This is the week I realized how tired this program makes me. #fourthweekprobz

Monday: Anna Sophia came to visit me this day! We had such a fun afternoon together. She arrived at around four and we explored WuDaoKou’s mall, eating frozen yogurt parfaits and drinking bubble tea, looking for all of the American style clothes. We decided to buy the most white-girl dinner we could think of: sushi and cheap white wine, with an entire baguette from a French café. We went back to my room to enjoy our dinner, caught up on each other’s lives, and shared some music. The time together was much needed, and I had been looking forward to it all weekend. J I walked her to the subway station and was too happy to head back to my dorm to study just yet, so I joined Ian, Alex and Minh while they went to eat dinner. Alex was hoping to make it to this place that had 12 kuai hamburgers on Wednesdays til seven, but he missed it by one minute. Afterward, we searched for a place that could take some of the disappointment out of Alex’s heart, and we decided on a Korean place(?). Although we didn’t find another American-style place to eat at, we did find a small American grocery store. Alex and I nearly started crying tears of joy seeing all of the poptarts, Cookie Crisp, cheese, cookie mix…it was glorious.

Tuesday: Walking out of the hotel to head to class with my nose buried in my Chinese book, I hear a little voice say my Chinese name. I turned to look and it was Shen Laoshi, from our Chinese class at Yale! I gasped, and we literally ran to one another. It was so much fun to see a familiar face. Shen Laoshi is the cutest, and she was so happy to hear all of her little 二年级 students’ Chinese improvements. The Light Fellowship office had invited all of the Light Fellows in Beijing to a dinner on this night, and we were all really excited for the quality food we were betting they’d serve us. Steven and I practiced our song for the singing competition on Wednesday, and life was feeling really good when a huge group of Yalies left for the subway together. The trip there was kind of long and traveling in large groups is always a mess, but we finally arrived and it was great seeing a ton of people I hadn’t seen since the semester ended. I sat with Ian, Alex, Anna Sophia, her Duke in Beijing friends, and some students from CET. The dinner was fantastic, although they did feed us some strange stuff. The only problem with the Light event was that it left absolutely no time or energy for preparing for the next day’s lesson.

Wednesday: this entire day was swallowed by the Voice of HBA competition. I was stressing about it all day, I spent my entire afternoon practicing with Steven and trying to look decent. The competition was initially going to be held in a big auditorium with a sound system, but the previous night’s rain had actually gotten into the room the sound system was in and damaged the entire thing. We wound up doing it in a classroom. I was pretty nervous all day, and at some points, I was so tired I was questioning why I’d put my name down in the first place. As the the competition began, though, and I got to hear my classmates being awesome at life in another language, I got more excited. Steven and I sang a song called “对不起， 我的中文不好” which translates to “sorry, my Chinese is bad.” The lyrics are literally, “Sorry my Chinese is bad, I don’t know what you’re saying, sorry my Chinese is bad, I just want to be your friend.” Then it goes into a scene in a restaurant, trying to order “jiaozi,” or dumplings, but saying that they want to order “shui jiao,” which means sleep. The whole competition was a whole lot of fun, and it was cool watching the HBA students show us a little part of the personality they’ve picked up from home with their music.

Thursday: We celebrated the fourth of July today and it was both awesome and hilarious. The teachers and program coordinators had been pumping the students up about Thursday’s American-style pizza party, so that’s basically the only thing I thought of during all four hours of class. When class ended, we all rushed to the main room to eat, but we were ushered outside and given a piece of paper. The piece of paper was actually the Chinese lyrics to the USA’s national anthem. We all sang it together, half of the students wearing masks and someone waving a little American flag against the pollution haze. The whole experience was a little surreal, but the pizza was fantastic, and I was happy I got to celebrate that holiday at least a little bit. During the afternoon, some Inner Mongolia-bound peeps and I went to a store to buy food for our trip. We are staying in yurts for three days (showerless), and there will be little to eat other than lamb, so we went to buy things to keep us alive. Our bible study wasn’t able to meet this week because of how busy everyone is, but we did catch dinner together. After dinner, we went to the super cheap bubble tea place, and I bought an iced coffee, which I have been missing desperately. At office hours, instead of studying for my test the next day, a couple teachers and I talked about boys in Chinese. The coffee wasn’t going to let me sleep anyway, so Shirley and I went to Josh’s room to bother him/hang out before we ventured to different places for a week. We had some heart-to-hearts about our future plans and vegged out together for an hour or so. Made me think how lucky I am to have the friends that I do here.

Friday: I’m on the train for Inner Mongolia right now. The pollution in Beijing was awful today—you couldn’t see past the nearest building, the haze was so thick. My test felt good (for once) and I finished taking care of Inner Mongolia stuff in the afternoon. Our train is a lot different than I expected; the trip is about seven hours, and instead of seats, we have rooms with six bunks in each. This is the first afternoon I’ve been able to chill with no work hanging over my head, talking to people who also have no work hanging over their head…It’s been great. Before the sun set, we got to see a little of the landscape here, and it’s gorgeous—rolling hills and far as you can see. Most importantly, there’s no pollution. The air is perfectly clear, the stars are perfectly visible, and the air feels good to breathe. We’ll arrive at around 11. I’m so excited for this adventure!