Scorpions and Tarantulas

7/1-7/5

IT'S SUNNY OUT!! As in, actual sun and blue sky, it's SUCH a nice change, I missed it so much. I 

Kevin Being Weird

wasn't that surprised by the brightness out there this morning when I woke up, when the weather says its going to e sunny it is usually bright, but never blue sky. It was such a nice surprise to look up when I got outside and to see blue! So it really stinks that I am cooped up in the office all day. I'm hoping, though, that my friend Hashim texts me back so I can catch lunch with him.

Yesterday was beyond boring. I went into work at 10, left for lunch around 11:15, said goodbye to Janet, headed back to work, and then left early because literally no one would talk to me and I was just taking up a table, so I left and then laid in bed until dinner time. 

Sophie and I went to eat again and it was nice to just relax there, we turned in pretty early though, but I stayed up late watching music videos and just thinking. I was reluctant to get out of bed this morning, I was remarkable tired and my digestion system has been on the fritz for almost an entire week now, so that's getting kind of old. Anyways, I did drag myself out of bed, made myself look semi-presentable in about fifteen minutes and then headed downstairs to eat and check my phone. Kevin came to get me around nine, drove me across the city to another office, and I sit here all alone again, trying to kill time reading and blogging. Intern problems at its finest.

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Today (the 3rd) is hot hot hot outside. Sunny again, though, with blue skies, I wish I could be outdoors

Silk Worms

enjoying it, but oh well at least it is shining through the windows on me. Apparently it is really crappy weather back home, sucks to suck! I am sad, I have to say goodbye to Kevin in a bit, I did after lunch but then he had to come with me because the cab driver didn't know where he was going.  Today I got to kill some time this morning and video chat with Heather before I went to the StudyGroup office with Kevin to go over all my expenses and then go out to lunch. We ordered my favorite (sweet and sour chicken) as well as some Starbucks where Kevin also ordered my favorite (caramel frap), and had a nice time relaxing and fending off the heat. So here I am back at JJL (one of the offices) waiting for students to talk with me. Sophie should be here soon, though, so at least I'll have company when Kevin leaves.

So Kevin left, which sucks, but at least Sophie and Pavel are here until I leave, for the most part. So Pavel is from a country right outside of Russia and I can't for the life of me remember which one, but he is pretty cool. I'm the oldest one in our little trip, which is weird. So yesterday we bounced out of JJL and went to change and then

Live Scorpions

headed into City Center. It was soooo hot out, but we were bored to death and tired of sitting around and so we went exploring. After about a half an hour of walking, maybe closer to an hour, we finally reached City Center and it was so worth it, it was awesome!!! We went down all sorts of crowd side streets and huge streets filled with sky scraper malls and shopping plazas. The best part by far, tough, was the outdoor food market. They were selling things from squid on a stick, silkworms, lizards, tarantulas, fried bananas, fruit, and even scorpions! I, of course, had to try at least one weird thing, so I picked a tarantula and a scorpion. I hated the tarantula, it was way too salty and I think it was old cause there was no flavor, which is disappointing because I've heard really good things about them. I also tried a scorpion which was actually really tasty! I have videos and lots of photos of each, so there is no end to the entertainment it provided us. Pavel tried the scorpion too and liked it alright, although he had a different technique to eating his, he just popped the whole thing in his mouth while I ate the legs and claws first and then the body. He didn't like how the legs got stuck in his teeth but I didn't have that problem by eating them one at a time. All in all it was a great experience and neither of us got poisoned! We continued to explore and decided to take the metro

home, which proved harder for us to find than walking home would have been. We finally made it onto the crowded train and headed home. About two stops away we experienced a true Chinese metro experience with the crowd pushing us around. It didn't really bother me at all, except Pavel almost didn't push his way off the train so we almost missed our stop! We made it off just fine though and after a dinner of sushi we turned in for the night. We were all so tired from walking around we just crashed as soon as we got home.

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So today (now the 4th) it is almost 100 degrees and humid out, so I am really not looking forward to walking to work, even if it is only a block away. The skies are blue again, though, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much because it could be rainy and moody wants that. I only have four more days here and I'm hoping Orono is going to be sunny when I get back, if its not that is going to be a huge bummer, but I'll be home and 
with all my friends so it won't be too too terrible if it is a bit cruddy outside. Today I am headed back to JJL,

About to Taste the Tarantula 

 but only for a couple hours, then I assume that Sophie, Pavel, and myself are going to go explore a park or something until dinner time. Same goes for tomorrow.  It is pretty much the same routine every day, which is good and bad. I have all of Saturday off, which I sort of wish I didn't because it really is too hot to go exploring outside during the afternoon and I am going a little coo coo cooped up in the hotel, but Sunday I have a day trip to Jinan so that will keep me busy. Then Monday I head out. I am going to miss the food a lot, although I've gained so much weight here people back home probably aren't going to recognize me!! It will also be a bummer to have to pay for meals again, it's been nice to not have to worry about money here, although I have spent am obscene amount on gifts for everyone back home. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have, but there's so much cool stuff here that so many people at home will love I couldn't resist. I made my budget for the rest of the year today and it is really depressing, especially if I have to get a new car,  I will have zero wiggle room. Oh well, I have enough to get by and that's all that matters.

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Well yesterday went just as predicted, went to work, sat there for two hours, I did talk to one student for

Scorpion Tasting 

about five minutes, then Sophie and I packed up and headed to the silk market. W bought a few phone cases and I got my jade elephant then we headed to meet Pavel for dinner. We went to Los Pradise again and it did not disappoint. I got curry and rice, which I haven't had since it made me deathly ill in India. It was really good, but after a few minutes I had a hard time with it just because India ruined rice and curry for me basically forever. But after dinner we split and headed back to our respective hotels. It was too hot to do anything else.

Today (now the 5th), I have literally not been any use to the world. I slept in, went to breakfast, used the WiFi, did some an workout because I'm getting so fat, and now I'm sitting in Starbucks with Sophie using the free WiFi and trying to avoid the blistering heat outside. I really don't have much to do today, I need to go back to the silk market to exchange the pink phone case because I don't like it and I think I might get an American flag or bald eagle phone case or something funny like that. Ironic since I'm in China. I think it'd be funny to put on my case for the wedding, I know Chris would think it was hilarious. But yes, yet another super unproductive day. By tomorrow Sophie and I are headed to the forbidden city, so that should be a good time!

Squid

So I went to see if I could get that bald eagle phone case for 10, and the lady totally did not go for it. Maybe I can get it for 15, but I can't justify spending much more than that on something I don't really need. Oh well. So I'm at JJL now, sitting here with my banner. I wish they would advertise us being here more, then maybe people would actually come.

After killing time at Starbucks I did end up going to JJL for a bit, but left around 3. Sophie and I met up a bit after that and headed back again to the silk market, cutting through the subway market without getting the case. Seems like we spend our whole trip shopping, but we really don't, we mainly just love to people watch and the silk market is air conditioned so it is the perfect spot to people watch and not sweat to death. So we walked around for a bit and then headed up to the sixth floor to get some dinner. We had hotpot for dinner, which was the most amazing thing ever. Basically everyone gets their own pot with water in it and their own hot plate. The counter is cut so the pot and hot plate rest in it so it can't be knocked over. You then order whatever you want to boil, like engines, seaweed, meat, etc, and then you can order a sauce to put on it, I got peanut sauce, then you put the different things in at different times and cook them right there. It's kind of like fondu

Sparrows

but with water. It was amazingggggg! I got all veggies except for some dumplings and it was so tasty and fun! I wish I hadn't have had such a bad headache, though, that made me feel super nauseous, but after the food kicked in and we were walking around a bit I felt better. I am trying to drink enough water but it is hard so that might also be why I feel kind of funny. So anyways, Pavel met us there and we ran into some people from Kazakstan so he was blabbing on in Russian to them which was entertaining. We then proceeded to show Pavel every corner of the silk market, I helped him bargain, and of course we made a few enemies out of the shop keepers because of my low-balling, but we also made a few friends! It's one hallway everyone knows my name now and shouts it out whenever I walk by; it's super entertaining. I really really really want this bag that has a map of the world on it, but can't justify paying more than 80RMB for it, and no one is coming below 250, so I think I might have to live without it. Probably better I did anyways, seeing as how tight my budget is anyways. I noting even need it, I just really like it. First world problems right there. Anyways, we browsed around a bit and actually had a really good time, laughing like idiots and Pavel pretending to be German and not able to speak English. The reason that all those shopkeepers now know my name is Pavel wanted to buy a bag and apparently I am now the designated bargainer so he was calling to me,

and then before I knew it about fifteen people were calling to me, it was quite confusing until I figured out what was going on! From then on out every time they caught a glimpse of me it was like a ripple effect, everyone shouting my name and laughing. Quite the experience. After we had our fill of shopping (I showed incredible self restraint, I didn't buy one thing!) we headed back towards our hotels, only stopping to take a few panoramics of the skyline.

So we all came back to my room because Sophie had left some things in there and we bid each other adieu. I went over to the bathroom and clicked the light switch, because I was about to pee my pants and needed to go ASAP, and BAM, the power went out. Literally pitch black. Luckily my hone was on the bed just a few feet away so I grabbed it and turned the flashlight on,  opened the door, and tried to turn the lights on. I seemed, though, that a fuse had blown or something so I headed down to reception to get some help. The guy there didn't speak English and he thought that my card wasn't working, so he reprogrammed it and I gave him the benefit of the doubt and headed back up to give it a try. F course it didn't work and my power was still very much out, so I headed back down again. After failing to communicate my problem with him I motioned for him to just come with me and he obliged. We got to my room and then he definitely understood what the problem was. He made a call to the electrician or someone and he came and fixed it. The receptionist left and I went to turn the bathroom

list on so I could finally pee and BAM, out again. So I called down to the front desk this time and luckily the girl spoke a bit of English and told me that they would give me a new room. Thank goodness I hadn't unpacked because a moment later the same guy came up to help me move my stuff and it only took me three trips to get everything to my now room a couple doors over. I'm not complaining at all because this room is way bigger, with a queen bed and everything! Living the dream. But yes, so I reorganized again, because I leave in a couple days and I don't want to be rushing to repack, used the WiFi in the lobby for a bit, and now I'm just vegging in front of "Channel V," which is the music video channel here. I'm up pretty early tomorrow to head to the forbidden city and I am just crossing my fingers that the rain holds out until the afternoon! We will see though!

Today, my life is just Shelby.

Random Thoughts of an Intern

6/29-6/30

Having Sophie around is great, we have been going out to eat and keeping each other sane as well. So

 yesterday we met up after breakfast and then headed over to our event that we both had to be at. I had my hotel call us the taxi and handled the receipt. We arrived and with no one to help us communicate, struggled to find our tables. We finally did, though, after some coordinator took pity on us, and unfortunately we were in different rooms. We both had WiFi, though, so kept chatting via WeChat. A few people came up to talk with me but either realized I didn't speak Mandarin or I didn't have the right statistics they wanted and soon I was left alone to read. I was nice, but not at the same time because I felt pretty useless. Sophie and I won't to quite a lengthy lunch with another StudyGroup rep and then headed to McDonald's for some bub tea and to kill more time. We element back and I actually had a family to talk with, and totally convinced them to send their son to UMaine. While the rep and the parents talked I helped the student practice his English. He had no confidence, but I assured him that he would learn quickly if he studies in America, because no one speaks Mandarin he would have to learn! Sophie and I packed up early and headed out, our pretense was apparently not needed after that, so we

Bunnies at Work

got a relaxing few hours to kill at our hotels. I read and read and read, addicted to the Hunger Games, and broke away from the book only to head to sushi with Sophie.

We went to the bottom floor of the building across from my hotel, which I assumed was office buildings, but apparently held not only restaurants, but a mall and a super market as well! We went to the sushi place, which was delicious and even had a conveyer belt you could pick anything off of that caught your interest. We sat and chatted until maybe about 8:30, and then turned in for the night. I happily returned to reading and was engulfed in my book until maybe 11:30. After being a little lonely and a but sad about being all alone I drifted off to sleep. Luckily we didn't have to be at our expo today until 2, so I got to sleep in until 10 which was marvelous. I got up, got ready, and then hunkered down to finish my book. I finished it right as I was supposed to be headed out to lunch and met up with Sophie down the street. We got way, way, way too much food and the basically rolled out of the restaurant. I met Kevin at the hotel while Sophie grabbed us coffee and we headed to the expo where I sit now.

It's even more busy here today than it was yesterday, but we are sitting near other foreigners so its sort of interesting to be here. People have been coming up to me more often because Kevin is here to

Fanta

translate, so that's good. There's a man from Boston sitting next to me, I just found out he is actually from Andover, which is neat because the where Molly is from! Other than the occasional person, though, I'm basically sitting here, without WiFi, alternating between writing here and looking at old photos, reminiscing. Not a great way to spend my day, but it's always a learning experience. The woman in charge of this expo, Ming I think her name is, is Chinese-American, and reminds me a whole lot of Kim Dao. Like, a lot. It's pretty funny, I can totally see Kim doing this if she wasn't going to be a doctor. Maybe it will be me someday, if I can ever learn Mandarin, which is unlikely.

There are a lot of really good universities here, like High Point, but UMaine is defiantly holding its own, which is great. I wish I had better training before I came here, though, because I would be even more successful in snagging kids to go there. Oh well, maybe next time!

Let's see, I am missing a whole lot that happened over the last couple days, but I am so wrapped up in the ending of my book that I am having trouble snapping

Tableside Tea Spout

back to reality. I always get so consumed in what I am reading, so much so that it basically becomes reality, and it is crushing when I finish. So I am here in Beijing until Saturday, mostly at the office right around the corner from my building. It's kind of nice to not have to travel a lot, but then again the office I am going to is super boring, with no WiFi and no one wants to talk to me. Other than that, though, it's nice to be on a block with restaurants and work right nearby, and Sophie is staying right down the block. On Saturday I head to another city, jut for overnight, and I'm p retry sure I'm only own. I ope that Kevin does find me a travel partner, but if not I'm sure I will be fine on my own. Then I come back Sunday night to the same hotel, and then I have until about three o'clock on Monday before I head out to the airport for home. It is bittersweet already, I really enjoy China and would really love to stay, but I am missing home a lot, especially since I am basically living in a hotel and am by myself a lot. It's pretty lonely. I think next time I come I really want to either come with friends who are super adventurous like me, or with Jacky, who can really show me around from a locals perspective, which would be great too. I'm pretty excited because the day I fly in is one of my best friend's 21st birthdays, so even though I won't get to see her I can still call her, and then I'll be back in Orono two days later to celebrate properly. I'm super excited because she can finally go out with us! Woot! Love ya Heather!

But I am definitely gaining weight here, oh well, the food is beyond delicious and rich, so I figured I

Yum Yum Octopus 

barely eat at home I can spoil myself a little here. The sheer amount of food I am consuming is probably super bad for my health, and especially my appearance because I am wearing pretty tight pencil dresses for the most part to these events. I doesn't help that I get a frapacchino and milk tea at least once a day. Ronald consuming three times my allotted amount of calories. Oh well. Can't stop won't stop. I may only be in China once, I want to make the best of it.

All of the babies here are beyond adorable, too, which is not helping my baby fever. I want a dog more than I want a kid, but they are super superrrr adorable and the parents always catch me staring and smiling. I like everyone here they are really nice for the most part so they just smile back or say hello and make the baby wave to me, which is nice. But yah, being her is making my puppy fever even worse as well, because I haves so much free time to think about what kind of puppy I want. My mind has already changed dozens of times, I'm trying to pick one that can be active and maybe learn to hunt, but can also be calm so I can bring it to the office with me often. Also a dog with minimal health problems and a long life span. All of those qualities are really hard to find in one breed, so I definitely need to keep doing my research. I also need to find an

Favorite Shopping Market

apartment that allows dogs. The one Terri and Bry are in next year does, if they like it I think I might sign it after them, and then all I would need is three more roommates, which shouldn't be too hard to find. Maybe I'll ask international students to live with me, that would be too cool. My dream dog is a Newfoundland, but they are way too slobbery for a college apartment. I really really really want a Bernese mountain dog, but they don't live very long and their cancer rate is over 50%, and I'm not sure I'd be prepared to handle that. Labs are also always a favorite, but there is always the health problems they have with purebreds and so many misbehave and they just shed too too much I'm not sure if I want one anymore. I really like English Springer Spaniels, they are obedient and can hunt really well and are super friendly, but they are also very very very energetic. So, again, I have my research ahead of me.

Today, my life is just Shelby.

Adventures at Olympic Park and the Great Wall

6/26-6/28

Two days ago after work we headed back to the hotel and Janet wanted to take a little rest, but I was 

My New Foreign Friends

craving some milk tea, so I ventured out on my own. It was raining so I had to rent an umbrella from the hotel and then headed into the mall that was next door. It was pretty empty but I jut walked around for a bit, more like a half an hour, until I finally found a milk tea stand. The girl spoke English too! It was, of course, delicious. I met up with Janet and we walked around for a bit outside until it started raining too hard so we ducked into a restaurant close to our hotel. After we stuffed our faces with spicy beef noodles we decided to walk it off and go to Olympic park down the street. It was fantastic and so neat to go check out. At the sign a family, maybe from Tibet, wanted to take their picture with me, it was nice because it reminded me of India!! Janet said she had never seen that before and I told her it was basically second nature for me, which is totally true. Anyways, we explored a bit, got our photos taken in front of all the major buildings, and then headed back to the hotel for some dessert. Turns out the hotel didn't have anything sweet, so we ventured out yet again to go find some. We came across a little bakery and we got our fix and then we turned in for the night.

So bright and early yesterday we got up to head to the Great Wall!! It took about an hour and a half to get there, about twenty minutes from the entrance of the wall we started seeing glimpses of it near the

The Birds Nest

road. I was really cool because when I first saw it the Team Maine song from this year was playing (the new Macklemore song), it was fate that I was there. We got out and realized it was going to be scorching hot, especially because we had escaped the smog and it was actually sunny. I had worn shorts, a fancy tank top and a three quarter length cardigan as well as sneakers, so I wasn't too worried, although I had the sinking feeling that I would be leaving there with a wicked sunburn.

We headed up the wall, starting to our left while most everyone else went right, and began the climb. I knew it would be a touch hike, but I didn't realize how tough. At times we were basically climbing vertically, which was even more tough on the way back. We walked for about two hours to the right, then turned around and while Kevin stayed at the bottom Janet and I hiked the left side for about another two hours. It was exhausting, but after a couple hours my legs went pretty numb so I couldn't really feel how badly it hurt. It was so worth it, though, it was gorgeous. Although it was super crowded it was amazing just to be on the wall. We headed out after eating a pretty crappy meal at around one, and made it back to the city around three. I had to pee like nobody's business but we still

had to get in a cab and go to the market (we decided to kill the rest of our time shopping), and that took another hour and a half.

We got to the market and got the rest of our souvenir shopping done. I made a few great deals and the shop keepers didn't really like me after they realized I wouldn't get ripped off. Oh well though, I had fun! Janet and I went to get our nails done, which was so nice, and attempted to talk with the girls there, although it was a l it of laughing because we really couldn't understand them at all and they couldn't understand us either! After that we headed back to a shop to make one last deal and then went to the sixth floor for some dinner. We went to a restaurant where you had to mark down which meals you wanted, but it was all in Mandarin characters so we just called over a waitress and she helped us out. The meal in general wasn't great, but we got fried dumplings which were beyond delicious. After we headed out and only got slightly ripped off by the cab driver. Almost as soon as I got back to my room (around 10 o'clock) I crashed. So this morning I was still dead asleep when my alarm woke up and I bolted awake, unlike my usual groggy wake up. The adrenaline rush was nice though, because without it I would have been totally unmotivated to get out of bed.

Kevin decided that since tomorrow I am on my own he needed to test me to see if I could get a taxi on my own and get us to work. He had the addresses all written down so all I had to do was ask the front

The Water Cube

desk to get a cab for me and then show the driver the address. It was a piece of cake and although I couldn't remember what the building looked like (because the only other time I've been here was the first day when I was half asleep), but here we are safe and sound! I'm here tomorrow too, apparently, and have to get here on my own. It should go well, knock on wood. Janet is going to Shanghai for the weekend for a fair and then she leaves for the states on Monday, which is sad. I'm trying to get in contact with Sophie, the girl from England, because I am going to need someone to hang out with when Janet leaves, but so far she hasn't texted me back. I'll figure it out. I mean, I can always just go kill time in a market, or in a park, I'd rather have a friend to spend time with but I can manage on my own.

So again, I have no WiFi, so I guess I will just ramble on again about China. One thing I find pretty funny is everyone has seat covers for their car. And fancy one too! Also, everyone has something hanging from their rear view mirror, which it totally my style. I bout a good luck one to hang in my car, it has an elephant on it and a bell, I'm pretty stoked to put it in there.

No one braids their hair here either, which is a bummer for me because that's always a go-to hair style for me. It might be because everyone's hair is so fine here it won't stay in a braid, but luckily a few people wear it in ponytails so I mainly do that or a bun. It's too hot and humid to wear it down.

It's so strange being in an eastern country where no one stares at me. It's really, really nice and quite refreshing, but so strange. I'm used to getting the strangest looks because the whole time I was in India people stared at me no matter where I went. Blatantly stared. It's nice to walk down the street and not feel the pressure of having everyone's eyes on you and know that they are talking about you.

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We just got back from lunch, we went to a Thai place, and we had a couple curries that tasted like they were directly from India. I couldn't eat one, it reminded me of a curry that made me sick in India, but

About to Eat the Duck Face

the other was good and so was a sampler platter we got. I realized that I should never wear white, no matter how hard I try to keep clean it just doesn't happen. I totally ruined my new outfit, both the pants and the shirt, and I'm hoping the stains will come out if I wait to wash them until tomorrow.

Fanny packs are also socially acceptable to wear here, especially for men. I dig it. Gotta love the fanny pack.

I've accepted that Mandarin is basically impossible to learn. I've been trying to practice and have literally gotten nowhere. I learned to count two days ago and today can barely remember any of it. Oh well, I mean, I only have a week and a half left here so sits not really a big deal, but it would be cool to at least come back knowing a bit of Mandarin.

My new flats make my feet sweat. A lot.

There's a lady here at the office who is wearing a cat shirt. I want to take a photo of it to show Casey, but I feel like that would be super obvious because the people she is talking to are facing me. Maybe I can be sneaky and get one later. It's actually a pretty cool shirt.

I have almost run out of money, shocker, and still feel the itch to go shopping. I have enough gifts for everyone back home, as well as plenty for myself, but I do love love love to shop, and being in a foreign country just make as me want to more. I'm going to resist though, I only have about 200RMB left, which is only about $30 or so, so I will resist unless I see something that I really can't live without. I have gone chopstick cray cray here, I have about thirty pairs and although I really want to keep most of them, I will give them away to people who will appreciate them and use them more than I will. Yesterday I bought two sets of if be when I actually only needed one for my family just because I struck a good deal with the lady. Guess our apartment now has a few new sets of

sticks!

I need to have Jacky teach me how to cook. I've been taking photos of everything I eat so I'm hoping that if I show him he will recognize the dish and teach me how to make it. Aka I hope he makes it for me because although I am an excellent cook, he is way better. I do need to make him a couple dinners, though, because he has been a gem to me, patiently waiting for me to figure out my work hours, taking my sass and my bad attitudes, helping me move, and also lending me his iPad. Maybe I'll attempt to make him a Chinese dish, it might be funny for him to watch me struggle.

I really like it here, I'm so torn because I love being home so much and whenever I am abroad I miss

Orono too much, but I could definitely see myself living here, maybe for a year or two, especially if I get some Mandarin under my belt. It is not hard to be here at all; the food is great, the people are patient, the cities are modern, and the cell phone I have actually works almost everywhere I go. Also, the shopping is fantastic. The only problem is I would weigh about five hundred pounds if I did live here because the food is so good. Also, it's a bit humid here for my liking, and the sanity of my hair, but other than that and not understanding everyone I really, really, realllllly like it here. I am excited to go home though, summertime in Orono is like no other. I'll have a week when I get back, then I'll be in Cali for a week, and then back to Orono until school starts. That really only gives me three weekends of summer because I'm hoping to start my new job the second week of August. Oh the woes of being a semi-adult. No bother, I'll make the most of my free time there.

One funny thing about the people here is when someone starts to talk to Janet or myself and we say that we do not speak Mandarin, and they clearly do not speak English, they keep talking to us like if they

say it in a different way in Mandarin that we will understand them. It is pretty funny, especially when it really isn't important for us to understand each other. When I think about it I guess I do that same thing, saying it in different ways, and slower, even though it is a lost cause. Quite the show for onlookers I would imagine.

It is so strange to me that everyone here tries to make their skin as white as possible, while everyone back home wants to be as dark as they can. I guess the grass really is always greener on the other side. I am completely the same way, being tan make as me feel good and way more confident. I tried really hard to stay out of the sun before I came here, which is good because lighter skin is "better" here, but I am itching to get my swim suit on and go lounge at the pool. Actually, that's probably what I am going to do all day when I get home, and I can't wait.

I also can't wait to wear my new dress to work. I have I shave my legs before I do that, though. For those of you who know me I dispose shaving my legs, I think it's an absolute pain in the butt and I really don't have anyone to impress, so I don't do it unless I need to, but here I feel the need because everyone is so nice looking I feel like I should do my best to fit in. Maybe I'll get that done to night so I can wear it tomorrow. Probably not, though. Maybe Saturday, I have an event that day and I usually like to get a bit more fancy for them than I do for just sitting in the office. I do need to invest in a few pairs of tights, though, both black and nude. That would actually support my not shaving habit too, covering my legs perfectly! What a lovely plan.

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So Kevin took us to a traditional roasted duck restaurant after work and it was fan-flippin-tastic. Seriously, the duck there was amazing. It came out of a cart, a man cut it into tiny slivers, and we dipped it in this syrup-ie soy sauce, put it on this think Chinese tortilla thing and put a few pieces of scallions and cucumber on it, rolled it up and ate it. Seriously perfection. I also ate a duck head. Yah, even the brains. It was actually super delicious, although the tongue was a bit more tough than I expected, I hitch almost threw me for a loop, but it tasted too good to really bother me. After stuffing ourselves full of duck, stir fry chicken and peanuts, pea pods and local beer we headed across the street to a little outdoor barbecue place and ate and drank even more. We spent the rest of our evening talking about everything under the sun, from our universities, our friends, our family, traditions, weddings, where we lived, literally everything. I was so nice to just hang out outside and chat. It wasn't too hot

either because the sun was down, although I was still dripping sweat. Janet and I headed back around 10 and then sat outside our hotel talking about even more things, mostly about our friends, until we were so tired we just went in and crashed.

So Janet and Kevin left this morning before 7 and I got to at least sleep in until 8, but then I began the long trudge of a day. I managed to finally get a taxi from the hotel (everyone kept stealing mine so I had to keep going back inside for them to call me another one) and made it to work only an hour late. I lugged all my crap upstairs with the help from one of the StudyGroup counselors assigned to me that day to help me out be cases Kevin wasn't there, dropped my bags off behind the office counter, and settled into the second Hunger Games book. Thank god I have a Kindle, it is literally attached to me at all times. I always forget how much I love to read, but this trip has certainly been a fantastic opportunity to get caught up on some of the books I've been meaning to read for a while! So other than a few counselors coming over to talk to me (I think out of pity mostly), no one bothered to really even look my way. I do think I convinced one counselor to at least consider UMaine for her MBA, because we honestly do have a fantastic program, and I really do know how to sell UMaine. I got to leave at 4, which worked out perfectly because I finished my book at around 350 and had a solid ten minutes to just let the ending sink in before I packed up to go. Wilson (the counselor assigned to help me out) helped me with my bags and hailed me a cab. It wasn't the normal orange and yellow cab, though, it was black, which made me kind of nervous, but it had a meter that could print recipes, and Wilson lives her, so I got in and made sure the cab driver knew I wanted a fapiao (receipt), and then settled in for the ride. It was only supposed to take maybe fourth minutes, but it ended up taking two hours. I had told Sophie I would meet her at 6 for dinner, so I only had a couple minutes to freshen up before I was out the door again. I took her to a restaurant right down the street from my hotel, it is highly recommended by the locals and I had been there (the first night in Beijing), and she had also said someone had told her to go there, so we enjoyed a lovely meal together. Turns out that she doesn't eat meat, only fish, so we only ordered one meat dish which I ended up not even liking. The rest was fantastic, though, especially the spinach with peanut sauce. We got this veggie platter and it came with a cup of what we assumed to be salt, but it turns out it was sugar, which was super disappointing. Everything really was good, though. We stayed for about three hours and talked and talked and talked. It was so nice, she is very easy to talk to and we have a ton in common. We mostly talked about why the heck we were there, we both feel pretty lost and useless and like we are not really helping anyone, but it is a great experience for us regardless. We also talked about our schools, but way more the social scene rather than the school itself. We talked about the laws, especially how the drinking

age is 21 in the US and she didn't understand how that worked for college kids. We exchanged some stories and laughed a lot and discovered that we basically gave the same schedule for the rest of our time here, so we decided that we were going to team up. She spends a lot of her time in her hotel while I am out and about way more. This is her first time traveling alone outside of Europe, so I think I am going to encourage her to come out with me whenever I go so she can see that the east is actually really amazing. I mean, there are definitely things you have to be careful of, but it has the potential to be so fantastic I wouldn't want her to miss out on that. I am also realizing that I am super fortunate to have Kevin as my partner on this trip, apparently Sophie's mentor person literally just tells her to go somewhere without any direction or guidance, while Kevin is basically my glorified babysitter and big brother. I feel like I have a solid basis of how the city works because of him, so I am going to try to share what I know with her tomorrow at the college fair. No one will really talk to us I am sure so we will have plenty of time to chat. Anyways, I am only own again tomorrow and now have Sophie to travel around with which is nice, and Kevin will be back with me on Sunday. I'm headed home in a little over a week but I can't believe how fast this trip is going!! I'm excited to be going back to summertime in Orono, but I like it here so much I will be very sad to see it go. I need to come back here, it's not even an option at this point. I will defiantly be keeping my eyes open for internship opportunities here in the future.

Today, my life is just Shelby.