America in 5 Minutes

This week has been simultaneously eventful and yet not much of mention.

I have a new partner my friend introduced me to at the gym. And since I'm me, there is obviously a story attached. She wants to practice her English, which is decent already, and since I already ended my dedicated language pledge with speaking to my mother I decided why not. Turns out this girl is, in the Chinese sense of beauty, an absolute knockout model of perfection. I wouldn't quite echo this sentiment, but after I spoke with her the first time at the gym all the male trainers found me in the locker room and asked me what I thought, what we talked about, if I could introduce them to her, etc. I was the cool kid before due to being white, large, and powerful with my use of the Chinese language, but now I have achieved superstar status after becoming this girls tutor. These people are fascinating sometimes.

Speaking of, the topic is America in 5 minutes. I have been wracking my brain all week trying to think of my topic for my end of semester presentation. At the end of the semester we head to a rural school and give our 5 minute presentation to a class of students using Chinese to introduce something about America. Last year it took me a long time to think of something and finally decide upon football, and this year is just as difficult. Other students are doing Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the NBA, but I feel these topics aren't unique and engaging enough. So far my list has cowboys and barbeque as the top contenders, but I still haven't decided and must do so soon. Just can't think of what to tell them about.

My technology jynx continues. My camera, gameboy, external hard drive, and computer (fan) all continue to betray me at random points and either not load, not charge, or malfunction randomly. However, I still do not trust the mechanics in China to not break my things: America hurry!

I kept starting a topic this week about the things I miss most, but I just couldn't bring myself to go through it all. I wanted to commemorate that I had under a month to go and start getting myself excited about America, but it is still too soon to start doing so without getting too homesick. The majority of the things I missed revolved around Bob and JJ and all the things that I used to do in Hangzhou for fun. I still do some of them in Beijing, but no one understands me.

And perhaps the best news for last, I found and bought the ultimate Christmas gift for myself and the other members of the workout team. I can't say what it is since I don't want to ruin the surprise in case they read this, but I can say it involved long dealings, shady transactions, and possible bribery. Epic gifts are epic.