Sino-psis

yeah, so, i'm taking classes now. that you should have inferred from the previous blog and your sense of time passing. but now, let's talk about what's been going on. i've been studying. and reading and writing and speaking and listening and feeling my feet sinking deeper and deeper into the not quite sandy ground around me. it's a soothing feeling, this soaking up of knowledge culture semantics whatever you want to call it, but there are ever distractions.

such as last night; there was a nice big party across from the school at a four bedroom apartment rented by foreign country people. there were probably sixty plus people milling around at one point in that apartment, judging by the amount of shoes crowded around the door. i made it no farther than the kitchen before being halted by a human briar patch that was murmuring burbling discussing in as many as ten different languages. quite a sight. i actually got hit by a water balloon on the way in to the building, if that helps you decipher what kind of party i'm talking about. i had an all right time, meeting a korean guy named adonis and a self-proclaimed scottish alcoholic. there were some shirts taken off in one of the rooms as a liquid container spun knowingly in their midst and a han brit was cracking me up with a manufactured southern drawl. all in all, that was a raht nice lil shindig.

but i'm straying from the bulk of my interest these days, that being my studies. i've had a full week now and gotten to know all of my teachers. i won't go into the details of each of them, as i'm still deciding on a few, but let's just say i have four teachers and they are all seemingly qualified. and young. it reminds me of how i was spending my last year and what kind of qualifications i was hefting before me to halt any criticism. still, they all seem nice and speak fairly clearly. i'm satisfied where i am.

on the side i've been playing badminton and ping pong with some friends (getting the snot kicked out of me by a 70 plus year old japanese man in one, and a 22 year old aussie in the other) and finding new and exciting places at which to eat. i'm getting involved in a chinese club on campus hosted by a very gregarious graduate student and i'm weighing my options for the upcoming october break. should i just stay here? go to thailand? climb over to tibet? lots to do round here.

hrm. i just noticed that these past couple of paragraphs have no life in them. i'm just kinda writing for the sake of writing, but since it's all old news to me, i'm writing it as such. boring. oh yeah! i was wondering earlier today how exactly do headphones or stereos or any kind of electonic noise makers work? this was spawned by my ten thousandth exasperated cry when a car near me honked for no reason at all. from there i thought, man, shouldn't that horn eventually break? and then to, so is it just vibration that makes that noise? does it have moving parts? etc etc. i'm sure it's all very simple science and i'll look it up on howstuffworks after i post this, but it's just something that i don't think about that often. we're surrounded by little pieces of technology that make up bigger and bigger pieces and we take them for granted. centuries of human invention have resulted in the days we are living, but we still look to the future as if the present isn't the most amazing freaking thing ever! and we totally forget about the past, too. this laptop i'm using was just a dream the day i was born. and what dreams may come? what inchoate machinations are percolating in the head of some genius that will change our lives, our futures? or a more sobering thought: what ambitious leader will stand on the shoulders of the great inventors and leaders of the past to wipe out all hope of a future for us? and how in the heck did i get to that idea from car horns?

anyhoo, i'm done for now. but i have to say one more thing. if you're anywhere near a decent sushi restaurant, please, please, go and eat some for me. kunming is bereft and so am i. my only regret for leaving shanghai. ah well, at least i have my memories.

i'll try to think of something more intristing to write for next time.

e