Wednesday is going much much better albeit very busy. Slept in a little today since my first and only class is at 10 am. After class, I ran off to the CIEE office to use my lunch break to skype with a friend and after that, I was whisked away to Paradiso Cafe for the rest of my day to work work work. First I met with the group for my Kouyu class and we finally worked out a script for our video. We're filming on Saturday and I really hope it only takes one day to finish. I just want it to be over with!

So I worked with them from 1-4 and at 4, one of my Chinese friends/language partners met me at the Cafe to practice speaking; I practiced Chinese, he practiced English. The only problem is he ends up asking questions that I don't have the vocabulary for, so my Chinese ends up having a lot of English mixed in, but it's still a good experience. I also noticed if someone speaks English, I respond English. If someone speaks Chinese, I'm more likely to answer in Chinese. We were both hungry, so we took a break to eat dinner together at the nearby cafe. It has the best chicken I've ever had. I have no idea how it's made, but I intend to find out and master it! After dinner I went back to the cafe since Chelsea was saving a table then her and her boyfriend went to grab lunch. I made a quick run back to my dorm room to drop off some books and then returned to the cafe, picking up bubble tea along the way, to meet my other Chinese friend/language partner. Like I said, busy day.

Met Haibo at the cafe at 7 and we were at the cafe from 7-11 just talking to each other and studying. He wanted me to practice Chinese today, so most of our conversation was in Chinese. I really like how patient he is with explaining things and making sure I understand. Usually he'll explain something to me in Chinese and then I'll explain the English equivalent to him. It was really interesting and I learned so much! He actually made a point to have me speak Chinese. If I wanted to say something in English, he told me to give it a try in Chinese first.We were also working on one of the passages in my Chinese book. He had me read it and helped me with my pronunciation and helping on words I didn't know and then I helped him translate it to English. It was a really good exercise for both of us. I'm actually really impressed with how well it worked. Although I realized something DO NOT translate from Chinese to English. One of the sentences, 你的那句话，就像虫子一样，爬满了我的心头，pretty  much translated to English as "when you speak in this way, it is like you are a bug, and my heart is crawling with bugs" which apparently in Chinese means you feel uncomfortable. So then we were making jokes all night about hearts crawling with bugs and now I learned that some things just do not translate at all! Although what I find really interesting is that I can read a sentence in Chinese and understand the meaning, but have no idea how to translate it to English!

There were a few words that I didn't recognize and he explained them to me using Chinese. After both of us struggling to help each other understand, we realized the words were part of the vocabulary for the lesson. I was impressed because the words he had explained to me, I was able to guess the correct meaning without looking at the English. All in all, it was a fun night. I also showed him a few of the new magic tricks I was working on, which he thought were great...even if I'm not very smooth with them yet. It was a really good way to relax after a long day of working nonstop. I didn't even realize how much time had passed.

I dont' know where my time has gone! I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving already! First Thanksgiving away from home too. But in China, tomorrow is just a normal day. Getting dinner with a few friends probably. Friday night is when CIEE is celebrating Thanksgiving. We're all getting Beijing Duck together and then going to a rock concert. I think Saturday night we're going to do karaoke. I also have a lot of things to work on this weekend since next week is the second round of midterms for me. I'm just glad I'm feeling a lot better today! My language partner also wants to meet with me tomorrow night. I'm really glad that I found great people to study with. I definitely learn more from chatting with them than I do from most of my classes. It's really interesting to have friends now who don't really speak English. Quite an experience. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry for the long post :)