二零一二年，六月二十六和二十七号，星期二和三

On Tuesday, I woke up at 6:30am and ate breakfast after folding my bed and brushing my teeth. Mom got me some doufunao and shaobing. I left home 7:07am and got to 五道口 at around 8am. I had to move a bike out of the way to get to mine, and was soon on my way to Tsinghua. I got to the South Gate fine but missed the street in the campus, which led to the class room. There were tons of bikes heading in the opposite direction I was going, and it was difficult to cross the street. Thankfully, a guard helped me pass the streaming traffic of bicycles. I turned around and went back to Zhishanlu, where I found Building #24 Xīn Zhāi. I arrived very early (around 8:30am), parked my bike, and sent mom a text message to confirm my location.

The intermediate level classes were in Room 154 on the first floor, while beginner level classes were held on the 3rd floor. There were eight of us in Intermediate. Sam, Tyler, Jack, Josh, Chris, Nydia, Myles, and me. The first class was Listening (tīngli kè). Our teacher is Gù 老师. The second class, from 10:30m – 12pm, was Reading with Zhào 老师. I could understand most of what was being spoken, but couldn’t read a lot of the characters. So even if I could understand, I couldn’t really answer any of the questions on paper.

When class ended, Chen Xi showed me where I could buy notebooks. I bought one small paper bound notebook and one big one with 清华大学 written in red letters. I also purchased an eraser. Afterwards, I ate lunch with Chris at one of the school cafeterias that accept cash. I asked Chen Xi if she could get me a meal card. She said she would ask them tomorrow because the office isn’t open today. Chris and I both at luroufan. The meal wasn’t bad. Both of us biked to 五道口 after lunch, where I took Line 13 home.

It started raining the moment I got out of the subway station at Liufang. I ran home, but still got soaked. It was about 2:30pm in the afternoon. I have been catching up on my journal entries ever since. I’ve still got a while before I catch up on my blog posts though. Plus, I have to study. Tomorrow I can leave the house at 7:30pm – that way, I won’t be too early.

~ end of entry 8:37pm, Living room table

The next day, I had speaking and listening classes. We got meal cards afterwards, but they weren’t the typical student meal cards. They were paper money cards that cost 20元 but only gave you 14元 for food (a 6元  fee!). What a bad deal! Anyways, I had a plate of chaobing and two baozi for lunch. I sat with Chris and Jennifer. Today, Chris decided to move down to the High Beginner level class, while Jen moved up. Around 1:15pm, all the students met in front of the ISA office/classroom building and biked to Yuanmingyuan – an ancient ruin of a European palace looted and destroyed by invading countries in the year 1861. It was the result of Britain and France invading China during the second Opium War. The ruins were very grand and once made up a European style mansion built in 1709 for Emperor Kangxi’s fourth son as a reward. This son later became Yongzheng Huangdi, a very well known emperor, who expanded the mansion. It was fully completed in 1770 with all the palaces and landscaping.

The park was fun to walk around despite the depressing story behind it’s ruin. Chinese people have a lot of hatred towards Western people because of the burning of Yuanmingyuan among other historically valuable places. It was not a very good idea for Tyler and Jack to climb the ruins – very disrespectful. We biked back to the ISA office to pick up the textbooks. Then I biked to 五道口 and took the subway home. I spent the afternoon making flashcards and ate dinner at the usual time, 6:30pm. It was dumplings and porridge.

~ end of entry, 7:38pm, Living room table