Today I woke up feeling refreshed! However, the day did not look refreshed after the weekend, and we all awoke to a dawn of smog and cloud cover. And while I may not have looked it when I walked into class, I was almost ready to be back in class again after a long break… Almost. This is an update from the ACC program: They have now decided to push up the time that class starts to about 7:55 in the morning. I came to class right at 8, and missed the first half of the morning quiz. What do you know? I have a theory, and starting class before 8 in the morning is just inhumane… You may not agree with me, but we will have to agree to disagree.
Class was fun – in a way that only grueling Chinese classes can be – and I met someone interesting. There is only one other person with a beard to speak of, and he is Shazeda’s good friend who lives off campus. I met him today, and we talked about the importance of beards for mental health and other reasons in between classes. It is good to know I have a comrade-in-beard here in the program. I got out of my last class and hotfooted it over to the gym to get some exercise in before my individual class.
However, Bally was not in the mood to let me in. It turns out that this horrible holiday is still going on, and they were going to open at 12 (I got there at 11). What is going on? I decided that I needed to get an extra week at the end of my membership to compensate this last week. We will see how that goes down; I’m sure you can guess.
I was not about to twiddle my thumbs for an hour, so I came back to the dorm and skyped Morgan. It was great to talk to her, and she definitely helps me keep my sanity in this place! Sadly, I didn’t have time to get food before my individual class, and I pigeonholed food for a little while longer. After my individual class, I had to talk to the director of the program for a few minutes. She was checking on our mental health, and I think that I passed…
Then I made a quick run by the room and went over to Bally. I did my running and exercising, then came back to the dorm. I was getting pretty hungry at this point. I heard that Lee was getting a little sick, and I stopped by her dorm to see how she was doing. Turns out that she was not doing so well. She said that she could use some good medicine for her sinuses and lungs, as she was having a lot of problems with her asthma today. (Most of the other people in the program were also having problems with their breathing. Luckily, I have escaped this fate! This is a real first for me, not being the some sick with all of the things that I get sick from.) With a smile on her face and a challenge in her eyes, she also said that she could use some antibiotics. I said that I could find her some, no problem. She did not believe me.
So what does one who has recently been commissioned to find medications do? I had to employ by Sherlockian logic to the situation: find the guy from Uganda. Wes would assuredly have some medications. He did have some medicine, but mostly for malaria and other sorts of deadly tropical diseases. That does me no good. I also learned that he was sick with either malaria or the flu; he would have to wait and see what his symptoms are in a few days. That’s not very good. He can’t keep any food down, is running a fever, and is extremely tired. I made a mental note of that.
He did mention that Hannah, his girlfriend, had some medicine, and I went and talked to her about the situation. Hannah is the daughter of a doctor, and she is all business when it comes to medicine. Lee couldn’t believe it when I strolled into the room and presented her with her very own doctor. Victory! Hannah and I had enough meds between the two of us to get her on a little regimen. We had to do something for her; she had been getting worse over the last few days.
That’s when I realized that I’d told Shazeda that I would go to Carrefour with her (I still have not eaten). I had a little bit of a panic attack when I realized that (I still hadn’t done any of my homework at this point). So we took a cab over to the supermarket of dreams, and vowed to make this a quick run. We found breakfast food for the next week, and I found some jelly to augment the peanut butter that Morgan sent me! We spent a little while trying to find ginger ale for Wes. You can buy a two-liter of Coke in this country for 5 Yuan, but to get a little can of ginger ale, it costs 4 Yuan. What is happening to all of the ginger grown in this country that the price of ginger ale is 4 Yuan per bottle?!
We left Carrefour, having burned 45 minutes in the labyrinthine shelves. It wasn’t a land speed record, but may have been a personal record (I still haven’t eaten; I’m about to eat our cabbie or another Chinese person). We cabbed it back to the dorm, separated our food, and then pulled together a party to get some food. Hannah, Lauren, Shazeda and I all crossed ZhongGuanCun Street to eat at the roast duck restaurant from two Fridays ago. We ate roast lamb, stir-fried potatoes, eggplant, green beans with peppers, and rice. It was a very good meal. We chatted during the meal, and everyone was mesmerized that Morgan and I are as serious as we are in our relationship J
We all walked back to the dorm, to a disharmonious chorus of fireworks. Today marks the 5th day of the new year, and that means that everyone has to set off more fireworks. Why?! The air quality in the city has not been improved by the millions of fireworks that are being set off tonight. I walked into the dorm and vowed to do some homework. But before I managed to begin my work, I checked my email, which led me to turn on Skype, through which, I in turn did not go to sleep until one in the morning. However, it was very nice to talk to Morgan and Ma some. I hadn’t heard from the family in what seemed like a long time. Now I’m caught up on life in Demopolis.
Sleep!
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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