Dear all –
Day number two of the program! We got up to take the placement tests around 7:30, as the test began at 8:30. The tests were being held in the No 8 building, right behind our dorms. I walk into the classroom where the test is scheduled to take place, and as soon as I sit down, a teacher walks up to me and says, “Are you Jamey?” Yes… It turns out that the placement tests that I took back home didn’t make it to Hamilton at all. They’re lost somewhere in cyberspace, in the realm of the broken Hamilton server. So I had to go into another room with 4 other guys (so much for the dominance of our sex), and I took the exact same test as before. It wasn’t that bad, except for that I had to complete three tests (listening, reading, writing) while everyone else was just doing writing.
Luckily, my oral exam was at 12:15, giving me plenty of time to finish the test and even head back to the room to hang out. My oral exam went well. They are supposed to last 15 minutes, but I was out in about 10, which kinda scared me. I had to wait until 4 o’clock to determine my class. You’ll have to wait in suspense, as I did.
I know that it’s been cold this whole time, but I’m pretty sure that yesterday took the cake. I was about miserable walking to meet some students for lunch after my oral exam. We ate at a Congee restaurant, but I refrained from eating Congee today. Maybe I can bring myself to eat it later. Congee is a grain or vegetable dish, where one simply mashes the grain – or vegetable – into a pot, cooks it, and puts some spices in the dish. Most Congee is served sweet. While I was there, I met Joy (Shazeda’s roommate who lives in Miami. She actually grew up in China, but moved to the US before high school. She attended college on the East Coast, and now she lives outside Orlando.) And also Cliff (he lives in San Francisco, and goes to college in Seattle. He is familiar with Portland, and we share a love for the Powell’s bookstore there.)
After lunch, Cailin (previously and erroneously spelled as Kaylin; it is still pronounced the same, however) and I went to Carrefour again. She had to grab some more domestic items, and I bought a teacup, some hangers, and a bag of tea for myself. I’m drinking some of this tea now. Then we trudged back to the dorm in the wind, which was incredible. We (the 6th floor) spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in my room or in the big room at the end of the hall. Lee can play guitar extremely well, and we literally spent the entire day passing the guitar back and forth playing songs that we knew. She started playing when she was 8, and is very good at finger picking. We have some of the same tastes in music, and a mutual admiration of Cat Power.
At 4 we all headed over to the second floor to see what class we were in. The suspense is killing you, right? I could be placed in classes ranging from 2nd year to 5th year, and I made… … 4th year! I’m so excited (can’t you tell?). There are a good many of us in the 4th year class: Cristina Lillian, Emily, Shazeda and more. I believe there are 13 of us in all. We hung out on the 6th floor for a while after that, until we got hungry. A group of us decided to eat at the place we visited last night, which turned out to be a ChengDu restaurant, not a SiChuan one. It was delicious, yet again, and ridiculously cheap. We ate beltfish, cucumbers, Japanese tofu, beef and peppers, and tree fungus.
Then, we all braved the cold and went back to the dorms for the evening. Some brave souls went back out into the cold and visited the bars, but I chilled in the room with Lee and others. We played guitar for a while, then went to bed around 12.
The language pledge starts tomorrow, and I won’t be able to speak in English to any of the people in this country. I can still write journals and call people on Skype, but other than that, there will be no English in my next four months.
I’ll write soon!
Jamey
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