A lot of things, among which are calligraphy and calcium.

My birthday on Sunday was wonderful. For lunch we went in search of a vegetarian restaurant, unsuccessed and settled for 成都小吃. I think that's what it's called at least. Then I went to do some homework because plan finish-homework-before-birthday was not properly executed. Before long, however, I was surprised by a knock at the door and friends bearing cake! A most adorable, intricate and delicious cake at that. It was quite the miracle of design, containing very little actual cake, and so. much. frosting. Oh so yummy.

Filled with sugary goodness, I headed off to meet my 辅导员, essentially my language tutor. She's (will be) a junior here at Beiyu, and we have to meet 2 hours a week to talk. We had our first meeting yesterday in the library cafe, and though she seems very interesting and we'd probably get along well if we didn't have this language barrier, our first two hours together were ridiculously tiring for me. So far I've been a big fan of the language pledge and have felt that communicating with both my friends and teachers isn't too difficult. Sure, there's a whole bunch of things I left unsaid because I don't know how to convey my meaning in Chinese, but as a whole it's been like one big fun game of charades meets Taboo meets mind reading. More and more I'm realizing how much comprehension has to do with shared knowledge, though. Because in second year, we all have essentially identical vocabulary sets and grammatical knowledge, we know our limitations. It's very easy to say "breakfast milk thing" for cereal and move on (or even better, "other-breakfast-not-milk-boiling-water-thing" for oatmeal). One step removed our are teachers, who come from a different place culturally, but understand where we're coming from grammatically. It's a completely different story with other Chinese people, though. I know that they're not going to understand me the first time I (try to) say 绿茶 or 旅馆. It's normally not too much of a problem because my interactions consist of "sorry", "this one", "thanks", but two hours with my language tutor was ugh. We talked about Tibetan independence, the Chinese education system, organic farming, the idea of individualism in American television, four main works of Chinese literature and probably more that completely went over my head. It was mostly her talking rapid-fire and me nodding, having no idea what was going on. I did understand some of it, and what I did understand was depressing. I told her my "Chinese older sister" was at Qinghua, and we talked about how much easier it was to get into a good school if you're from Beijing (she's from Hebei). She said all her friends want to make a lot of money so that they can send their kids to school abroad, like all the rich parents do.

Meeting my "Chinese family" was a much more managable endeavor. I share my family with my friend Aina (psh, who uses English names anymore), which makes the whole thing even more fun. The purpose of our Chinese families is to show us life outside of the classroom, so we eat dinner at their house or go sight-seeing together, etc. Like I said, I have an older sister who's at Qinghua studying fashion design. She said she'd take us to galleries and things, so I'm excited about that. My Chinese mom is a reporter for CCTV. Haven't met the dad yet.

This week has been pretty much like last week class-wise. We're settling into the routine, getting to know our teachers better, and flying through the textbook. Because every day is a new chapter, my enjoyment of the day's class depends on the content of that chapter. The one where Dawei gets dystentery, for instance, was not my favorite day. Though I'm glad I now have three ways to say "has diarhhea".

Today was a nice normal day. It was graduation at Beiyu, so lots of people in black robes standing around taking pictures with bouquets. After class I went to calligraphy class. Why I put myself through even more frustration I don't know, but occasionally my efforts are rewarded by a particularly nice line...

I then headed to my favorite place ever: the grocery store, and besides an abundance of fruit (two dragonfruits, a melon, and a package of plums) I picked up a jug (yes, a jug) of yogurt. China doesn't do dairy products...at least not at restaurants. I also discovered that fake meat products that are ridiculously expensive at home are super cheap here. Win.