China, you smell like mildew.

so sorry I haven't posted in over a week- China tried to take facebook and my blog away from me. (aka my proxy server that I was using to illegally use them stopped working. but then I decided Vassar has a VPN so then I got that- which took awhile since the download page was blocked too) but now I'm back for good so no worries.

So I've been to my internship twice now since I last wrote- it's going well I guess. I basically go in for like 3 hours on Tuesdays and "discuss" (aka get talked at and say a few sentences every 20 minutes) US-Chinese Relations, half in english, half in chinese, very strange. I also wrote a paper for Bright (self-named, my internship coordinator) about human rights in china since I'm interested in that. Oh ya, so because I said I am interested in human rights, I'm going to be doing background research for them so they can start a human rights project in the future- cool, huh? I'm a baller, I know. so ya, that's cool I guess, kinda boring though. And tonight we had our first internship seminar that goes along with the internship- soooo boring. oh well, we only have like 6 all semester.

Classes are still goodish. We had our first chinese test this past monday. EPIC FAIL. which of course for me means a B. haha. but seriously, it was hard. no essay (yay. but also usually pretty easy), lots of random grammar questions (which I thought I did well but apparently not) and the hardest listening thing ever. I missed half the questions, which is why I didn't do so well. but whatever, I still have a 95.5 in the class so no big deal. I studied all day on sunday so I couldn't have done much more anyways. Chinese Diplomacy is getting more interesting, the readings are pretty dry, and way too many. but the class is cool, wish there was more discussion, but that's not really china's strong suit in teaching. the shanghai studies class is fine. this week we had a field trip and had to travel around shanghai and take pictures.

pearl and I in front of some lilly pads at People's Square Park

Jing'an Temple (the pictures don't do it justice)

Friends and I in front of a bull (no significance, just cool)

Last Wednesday Alex and I went to the Shanghai Aquarium and saw lots of cool fish. They have the longest underwater tunnel in the world! 

and they had a pretty great giftstore with lots of stuffed animals:

this is actually a backpack. too bad I didn't buy it.

Then we went to the Jin Mao tower, which is next to the world financial center (the tallest building in asia). The Jin Mao tower has the highest hotel in the world in it (the Grand Hyatt- floors 55-89). The architect arranged the balconies inside the building to look like a spiral (sooo cool):

the world financial center (on the left), looks like a bottle opener

It was fun to explore during the week and do touristy stuff. 

Thursday night we went out to a local bar called hard rock. 

Friday I went to wal-mart and did some shopping. then went to a travel meeting (more on travel later!!) then at night, we went to KTV (karaoke). It was fun but we had like 20 people so it was hard to involve everyone and stuff. Then we went to windows, our fav bar. They love us so much we're going to get free beer from now on! Then to M2, a fun club. 

Saturday we left really early (8am!) for Tongli, a water city near Shanghai. We toured some courtyards and stuff and then explored on our own- took a boat ride and went to the Ancient Sex Culture Museum. We thought that meant "gender", but no, it was actually about sex:

Then saturday night I went to hard rock again and then watched The Mist (terribel horror movie) with some friends. 

Played tennis three times in the last three days- so fun! 

Tomorrow we don't have chinese class- yippee! Instead we're going to Qipu market- a great fake shopping place with clothes, bags, accessories :) I haven't been shopping yet so I'm really excited! 

Two of my friends had birthdays this week so we're going to party a lot this weekend! Except for the fact that we have makeup class on sunday- wtf?! make up class? why bother having a holiday (next week) if we have to make it up?! so stupid. but whatever.

next week, it's mid-autumn festival. Based on my understanding (in chinese) of the story we discussed in class about the festival, a guy (Houyi) was a famous archer and had to shoot down 9 of the 10 suns (you didn't know we used to have 10 suns? me neither) cuz it was too hot. His wife (Change- it's pronounced Chang e in chinese) got pissed cuz Houyi was too busy. When the gods gave Houyi two bottles of medicine to give you everlasting life as a thank you for shooting the suns, Change took them both (bitch) and then somehow got stuck in the moon, alone with this creepy rabbit who makes the potion. Every year at mid-autumn festival, Houyi gets to see his wife in the moon. :) At this time of year, you get to eat this delicious things calls moon cakes! yum! so many flavors= wonderful holiday. we also get wednesday-friday off of school. We're going to hangzhou (paradise on earth). It's a city a bit south of shanghai to chill out, hike the mountains there, look at the pretty lake. yay! 

then the week after that, oct 1-7, it's the national holiday week. more school off (and more makeup weekend days for class). it's a celebration of the founding of the communist party. so in celebration, we're going to inner mongolia. you may be thinking, what? inner mongolia? (yes dad, I know that's you) but really, it's going to rock. think genghis khan, mongolian costumes, camel riding in the desert and/or grasslands, staying in yurts (traditional mongolian tents), eating delicious stews and noodles, cashmere, 36 different ethnic groups!! soooo exciting! just bought the tickets today! 

life on two wheels (aka biking) is good. only hit a few people this week. I learned the difference between 对不起 dui bu qi (sorry) and 不好意思 bu hao yisi (how embarrassing), which in chinese is actually quite similar. when you think it's your fault, you say dui bu qi. if you are sorry/sad about a situation, but it's not your fault, say bu hao yisi. so now I can properly apologize for hitting people. I feel very chinese. today this stupid old lady wasn't paying attention and was going to hit me, and i didn't have a bell, so I just yelled "hey ayyyy bladfkjkjafkgjf" and she moved. success. so chinese. 

that's it for now! so I assume all the packages you guys sent me are on the way, right? jk. 

oh by the way, i had to mail in my voter registration/absentee ballot stuff this week. so confusing. I bought an envelope (by pointing and grunting at the envelope the guy next to me had) but it didn't have a lick part so I didn't know how to shut it. so i borrowed her tape, but it was clearly not what I was supposed to do. and then she gave me some stamps that I was not going to lick cuz they looked nasty. but they didn't have peely stuff either. she pointed and mumbled at a jar and a paint brush. so i used that glue stuff, but it was so old school. weird. anyways, success hopefully?

title explanation: have you ever repeatedly washed your clothes and hung them to dry (hang is the key word) in humid and nasty weather? well it makes everything smell like mildew no matter how fast you hang it up, how nice the day is, or what. so even if you're clean (which you never are, you're always sweaty, or getting splashed by nasty mystery water, or wiping your face on your hand due to lack of napkins), you smell like an old sponge. they should make old sponge perfume. great smell. so if you wanna send me some clothing perfume (they must make that right? america has everything materialistic), it would be much appreciated. 

ok done for real now. LOVE YOU 3 PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY READ THIS WHOLE THING! you're a champ. :) 

talk you soon!

ps more pics on facebook if you're interested!