Rebecca: We Learn From an Airbending Master and Become Pop Stars

Sorry again about the sporadic updates - everything seems to conspire against letting us access the blog. We're not trying to ignore it, really. I wrote this on Monday, but I couldn't post it until now.

I know my post titles can be pretty sensational, but today really was a great day. We had Tai Ji class in the morning, and our teacher was pretty cool. He didn't speak English, but he taught us through a translator. A lot of the moves looked like he was airbending (er... it's from a show? I don't really know how to explain it), so I was impressed. Doing Tai Ji makes me feel cool and actually slightly coordinated for once. 

We also heard a story about a corpse found on campus a couple years ago. It was kind of creepy - the campus does have some sketchy parking garages and underground areas, and walking through them can be scary. For the most part, though, it's very safe. There are gates and guards everywhere - it's a common thing in China. It's not that the country is dangerous, it's just a thing they do. 

And then we became pop sensations! That's a lie, we actually just sang karaoke. They call it KTV here, and it's a bit different from North American Karaoke. You go with a group (Jen and I went with some of our Chinese conversation partners) and you get a little room with couches and a karaoke machine all to yourself. We had so much fun! There were a lot of English songs, although most of them were either old (we sang some Beatles) or by super popular people, like Rihanna or Taylor Swift. Jen even sang some Mandarin songs (I have audio recordings, so there's proof)! Normally I don't like singing in front of people, but it was no problem here. Chinese people have a different sort of opinion about singing. Everyone sings, even if they're not that good. You hear people randomly singing on the streets all over, and KTV is hugely popular (and really cheap). No one minds if you go off-key a little or miss a line, so that makes KTV really awesome instead of nerve-wracking.

It's almost time for us to fly to Beijing for our final weekend before we go home. I keep half-joking that I might just hide in someone's dorm and stay here. Really the only thing stopping me is that I miss all you guys at home a lot (I haven't been home since Christmas; the school semester plus this trip makes it the longest I've ever been away), and I guess the fact that I've already committed to my job back home. But in two years, when I get my degree and my TESL certificate, I'm either coming back here, or maybe to Japan or Korea or Indonesia, and finding myself a job in this incredible, crazy, terrifying and wonderful part of the world.

Now if only the flight weren't so painfully long...