So, get this. Yesterday morning, I wake up tangled in my comforter in like, SWELTERING heat. This is quite unusual since I like to sleep with my AC blasted at like 16 degrees celsius. Getting up to look at my AC, I find that the vents are still open but the power is off. Hm. I guess it might've died sometime in the night. So, I hop out of bed to do my morning ritual (showering, brushing of the teeths, hopping on the internet, the usual). When I turn on the bathroom light, I find... that it doesn't turn on. And neither do ALL OF MY LIGHTS.
I have ZERO power in my room. No way to charge my cell phone that I use as an alarm clock (which is completely dead now), no way to charge my laptop (which says I will have like a measly two hours), no way to turn on the lights at night (I only remedy this by not going into my room until I absolutely have to sleep... in the pitch blackness), and best of all, no air conditioning in the humid heat.
Delicious.
Turns out that I should've paid for my accommodations at this other building on Monday, which would've given me 120kw/h for free, and then I could've paid for more electricity if I needed it. (Can you imagine the hotel person's face when I said, "Um, hi, I've been here for 3 days and I'm already out of power.") I actually only used up like 20 kw/h these past few days, and the whole situation with paying for electricity, getting free electricity, paying for accommodations, etc etc is really confusing. I thought Beloit was supposed to be paying for the room and board???? Hm.
But I guess all clouds have their silver lining. Yesterday, I woke up groggy and pissy that I had absolutely no power, so taking a freezing cold shower in my dark bathroom really kind of woke me up. And also, since I (thought) I had no internet, I actually opened up my chinese textbook and studied. Woooow.
That's basically what I did all of yesterday afternoon. I also made my regular breakfast outing with Emily off of campus, through the south gate of Shandong U, making a straight shot down the street into this amazing bakery bun-shop, where I can stuff my face silly with delectable chocolate covered crossaints, wee breakfast tarts, and other assorted goodness. Hahaha. However, things kind of took a turn for the worse. Naturally we decide that the only thing we want after breakfast is nai cha, which is like bubbly milk tea. Yummy? Yes? So we approach the counter of this tiny place and ask for a coffee-flavored milk tea. She asks if we want it cold; obviously, we said, "sure!" As we're chatting about what else the day holds for us, I suddenly hear ice grinding. I freeze up, and I said, "Emily. She's putting ICE in it."
What's so bad about ice, you say?
Long story short, when we had first arrived in Kaifeng, the boys split off one day to get lunch at McDonalds (ugh) and came back sicker than dogs. The girls (Emily and I) got lunch at a food vendor, some steamed buns and stuff. We were fine. The boys spent the whole day on the toilet. The ENTIRE DAY on the toilet. Oh yes. So after a little detective work, we realized what had made them sick. Their cokes had ice in them, and when the ice melts, all the dirty unclean water used to make the ice infiltrates into their drink, making them have severe, uh.. yeah, you get the picture.
Emily says, "ohhh no." And we apologize to the stand person profusely and ask for it without ice. "Sorry! Sorry! OH GOD I DON'T WANT TO GET SICK!" (didn't actually say the last part but that's basically what was on our minds). The stand person shrugs and says, "mei shi" (which means, "No problem") and turns around. Being sneaky-sneaky, eh? Because HE SPOONED THE ICE OUT INTO THE TRASH AND PROMPTLY GAVE THE DRINK BACK TO US.
By now, I'm mortified at the thought of sipping a coffee-flavored laxative. Emily is holding the drink with a cautious (read: disgusted) look on her face. She hasn't gotten sick this entire trip (yet, haha) whereas the rest of us have had bouts of something bad. After some deliberation, we decide, "What the hell, we paid for it, the ice didn't sit in the drink for more than 3 seconds, if we get sick, whatever, it won't be that bad." We drink it.
Fast forward 2 hours.
My tummy hurts. Emily's tummy hurts. We do the business, CURSING the stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ice. Awesome, I know. No more "cold" bubble tea for me.
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As for the latter half of this post, "Connections", all I want to say is that on top of all the other little crappy things that kind of bum me out everyday (missing friends, missing home, not having electricity, drinking cold teas that may or may not make me stay in the bathroom for long periods of time), I'm having a blast meeting some more the international students. In my last post, I mentioned the "American plan" to win over our international mates. Well, it worked. There are so many awesome people here from London, Scotland, Ireland, England, oh, it's ridiculous. They're all here for only about two more weeks. They've been doing this summer intensive Chinese program, and none of them knew Chinese beforehand. It's been awesome going out with them and talking to them about life across the pond. Haha. We all actually went to this Karaoke place (I've never been karaoke-ing before) and it was hilariously incredible. The place looked like a Vegas strip packed into this tiny building with freakin' Call Girls everywhere! It was kind of creepy but it made for a fun night. We were all singing songs in English, eating watermelon, hanging out and talking! Such good fun. I'm going to be sad when they leave :(
But yeah. Today is a brand new day (sans electricity in my room)- I've got a bunch of things to do today, including registering for classes (yaaaay.), buy more electricity, and study some more chinese!
Cool. I'll catch you guys later! <3
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