Last day before class

Today was our placement test.

I have come a long way since i took the Fudan placement test the first time last fall. I remember having trouble answering almost all of the questions asked, aside from the most super basic, like what my namewas and some stuff about the weather. I think the only reason I was able to skip the A section and get into the B class was that I could write my Chinese name perfectly.

This time around was much more fluid. I was able to write my name as before, and fully introduce myself, telling her about what country i was from, where i went to college, what state it was in, read a few passages out of some different books, and argue that i should be in a harder class. All in chinese. I was a little proud of myself, and I'm pretty rusty, so I've still got some wealth effect to enjoy over the next week or two.

One of my favorite teachers who I had last fall was there too, and she remembered my name. I guess she must have liked me. I think I have her again, so thats good news. She was the best out of the three at making us speak with more fluidity. I really fit into her teaching style well.

The afternoon was spent running a few errands and watching a movie. During the movie it started to rain really hard. It rains hard every day here i've found. It was just like the monsoon I described in an earlier post, except this one didn't stop after a half hour. This one went on for hours. It was pretty cool. when the movie was finished, there was about 4 inches of water on the driveway outside my window.

We needed to eat dinner, so we got our bikes and started plowing through the water. Riding bikes through water is a really cool feeling. The closest thing I can compare it to would be skiing in powder, but stranger. we got about 10 feet out of the driveway from our hotel, and the water doubled in height.

We looked around and saw a restaurant we hadn't tried just across the street, and decided we'd gone far enough. The food was mediocre, but I had the first beer I've had since I've been here. It was nice. Beers here are (in my opinion) the perfect size for dinner. 600ml(about 2 regular beers).

My bike broke again, so I guess i'll be taking a cab to class tomorrow morning, no biggy, but i really wish this would stop happening. Its getting tedious much faster than its getting expensive.

Believing that my class will be full of cute girls tomorrow......