I couldn't be happier with the group of people, the school, the country, myself,
and this decision!
I can't wait to find out more tomorrow. I was able to
get wifi for a hot minute but I have to wait until tomorrow (well actually
Tuesday now) for DSL to be installed.
Fireworks went off allllllll
night. And when I say allllll night, I'm saying I heard them until 1 am when I
fell asleep and heard them at 7 am when I woke up. I knew fireworks were big
during the new year but man, they don't mess around. It's all because of the
Chinese New Year which also explains why more than half of the restaurants and
stores are closed. Families travel to see each other & celebrate the new
year with good food & company.
So this week we have orientation. Our
resident director, Wang Kai, is showing us around town (banks, restaurants,
parks, etc.), helping us get settled in (cell phones, Internet, roommates,
etc.), testing our Chinese skill level and taking us to a Chinese acrobatic
performance. It's been extremely helpful thus far.
This post was
supposed to end there...but I have been struggling to get on this website with
the Chinese firewall and the lack of Internet in my room so I'm just going to
expand on it now & figure out how to post it later.
It's been five
days now! I am loving Shanghai so much!!! Yesterday (well today in the USA) was
my birthday! I couldn't have asked for a better day. We had a blast downtown on
Friday night and then Saturday morning they surprised me with a birthday
cheesecake! I was so shocked. I really do appreciate the people in this program!
We have been doing orientation things all week like taking the placement
test, getting tours, meeting our roommates, and things like that. My roommate is
Cecile. She is so nice and her English is great! Next week though I'm going to
try and mostly speak Chinese to her because she told me today that she hates
speaking English. We went shopping yesterday at Carrefour for things for our
room and to was so helpful for me to have her there. We had gone shopping to
Walmart before, but I decided to not buy much because we had no idea what would
be best to get.
I've now been to The Bund two times! For those of you
who don't know what The Bund is, it is basically the scenic view of the
skyscrapers of Shanghai. The Bund is known for its extraordinary architecture
because it was owned by a various number of countries like France and England so
each country left its mark. It is such something special to see!
Luckily, we live close to this awesome park, mall, and stadium area. The
park is Luxun park which is named after an extremely famous Chinese writer. We
get to visit his home town in the near future. The stadium is Hangkou football
stadium where the local Chinese soccer team plays. The mall has everything I
would ever need! All of this is either a 15 minute walk or one metro stop away.
In a few minutes I get to meet my Chinese teacher and find out which
level I placed into. I can't wait to start learning more characters and apply
the vocab right away. But that's all for now, I need to go get ready for the day
but hopefully I can get this to post soon.
So all of that was supposed to be posted a while ago, but I still can't access
my blog. So I'm sending this to my dad to post for me from the USA. If you want
to see pictures, go to my facebook at https://www.facebook.com/katie.anderson.1481 or I have posted
a few on my instagram which my username is kat1e_and. I didn't expect this to be
such a hassle even with a VPN but it's okay. I'll make due.
Today, I got
an internship with The Study Abroad Foundation here in Shanghai. I will be doing
various work with them like planning events, talking to prospective students,
doing some writing about the differences between China and the USA, and other PR
stuff. I'm excited to see what all I will be getting into. Don't worry, I will
keep you all updated on how it goes! I will be there Monday-Wednesday from 2 pm
- 6 pm; however, some weeks I won't go in on Monday because they want me to stay
later on Tuesdays or Wednesdays occasionally when they go to various colleges to
talk to the students. In the end, I will be getting to do 10-12 hours of work
there each week and it's about a 30-45 minutes commute by subway.
Classes thus far are interesting. I have class Monday - Friday from 9 am
- 12 pm and then Thursday from 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm. Everyday except Wednesday in
the morning is Chinese class. There are currently 5 people in my class; I tested
into 201 which is perfect for me. It's all in Chinese and we learn two lessons a
week! At Marietta, we would learn 4 or 5 lessons a semester! The pace is so much
faster but I am glad because it helps me stay focused on learning what I came
here to learn: Chinese. On Wednesday, I have International Money & Finance,
so today was our first time going to that. The professor has a great background
studying in Taiwan, the USA, and the Netherlands so we shall see how this class
goes. And then Thursday afternoon is China: the Economic Giant, which I will get
to experience tomorrow. The classes are SO long but we get like 10 minute breaks
every hour. I cannot imagine class without those breaks...
I traveled by
myself for the first time today! I feel like it's about that time where I have
been accustomed to the culture long enough and can manage to find my way around
this GINORMOUS city (<25 million!). I'm so glad that I followed my dreams to
study here and cannot wait for the adventures that have yet to come.
I'll
write more later but for now, I've written enough.
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