Weekend!! It's a lazy saturday morning, having woken up in my stone-hard bed (maybe this is a Chinese thing, maybe it's supposed to build character, or maybe the university was just being stingy when buying the mattresses...), the sun is still shining and i have a whole day ahead of me to spend as i choose. Not bad at all :)

The week went by quickly, I guess I am now getting used to the rhythm of things here. A typical day for me now would be like this: Morning classes, come home for lunch and a nap (yes, I'm even getting into the Chinese way of sleeping through most of the lunch break), afternoon classes, come home for a break, Chinese class/Taiji class, and to end it all, the evening English corner class. So my classes would typically begin at 8 or at 10, and finish at 9 p.m. The classes with the PhD group are going great, and I am actually looking forward to the classes and meeting everyone. It's a good bunch of people where everyone knows each other, so even personal things can be discussed. And people are used to joking about each other (sometimes going a bit far, but hey, if that's the way they do it here...) so there's a lot of laughter in the classroom.

Now, the English corner then... What I was told by Mrs Feng when I accepted to do it (2 hours in the evening from monday to thursday), I got the idea that it would just be students meeting for a chat en English, and I'd be there to chat with them. But, from what it seems now, in reality I should be giving a two-hour presentation every night to a group of about 60 students. Hummm... I wish I had never agreed to do the whole thing, but it's too late for that now, so I just need to think of a way of doing it which does not involve me writing a long speech for every evening. The students speak surprisingly good English though (even better than my PhDs), so I just need to somehow get them talking instead of me.

An interesting (and to me funny) thing here is how the girls come up to me with all these compliments and elaborate declarations of how they find me beautiful. In the English corner class a girl came to tell me during the break that I'm pretty like a Barbie doll and that my eyes are like beautiful blue lakes. What an earth are you supposed to even say to that?! I just kinda try not to laugh too much and say thanks. I wonder if I should do the same and start telling everyone how great I think they look? Lots of pretty girls around at the university!

This week I've dared to venture on shopping expeditions to new places, trying to use the few words of Chinese I know and my hands for the rest. So, I've left the impersonal comfort of the Home Club supermarket behind and taken a look at what else is around here. Practically all I need in everyday life I can get from the street, which runs past the Ju Guang gate and ends a hundred meters down the road at the west gate of the university. There are a number of small shops, selling cosmetics, shoes, clothes, and of course those chinese shops selling just about everything plastic. But the real fun is the street vendors on the sidewalks, selling all kinds of food, snacks, books, CDs etc. And there is a little bicycle repair man, whose shop is just a 2 meter strech of the street. And then, best of all, 50 m up the street is a covered market, where they sell fruit, veg, fish, meat, spices, ready-made dishes... you name it. Great stuff!! And cheaper than the supermarket. So far I think they've been giving me a fair price and I've had none of that "let's rip the white person off" -nonsense that I was expecting. And how do I know this? I once went there with some students who helped me out the first time to buy some fruit, and when I've gone back on my own, the prices have been the same.

Last night we went out with Griselle and two blokes who work at the No. 17 Middle School in Baoding, which is where she used to work last year. Bob is in his late 50s or early 60s (I'd say...) and is one of the most political and radically leftist people I've met. He hates the USA with passion (and he is American...) and couldn't wait to get out of the country. He is envisioning a revolution in the US, which would follow a stock market crash, but for now he thinks he'll just keep dreaming of it from a safe distance, i.e. China. Juan, on the other hand, is a 22-year-old Puerto Rican who's been studying International Relations and Development and will be here until January before going to do an internship in Washington and is also hoping to find a way to do another one in Senegal or elsewhere in French-speaking Africa next year. These two make an interesting duo, as they live next to each other and see a lot of each other, but keep snapping at each other, especially whenever Bob brings politics into conversation (which is about every 2 minutes before someone tells him to drop it).

Anyway, we went to a really nice Chinese (surprise!!) restaurant, where the food was excellent. We ordered a few dishes (Juan speaks fluent Chinese, which helps...): fish, chicken and peanuts in chili sauce, eggplant in some yummy sauce, and mushrooms and these funny green vegetables. Mmmm. Afterwards, we thought we'd find a bar or somewhere to sit down for a drink, and ended up going to 'Rolling Stones', which is a bar/nightclub in the centre of the town. The place is so cheesy it's almost great. So, we sat there for a while, having a drink and watching the Chinese do their bizarre dance rituals (the other option was to be on the side of the bar, where a singer was putting on a show of whingy Chinese lovesongs...which is why we opted for the techno-club side), which i have to say was pretty amusing. But, as we have curfews here, nights out aren't ever too long I guess, and Juan and Bob had to head back before their gate closed at 11. Not a bad night, anyway :)

Today I'm meeting up with the trio of girls from my class (Jenna, Sophia and Alexis) who still live on campus and are therefore around on weekends, too. They're going to show me another kind of dancing at the 'Student activity centre', where they have a dance hall and have waltzing and such almost every night. So, this afternoon we're taking a look, which might be either really bad, or a good laugh. We'll see. In the evening, we'll probably hook up with Malcolm and Fritha and go out for dinner.

And I *really* need to practice my Chinese pronunciation before monday's class...