an update yesterday so I'll see if I can remember everything.

Within 24 hours of coming to China, as a 'temporary resident', foreigners are supposed to register with the local police. The system they've been using for the students with host families is that the families would take the students down to the station and register. Well, I haven't been with the host family that much, so as of yesterday I still hadn't registered, which technically makes me illegal. From what I understand, occasionally the police will stop foreigners in the street and ask to see their passport and this registration card you're supposed to get. Anyhow, I had planned on being back 'home' at 3:30 PM yesterday to go do that but my host family was worried that it would take awhile, so they suggested I leave my passport with them this morning and they'd take care of it. When I got back here about 30 minutes ago my passport was laying on my bed here, so I think I'm good, but I'll check.

I can hear Yi Pei in the next room making dinner. This will be my first evening meal with them.

Ah, she's so nice, she just brought me a bowl full of cut-up watermelon.

By the way, because of the language barrier, I've been having one of the receptionists at Worldlink call my host family and explain to them what time I'm coming home, etc. They're nice about that. Everybody there is really helpful and understands that most of us are on the other side of the planet from where we live, so they try to accommodate us as much as possible.

In the mornings Yi Pei's been making me breakfast and usually has it on the table by 7:20 or so. But yesteday she was late and I was basically walking out the door when she came running in at 7:45 with all this stuff she'd made -- eggs, chicken, cut up vegetables, yogurt, etc. So I had to eat that, and so I was late to school.

I rented a cellphone yesterday, and so I now have a local Beijing number. The other people had rented them and I felt out of the loop since they're always planning stuff to do they had no way of calling me. Plus I had no way for my language exchange partner Emily to get in touch with me. We met again yesterday and I gave her the number. My exchange contribution was helping her polish up her resume (which was in English) online. Towards the end of that, my Korean classmate Ji Young called me and said she was in a taxi and wanted to know if I wanted to go shopping or something so I said sure, and headed outside. We went over to a Starbucks and hung out, and then checked out a really cool international grocery market called 'Jenny Lou's'. It had stuff from all over the world, including expired 'Florida's Best' orange juice from the U.S. Neat.

This morning I was a *little* late to school but it didn't matter because I was the only one in class for the first 3 hours. And one-on-one chinese lessons for 3 hours is pretty intense. I really like my morning teacher, Lv (pronounced kind of like 'leugh'), though. She's probably 28 or so and seems to genuinely enjoy her job. And she's very patient, which is a huge plus. Ji Young had been at the police station with the registration stuff, and she walked in just as the 3rd hour was ending. For lunch we walked over to a Korean restaurant I found, which was really good.

The afternoon class today was good, too. We did more dictation, which is brutal for me. Afterwards I saw Emily wandering around and we set up a time to meet again tomorrow.

At 3 I went to my elective Chinese Calligraphy class. And let's just say I have a new appreciation for people who can write chinese characters with brushes. It's crazy. And the guy who was teaching it was a little scary. Felt a little like chinese chinese writing bootcamp. 'You people. You have too many rounded edges. You MUST push the brush. Push it!' Anyway. That went on for 2 hours. I have a photo of that that I'll post.

More later....