I’ve had my weird tutor issues (I now have 2 tutors, neither of which is the tutor I began with), and the aforementioned house issues. But in the end I haven’t had much chance to experience Beijing, really. I live pretty far out in the ‘burbs, so it really feels like an epic journey to get into town. With Beijing traffic, a cab ride into interesting places will often take an hour, and the bus ride to the nearest subway station is 40 minutes.
A lot of people have been telling me to just get out of the house every day, but sometimes it just feels like such an effort, since a large part of the day I need to be studying. At least at the house I know what I’m in for, and in the end China is just so darn loud (ok…my home here isn’t exactly quiet with the baby either, but there’s always headphones!)…I never thought of myself as someone who really wanted a lot of quiet, but there it is. Must be the lack of sleep or structure or activity getting to me. For those of you who know me well, you know I very much like to DO things. With notable exceptions, I tend to gravitate towards activity and progress towards something. Whereas here, I know in theory I have a goal (i.e., learn as much Chinese as possible, which is, I hope, going decently well despite the turnover in tutors), but that is a bit nebulous in the end.
Oh, and for those of you who were curious about my travel plans after the tutoring/homestay program is over, Doug and I have made our decisions. Yes, Doug is coming out on December 9th (YAY!), for his first trip back to China in 10 years and staying until December 23rd, at which point we’ll both head back to Washington, DC. I’m looking forward to showing him how it’s changed. But I digress…we’ve decided to forego Xixuangbanna, a location I mentioned to many of you before I left (after about 1 week of going back and forth repeatedly on the idea). We realized that if we wanted to do it right, we would need to spend both of our two weeks there to do it right, and both of us agreed that Dali and Lijiang were must-sees, if for no other reason than we always wanted to go to Dali 10 years ago and didn’t have the time. So as a result we’re going to visit Guilin, Yangshuo, Dali, and Lijiang. We bought our plane tickets today, so it’s all set and we can’t change our minds again! J
Oh, and just cause I thought I should prove I’m actually in Beijing, here’s a picture taken by Erin today at Tiantan (The Temple of Heaven)…and my hair is standing up because of the wind…not some new-fangled hairstyle!
Sorry about the somewhat boring and disjointed post, but guess I’m just in a funk today. Maybe hitting the half-way mark has thrown my mental state for a loop…more fun next time I promise!
1 comment:
Your after-program travel sounds awesome.
Don't be too hard on yourself for taking it easy and staying in more than you otherwise would. It's really tiring to be learning a language so intensely, and getting out of the house isn't going to give you a break from the foreign language thing.
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