Second day of classes.....not so nice as the first day. For one, the air pollution today was horrible! Second, I didn't realize how big BeiDa campus was until I realized that it takes me 25 minutes to walk from my dorm room to my classroom. Forgot my schedule in my room and didn't have time to double back, which caused me to show up at the wrong room for the wrong class at the wrong time. Had to take a 15 minutes trek to the other side of campus to get to the right building for my class and then I couldn't find the entrance. All of the doors were locked. I had to circle around the building, trying all of the doors until one of them opened. My Kouyu class was super easy, but it's a comfortable level for me. I really like the teacher too. She speaks slow enough that I can understand what she's saying. After Kouyu, I headed over to my Hanyu class, only to realize that Tuesday is the one day that I don't have Kouyu and Hanyu back to back. So I headed back to my dorm to relax for a while until I actually had to go to my class. I'm really not a fan of my Hanyu class. They bumped me up a level without asking me and I feel a little bit over my head. Plus my professor speaks really fast so half of the time, I can't even catch what he's saying. But I have to say, I'm happy I placed into section 8 because if I had placed any lower, I would have a mandatory listening class I would have to take and I dont think I would want to take that.

After class, I got to have my first experience riding on the back of someone's bike. It was a lot of fun, but difficult. There are so many people here its hard to ride a bike when there is heavy walking traffic. You sometimes end up walking more than riding. Yoshiko and I rode from our classroom to the subway to meet a few other students. We headed over to Ming zi DaXue for a taichi class. It really wasn't for me. The pace of the class was way too slow and 2 hours is just way too long. After a long day of classes, I really don't have that long of an attention span left for anything that long. Plus there was this little kid running around counting all of the foreigners, which was a little distracting. After the class, a few of us went to a local restaurant to grab some dumplings before heading back to campus.

So now I'm stuck trying to figure out my schedule. I need to take an elective class, because just 2 classes isn't going to cut it for me. I have sooooo much free time. The only problem I'm having is that all of the electives are at the SAME TIME and that same time happens to be at the same time as my kouyu class. So now I'm kind of stuck. I need to take an elective to have enough credits to fill my time, but all of the electives conflict with my kouyu class. I found my kouyu class to be easy, so I wouldn't mind jumping up a level. But I'm comfortable with the level that I'm in and I really like the teacher. So I am stuck for now. I emailed one of the program advisors, but I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow to talk to them and see what they're going to recommend. Maybe I'm just meant to jump up to another level..... I guess I'll have to wait and see.

As for my realization of the day.... I realized that Chinese people do not maintain their bicycle brakes very well. My ears hurt from how many times I heard people trying to use the brakes on their bikes and instead only hearing a screeching sound because there's nothing left to the brake pads. So annoying!

I guess today is just a day full of annoyances. I was hired by the study abroad office to write journals about my experiences for a work study position, but there's not tab on my Drexel profile to report my hours. So now I have to find a way to call Drexel HR and have them fix my profile so I can get paid. I'm not writing journals for Drexel if I'm not getting paid. Yea for more stuff to take care of...... Time for me to go to bed. I'm exhausted from today. At least I dont have classes tomorrow! I might go do some shopping!