Today was the big day, the start of it all, our very first full day in Chengdu. I woke up and hastily got ready. I still haven’t quite gotten the hang of things, so I was definitely just floundering about.
In the morning, all of us spent a bit of time with our host siblings in their classrooms. I sat in on my host sister’s English class, and they are learning pretty difficult stuff considering their grade. My host sister has super nice English handwriting too.
After that we went off to our own classroom, where we went over some logistical stuff, made name cards, got our local phone and textbook, etc. We also went outside and watched their morning exercises (some NSLI kids even joined in).
Lunch was pretty good. They had both Chinese and American food. Kathleen, Lillian, and I tried to get some of the students to sit with us, but nobody wanted to.
After lunch, we had a cultural class, where we learned more about Chengdu, and took our language tests. I think I did pretty well on the written part, but the spoken part was pretty bad. I’m expecting to be in the intermediate class, although I’m slightly hoping for the advanced class.
The final event of our school day was the entrance ceremony. We heard from the president of the school, the host family representative, and our own representative (Hanna). There were also some performances, including one by Eric (who’s really good at singing).
When I got out, I was picked up by my host dad and went home. I was planning on actually talking with my host family but I was so tired. I was immediately given food and I went to my room to study for a bit.
After a relaxing shower, I went and watched TV with my host grandmother. I couldn’t understand anything, but it was nice to really try and interact with my host family.
And that’s about all that’s happened. Let me add some food pictures for good measure, and I’ll write tomorrow!
WOTD: 蚊子 (wénzi) – mosquito
The Moonlight over the Bridge 
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