Day 11: January 14, 2013

     Today went as most Mondays do - class dragging on and fighting the tiredness from the weekend. Culture class was just a never-ending lecture about all of the millions of Chinese dynasties that have existed. There were some pretty interesting parts but basically what I got out of it was that one dynasty would rule and would then fall to another and so on and so forth. Lunch was a nice surprise when we saw some familiar foods in the dining court. I got what seemed to be popcorn chicken, orange chicken, beans, and rice. It was really good but definitely a little different because it had dark meat instead of white meat but I will take what I can get.

Popcorn chicken and orange chicken at the dining courts

     Chinese class had a lot of ups and downs today. The beginning went decently but wasn’t too eventful. After our break, our teacher had a tongue twister planned for us that I am still convinced is impossible. It basically takes two words but uses different tones, which completely change the meanings and make it beyond hard to say quickly or even at all. It was pretty hilarious when she went around the room and made everyone try it and compete to see who could do it best. Let’s just say I wasn’t quite the best. We also played the game where you count to 100 but replace every multiple of 7 with a clap. This is hard enough to get right in English let alone Chinese when we just learned the numbers the day before. It’s was all fun and games until our teacher announced that if you said your number wrong or forgot to clap you had to be punished by going to the front of the class and either singing or dancing for up to a minute. I got really lucky and made out unscathed but I can’t quite say the same for my classmates. John got up and danced in front of everyone which was one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever witnessed and absolutely hilarious. Nathan sang Happy Birthday while everyone clapped along and Jessica sang Jingle Bells while everyone did the same. The rest of the class went on forever when I got lost in all of the numbers and learning how to ask for different numbers of items which all have different grammar rules to follow.

Chinese tongue twister

   When we finally got out of class, Adam gave me the idea to go for a run, which was actually pretty enjoyable. It wasn’t too cold out so I decided to take a lap around campus. It started out really well as I got to the edge of campus and left out of one of the gates and looped around past 2 of the other gates. For some reason I could not find the gate I went out of and got kind of lost. Luckily I figured out the way I came from without too much wandering and made my way back home.
 
     After my run I got some homework done and then we went out to a nice Japanese restaurant for dinner. We sat at one of the Hibachi grills and I got some beef and garlic fried rice and we got this egg pancake thing for an appetizer. All of it was really good and really hit the spot. On the way home we stopped by the trusty Family Mart and got some breakfast for the morning and snagged a mini snickers which was clutch. When I got home I got the rest of my homework done, had my first tea time, and went to bed.

Japanese Hibachi beef and garlic fried rice