Week Three yea yea yea

So I'm in a hotel room surrounded by ROTC cadets "furiously studying" Chinese characters (...with some some background music of Britney Spears lol) because the Level 1 students have their first big test tomorrow! This week has been a blur of studying...us Level 3-ers had a big test this morning, but I definitely felt prepared. I have also been busy getting back into the groove of working out (Chinese food is giving me a tummy) so we've been running at night when the air isn't as bad, and still swimming a lot. Last week after I blogged I got to hang out with my language partner (a student here at Nankai) and that got dinner with a couple of other cadets and their language partners. It is really rewarding to be able to translate for my American friends when our Chinese friends can't quite find the right English word, or vice versa. Also, when we have a class with a teacher that doesn't speak English at all, they bring in a translator (her name is Sophia and she's super cool). But I find I am needing to listen to the translations less and less! Okay I am really scatter brained now because everyone in here is now singing The Fray. It is hard to focus, almost as hard to focus as if I were to have a lawnmower chewing through my foot right now. This weekend we have Friday free from class yeah!! We are going to Taishan mountain in Shandong province and we will be seeing Confucius' hometown. Hopefully even more pictures from that adventure!! Love to all and hope that everyone is having fun back in the states.

Stevie taking one of her famous handstand pics!

OH p.s. the title is "yea yea yea" because that is what me and my roommate Stevie sing...all the time. I am really lucky we get along so well and that I have such a good roomie =]

Week Two

Boring titles for the posts I know...but time flies so quick here and I want to include so much at once!!!
Since I wrote last Friday, we went to a club/bar called Si Tong and had a blast!! There was a live group and they sang tons of American songs that made us feel right at home. Everybody danced with everybody and a few people were even invited onstage to sing. On the weekend I had a lot of fun shopping, too.
During this week though...I found out that I am allergic to..everything?! I don't know why but during class on Wednesday I suddenly broke out in hives! I haven't had anything different to eat or drink...and that day I had the same breakfast that we eat at the hotel every morning. Medicine quickly resolved the issue, but a few of us have been having a little trouble adjusting to the food and air, so this was kind of a recovery week from all the initial excitement of traveling and settling in. Last night I felt a lot better though and a few of us went back to the market and got ice cream :)
This afternoon I am meeting with my Chinese language-partner and I think we are going to explore Tianjin a little bit, and then maybe I'll get some help with my homework.

Oh, also, our teachers love to ask us to sing and dance for them in class...so today we showed Li Laoshi how to cat daddy and then we sang party rock anthem for her...she was very amused.

More later! 周末快乐!(happy weekend)

Week 1 Highlights

大家好! I've been slow on posts!! No new pictures today, sorry, but here's the week's update:

One of my best experiences in Tianjin so far was walking through the marketplace the other day with a few of the other students. I saw a huge building with fresh fruits, veggies, fish, grains, clothing, etc. like no market I've ever seen in the U.S. Then we stopped in a random restaurant and they ended up being so friendly! Me and another student, Rowland, had the most Chinese-speaking-experience of the group so we figured out how and what to order...some shop owners are not very patient with this but these ones were. Everything was delicious and we drank some Chinese beer too, "Tsingtao". It was an all-around great day.

I have had some really rewarding language experiences already! There is a swim shop around the corner from our hotel, and so far I have gone there with 3 separate groups of students on 3 different days to help them buy goggles/suits/swim caps. The shop owner's Chinese is relatively easy to understand (compared to a lot of people here) and he loves me for bringing him business haha. We've also had a lot of trouble getting student passes to the university pool here, but in the process I've gotten a lot of practice speaking to the lifeguards! When we talk to people here, they always want to know where we're from, how long we've studied Chinese, when we'll graduate, things like that. I also learned that the lifeguard's younger sister is in Michigan right now! He thought it was cool that I knew where that was.

Alright, that is all for now...I have a lot of homework to do so I can enjoy my weekend! Have fun in America everybody!!!

Friendship Inn

 Ducks come in and vacuum while we're away..

 These may seem like strange pictures but I said I wanted to blog about the hotel...so I am.
The name of our hotel is Friendship Inn or 友谊之家. We arrived really late on Saturday night and it was all kind of a blur and overwhelming -our teachers met us in the lobby, which was a nice gesture but most of us had not slept or showered and really all we wanted to do was get upstairs and go to bed!
So once we get upstairs..there are normal things you look for in a hotel when you're American; closet, dresser, iron/ironing board, sometimes a hair dryer, etc. We don't have any of these, the biggest hindrance being the lack of storage space for clothing. Also, I know people don't really want to see a picture of our toilet..but you can see in the picture the door handle which may seem odd. The doors and walls of the shower and bathroom are all glass! There is a pull down blind on one side, and a curtain for the shower, but the front is still open. This is so odd, I don't know why they do this and I think we might buy a curtain or something. Anyway other than that the hotel staff are friendly and we go downstairs and eat complimentary breakfast everyday (the food here is a whole different story ^_^ ) and then cross a huge busy street to get to class. My roommate is Stevie Hope, she is 26, married, and in Army ROTC. She is awesome and does Cross Fit so hopefully she will get me out of this room and working out on the nice days. The weather here is good but hot, and the pollution is pretty bad when it's not raining so it's harder to run outside.

Okay this is a lot of information for now but we are still learning so much every day! I am putting pictures on Facebook for more of a daily update but I want blogs here to be more detailed so they take a little longer.
Have fun in the States everybody and bye for now!

It works!!

Hurray I have access to my blog!! So today was a crazy crazy long day of travel and I am so glad to be finally settling down in the hotel room and taking a break. Both my flights took off without a hitch, and the 13 hours from Newark to Beijing passed a lot quicker than I thought it would. The most exciting thing was stepping out into the Beijing airport and looking out the window -my first glance of China! After myself and another guy from our tour group who was on my flight made it down the escalator after customs, we saw a sign for University of Utah -the second most exciting thing! And we met up with more people in our tour group.
I made my first purchase with Chinese currency: a waterbottle from Starbucks. Also very exciting. I also ate at my first real Chinese restaurant.
Now I am just chillin in my pjs waiting to go to bed. Figuring out technology and other general things with this hotel is a whole different can of worms that I want to share tomorrow! And hopefully pictures soon.

Bye for now,

-Jen

Indy Airport

I tried to post with my blackberry but it didn't really work. I made it to the Indy airport!! In about 40 min. will be leaving for Newark, then at 1155 leaving for Beijing!!!
There is a dog in the airport that keeps barking...why is there a dog in the airport??
I am super nervous and jittery from coffee, haven't slept since yesterday at 6 am for about an hour...awesome.
This may be the last post if everything fails with internet once I get to China, but hopefully not.
Much love to all my friends in Bloomington, especially those that helped me pack and move out =]
Here we go!

24 hours til airport

Ta-da! I created a blog for my China trip. I am prettyyyy nervous right now and still packing.