Oh wait... I just had an epiphany of sorts. I had been planning on going to campus early to eat lunch before class. After that, I was going to play some pickup basketball with students out there and hopefully make a few English-speaking friends. However, this may all change seeing that my teacher was suddenly overtaken by this horrible disease of a fever. Hmmm I will have to ask Josh and Danielle about this. Perhaps I will just go to eat and play basketball, or perhaps I will hang around here.
There are a lot of things here that need to be done. I need to study more of the Chinese that I learned on Tuesday. I was practicing yesterday with Danielle and I can put together some simple phrases (grammatically-correct, even). I was talking to an English-speaking student yesterday and I would throw in a Chinese word or phrase in the conversation every chance I could. I was pretty proud of myself. I also could go running around the lake which I described in a previous post. Plus, I was also planning on going to Jarred's tonight to pump a little iron (It's tough to keep up with all of these Chinese jocks around, you know?). If not all of that, I need to figure out my video camera, tune the violin that was lent to me for my stay, and........................
Well that was an adventure. Many things just happened in between the writing of these two paragraphs... First, my parents called on skype from America, so I talked with them for a while. Halfway through the conversation, the phone rings (FYI: this phone rings when someone at the gate of the apartment building wants to be let in)... (and by the way, I am home alone, because Josh and Danielle are still at the police station). So I told my parents to hang on a minute while I go see who it is. This conversation then takes place:
Me: "Hello?"
Them: "Please open door" (in a Chinese accent)
Me: "Who is this?"
Them: (Chinese words)
Me: "I dont speak Chinese..."
Them: (More Chinese words)
Me: "Hang on. Let me go ask my brother" (I said this knowing that they obviously had no idea what I was talking about).
I then walked away from the phone, leaving these unknown Chinese people outside with hopes that they will go away and not come in to beat me up. I then told my parents that people wanted to get in and then I called Josh... No answer. Danielle, thank goodness, picked up her phone and told me what to do. So I went back over, pushed the button to open the gate, opened the apartment door, and waited as they slowly climbed the three flights of steps to where I stood. The ominous echoes of the steps of the four pairs of feet rung through the stairwell. When they got to the door, I noticed that they were younger than me and were wearing very nice business suits. I handed the phone to the guy and let Danielle talk to them in Chinese. When they hung up, they gave the phone back, said goodbye, and I shut the door.
I walked back to the computer where my parents were waiting for my return. Unfortunately, my microphone started messing up. Apparently, all that they could hear on their end was the noises of the microphone moving around and me yelling "Mom!!" (I yelled "Mom" just so they could hear me, but it came across to her as a cry for help). They had a webcam so I could see them freaking out, thinking that their son was being beaten by Chinese government officials on the other side of the world; and I had no way of telling them otherwise. FINALLY, I got through to them by just typing my messages to them. So, we're all good. But it was pretty funny; that whole situation.
So anyway, Josh and Danielle just got back so Im gonna go eat my breakfast and get started on my day. So long from across the world...
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