Catching Up

Victory number 259 of the day: I switched Blogger back to English on my dashboard. Hold your applause.

In case you actually read this thing and have half a mind to care about me (all 12 of you out there...), I have indeed been depressed lately. However, I am sorting things out with a lot of help from Dad and some good friends. Things are getting better, and I am growing exponentially. So that's really all I have to say about that.

Apart from that, I've been reminded by more than one person lately that I've been a bit absent on this very blog. My apologies. Life has been very similar to the usual daily grind of a 20 (almost 21) year-old guy studying Chinese in Beijing for a year. Classes are getting quicker in progression and so are the weeks. It seems that Monday butts up against Friday these days with very little Wednesday in between. Yesterday I remembered the Chinese word for park to tell the taxi driver. It's "gongyuan" in case you were curious. I realize that Chinese looks all the same in roman letters. It really does have a very narrow range of sound combinations phonetically. But it's kind of pretty after all.

Yesterday was a day of many taxis, it turned out. In a different taxi I told the driver "BeiShiDa de Dong Men" which actually sounds like "Bay-shur-dah duh dung mer" because I'm in Beijing and they put "rr" on the ends of things. So when the taxi driver said it back, he actually said it without the "rr" sound. He said "Bay-shur-da dong mun" which is how it should be said with no Beijing accent. I told him he said "mun" instead of "mer" and he said that "mer" isn't Mandarin. I laughed so hard. He basically condemned all his taxi driving colleagues' Mandarin in one fell swoop. Taxi drivers' Mandarin is the hardest to understand because they have the thickest accents. I like Beijing accent, but sometimes that's the difference between a solid standard American accent and a Brooklyn one.

I learned recently that Shanghai people and Beijing people are mortal enemies. They each think they are the more cosmopolitan people of China. Shanghai is the business city whereas Beijing is the capitol. It's probably like Los Angeles vs. New York in the United States. New York is totally better, by the way. I can say that now, since I've spent a few days in each.

Beijing is coldish now. The winter's coming on fast ready to kill! for you Les Mis fans. It's been in the 40's today. I wore a scarf today for the first time in China. Well, the first real time. I wore one a while back because it was cold from the air-con in my dorm, but that was more of a joke. I am hesitant to wear my peacoat at this point in the cold weather because that is conceding defeat. I don't have anything heavier or warmer than that one big wool coat, so if I wear it in October, that means I'll just die when January rolls around.

My roommate and I are considering moving in with a guy we met here. He's a good guy, and I would save $100 USD per month by living in that apartment. It's hard to say no to that kind of money, you know? We're going to decide tomorrow, I think. So far I'm in favor, but we'll have to see. My American girl friends are planning on moving to an apartment, too. They want in that same building because they really like the apartments there. I'll let you know when we decide.

Ok, I should go home now. I ditched class today to study, which I did, but I should be responsible and head home and continue studying without the distraction of free wi-fi in "shing-bah-ku kah-fay" which is how one says Starbucks coffee here. I actually used that today.

T