She Lives!

Wow, guys. I'm so sorry for the long wait. Belive me, it was not intentional, but my life has been very busy for the past few weeks. I believe the last time I wrote was the beginning of December. Again, wow. So what have I been up to exactly to keep me so busy?

Well, first of all, you might remember that I told you about that a-cappella group that I'm in and also that we were supposed to perform in a concert. That didn't happen, the plan got cancelled , as happens so often in China :D So, it was decided that we should record ourselves singing and make a little music video. What I didn't expect was that our university has an actual recording studio. With switchboard and everything. We all had to go into the scary room with the microphone one by one and sing our part, which was nerve-wracking for me, but I did it! And the result is actually kind of adorable, you can watch it here. Oh, by the way, the other foreigner is my roommate <3

In the recording studio.

What else happened? One of my dear friends, Jay, went back to Korea. So obviously we went out to celebrate. My first night out in Xi'an, it was pretty amazing. And the night watch was only a little bit mad at us when we got back (just kidding, he was very mad, but what can you do). You are missed Jay!

Then of course, I had my speech competition. I have a story to tell. It's a story to tell about the competitive spirit of Chinese teachers. So during the week leading up to the competition, I had to go rehearse with five of our teachers and the other participating students pretty regularly. Of course, they want you to be perfect. On its own, not that crazy yet, right? Well, after the last rehearsal they asked me to stay behind because they had something to discuss. What was it they wanted to discuss, you ask? Well, the problem was that I had no clothes that they deemed appropriate for a big competition. So, they decided to send me shopping with one of the teachers to find something fitting. I got permission by my academic supervisor to skip a day of classes to walk around a giant shop for costume renting in order to find the perfect dress. It was expected of me to wear a 旗袍 qipao, a traditional Chinese dress. Turns out though, that Chinese sizes and European sizes are quite different. In the end I went home with a Qipao in size XXL. It did look nice though. Then I also had to get high-heels and put my hair up in a bun. All for four minutes of fame. The day of the competition itself was not as exciting, I won a flash drive and a wireless mouse, which I haven't gotten to work :D the flash drive is super cool though. I really hope that this will be the end of my affair with speech competitions. It's not something I enjoy.

After all of this was done, it was time for what? That's right, exams! And also Christmas! Some really crazy times were had. A little bit of studying was done and mulled wine was made. All the exams went pretty well, probably owing to the fact that a lot of times you just had to learn the questions from the textbook by heart because the teachers didn't want to think of their own questions. I even did well on the translation test, which I'm actually quite proud of. We had to translate a Tang poem from Chinese to English, with rhyme scheme and Iambic pentameter and everything. This exam by the way, was on the second day of Christmas. Unthought of :D Which brings me right around to our little Christmas celebration. We had classes in the morning of course. Then I went for a walk through the park with some friends, which was really beautiful. When we got back we started making pancakes with all the people living on our floor and also some other people from the dorm. In the end it turned out to be about 40 people. These things do happen. It was really fun, and the pancakes were delicious, obviously. Nutella and bananas. Afterwards the European gang and some invited Chinese friends had our private little celebration with gift exchanging and more mulled wine :) Also the Christmas Oratorio of course. It was a really nice Christmas, only lacking in family, cat and snow.

The tree.

Christmas walk.

One of my presents :)

Some other stuff happened in December, went to have hotpot a few times, went to KTV, went swimming, everyday stuff. The details are getting a little blurry. Again, sorry for the wait.

That will be all for this post, there will be another one following shortly with all my travels up to now. Currently I'm in 高雄 Gaoxiong, Taiwan. Taiwan so far has been great :) More details soon!

Chinese Word of the Day: 拖鞋 tuoxie, slippers. Very important when staying in hostels.