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III
Trying to keep my feet warm
January 05, 2009
// 6:50 PM
I never thought I'd say this, but I quite miss that radiating heat in my dorm room back at BNU during the fall semester--yes, the one that dried me up like a prune and got a bunch of people sick. Let me tell you about my house. It's two stories with a lot of open air. My downstairs is mostly carpeted, but the family room/kitchen area is marble tiled. What does this mean? This means that in the summer, my house stays cool and almost feels like the AC is on. It also means that when winter comes, my house at some point is colder than it is outside. Which explains why I'm wearing a sweater indoors and my feet are being warmed up by the bottom of my laptop at this very moment.
Well it's well into the new year, which means that everyone is back at school while all the semester kids are staying back for at least another week. It's pretty boring and lonely at home and I found myself watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for about 3 hours today while attempting to find something to do with my time on my laptop. I'm starting to make an EAP video with all the 1000s of pictures and videos I have. It's going okay, but with the laptop reaching it's capacity and lifespan, the Windows Movie Maker isn't really helping much.
 I think I'll just recap my last week in Beijing, and post a photo or two of what went on. I think for the most part, all of us were freaking about about our final, knowing that it was going to be hard, and that we'd have to manage reviewing and preparing for it by ourselves. 201 students even had to prepare a whole lesson on their own--unfair in my opinion, but no way out of it. We were all at the same time trying to get as much tourist-y things done as well; that, and shopping for our people at home. It was a lot of cabbing and a lot of money coming out of our wallets, but it was all good and fun. I wish we had a week after finals before we had to go home, but we did with what we had. The weather there also stopped us a few times too. It was so cold the day before we left (-20 degrees fahrenheit) that everyone decided to stay in. We did get to make it to the Forbidden City and Jing Shan Park, as well as Mao's Mausoleum to see his "body." This day was one of the funner days and I had a lovely time with everyone. It included some good hutong and some good Mexican back at Sanlitun. We did everything we could in the hours we had and it was a good night. One last dinner at one of the very first restaurants we went to when we first arrived in Beijing, with some of the people we sat with that very same night. Our last night was spent in George's room playing Mafia--our game of the summer. We couldn't help but play and we did so all the way until about 3 in the morning. After that, we stayed up and even attempted to hit up the McDonald's for one last breakfast but failed, as it wasn't open yet. We resorted to eating at the airport, all tired and pooped out from carrying our luggage--all of them over 45 pounds. The ride was nice, but the stop in Hong Kong was way too long. Our flight got delayed and we ended up staying there 2 hours longer than we had to. Thank goodness for Starbucks and free wi-fi though.
The flight wasn't as great as the one going to Beijing, but it did good enough. There was a point where the turbulance was really bad, but all in all the flight went fine and it was quite short after we got to Hong Kong. We landed in SF and the first thing we saw was rain--something we'd been missing for about 4 months. It was warmer, cleaner, and the air was a lot more crisp, and I was soooo glad to be back. Too bad I had to wait at the airport for about an hour by myself to wait for my dad.
 Oh well, getting back was sweet and I loved being able to eat home cooked food again and to be able to hang out with my friends until ridiculous hours doing absolutely nothing and hitting up all the junk food places we can in one night. I hit up the mall, the movies, saw all my family, went to Cluck U (which is now called Smoke Eaters), went snowboarding at Northstar (soooooo awesome) and after ate at Mizu's, a sushi buffet in Davis, played dodgeball at Sky High (something that doesn't really look as fun as it actually is), and of course hit up my favorite Tung Kee Noodle House and Tapioca Express. Not to mention, went to Downtown San Jose to go to Christmas in the Park, ate at La Vic's, had the 7th annual Christmas Party, ate at Denny's once again, drove to SF to see my sister's new apartment, and played the beloved Rock Band. All in a good 2 weeks. I think the only thing I missed was bowling :(. I even had coupons! Oh well, it was all good and fun and it was a nice "welcome back to America" transition. All the stuff I missed, I made sure I had.
Now, I'm stuck at home with no car, while everyone has gone back to school. I have a couple of things to look forward to I guess...
+ January 7: Berkeley and San Francisco, to move in my stuff to the new apartment, also to San Francisco to finish my sister's move-in in the Richmond district
+ January 8: All new Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, okay, I had to.
+ January 9: Externship at Philip Morris USA, don't hate! It's the experience that matters.
+ January 11: Berkeley, for REACH! Outreach trainning
+ January 12-16: Central California, REACH! Central Cal Outreach trip!
+ January 19: Berkeley, for the start of school
Okay, I guess I probably won't be that bored for the next couple of weeks, but eh, you know, I get restless really easily.
Well here are just a couple of photo, cause I'm lazy. I've also been working with these same pictures for hours now, trying to upload them all so I can develop them. Go to facebook, they're all there. :D
 The group at Forbidden 故宫  The first snow we got to witness on our last night in Beijing---GOOOOD timing  The view from Jing Shan Park 景山
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Name: ymmatammy
