Thank you Michelle for the ability to post this blog. My computer has been unable to load the proxy and I am therefore recently without this blog and maybe even more importantly facebook. It's amazing how reliant I've become on facebook! This is also the paragraph where I write everything I'm thinking - so I'd just also like to point out some real proof that our English is leaving us. Ariel was trying to spell photobooth the other day and she spelled it "f-h-o...". Maybe it doesn't sound so funny anymore - but I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

I'm still in my adjustment stage, but things are going good. This was our second week of classes - and we just finished "Test Friday." Luckily my Classical Chinese test was one of the easiest tests I've taken so I was able to finish pretty early and can now relax for a bit. Classes have been the most frustrating aspect for most of us right now - simply because it seems like the amount of homework has reached a point where we are really unable to go out and see China, because we're stuck inside writing essays, studying ridiculous amounts of characters, and reading lots of articles. We all agree that being in China is sort of like a fifth class, and so our homework load is REALLY large. I'm making some adjustments too - as I am pretty much used to only working - Middlebury (while a really love place) doesn't offer you the excitement Hangzhou does on a daily basis. So right now we're all trying to figure out where the balance is and how if we decide there is too much going on how we should deal with it.

I changed around my classes and now have a final four:

1. Classical Chinese

2. Hangzhou Research

3. Reading Newspaper

4. One-on-one: Psychotherapy and Psychological Disorders in China.

2 and 4 are mandatory courses. Hangzhou Research has so far turned out to be my least favorite course - but it does offer us a chance every Wednesday to take trips to all kinds of different places in Hangzhou. It might get better - so far we've just talked about Hangzhou food, which actualy turned out to be useful - as now we know the "famous Hangzhou dishes" and impress all the waiters when we go out.

My one-on-one so far is turning out very well. (Michelle just yelled at me for asking her a grammar question!) It's almost like I'm relearning psych - but in a good way. There are different names (obviously) for every psychologist and type of psychotherapy theory - so I'm relearning it all. I like one-on-one because it is very oriented on me (as it should be) - but I'm just not used to being asked what I want to study, when I want to study it, and what direction I want to take the class in. Studying psych, even in this foreign language, continues to remind me how much I love it.

Classical and newspaper are my two electives, although Midd requires us to take Classical if we want to be a Chinese major. So far Classical Chinese has just been going over different forms of grammar (some of which I barely knew in English) but we start on stories next week! Newspaper I just moved into last week (from literature - which was by far wayyy too much work) and I'm so far enjoying it because it really does give me a chance to understand parts of Chinese society that I might otherwise not be privy too. For example, this week is all about agricultural farmers trying to take a test that would allow them to work jobs with more stability and better pay. In China the amount of people taking these tests are record breaking, but only .02% of people will pass and get one of these "worker" jobs. It's articles like those that remind me how large China really is.

Other than that I'm just still working on settling in. I had my first trip to the doctor this week after much insistence from my roommate - turns out it was nothing serious, have been taking the pills they gave me, and am much better. CET is in contact with an "international department" of a much larger hospital - so they all spoke English and I was treated it seemed much better than some of the other people were. Best of all they took my credit card, because it seems that in China very few banks actually accept Mastercard. Have they not seen the commercials?! In other health news the school has started implementing H1N1 precautions, meaning we have to take our temperature twice a day. If it rises above 37 degrees celsius we have to let our resident director know. While a little scary, it's nice that they're taking precautions - and I guess H1N1 is just something we're all going to have to get used to, no matter where we are.

This weekend I'm off to my roommate's house for a few days for our "small group travel weekend" after which I'm back early Sunday to keep on slaving away with the homework.

Love and miss you all.