I Wish I Could Think of a Clever Title

Well it's been a while since I posted. Sorry to my hoards of fans out there who have eagerly checked my blog day after day only to be continually dissappointed by the fact that there have been no new posts.

I feel overwhelmed by how different everything here is and how much I'm doing. The thought of recording everything in a blog has been so daunting to me that I have kind of avoided it.

I know most of you care way more about how I am and what I'm doing than about what Beijing itself is like, so I think I'll focus on me.

I've been really busy. Chinese is a very difficult language for me to learn, and I am not naturally gifted at learning languages. Plus we are moving through the textbook at a very fast rate: 6 weeks per semester of the language. Overall, however, I really think this is the best way to learn a language. Moving really fast while in the country. I'm very excited about how good I will be at Chinese by the end of my time at UF. I can already tell I've made a lot of improvements.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to a People's Liberation Army surplus store to see if I can get some boots or a jacket or a bag.

Yesterday I went to an art gallery called Factory 978. It's really cool -- modern art by Chinese artists. It really is a factory. Basically, this factory closed down during the cultural revolution and a bunch of Beijing artists started hanging out in the abandoned factory complex. The began showing their artwork there and eventually the place became so popular that the city or government or whatever decided to allow them to keep it. I felt very much like an outsider: so much of the art I think depended on an understanding of Chinese culture that I simply don't have yet. It was a wonderful experience though.

I also got to see a cool punk music show a couple days ago. It was at a place called D-22, which is apparently a pretty important venue in the Beijing underground rock scene, and also happens to be a 10-15 minute bike ride from my dorm. The best band there was a band called 有没有 (You Mei You, pronounced "yo may yo." "Yo" like in "yo-yo" and "may" like the month. In Chinese, it is a question phrase that means "do you have?" Literally "have not have"). They consisted of a caucasian guy in his mid-fifties playing guitar and singing, a caucasian bassist that looked like he belonged in a fraternity playing bass, and a chinese woman playing drums and singing. They did cool original songs and also some covers, such as "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by the Kinks, "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys, and some really cool motown song that I forget the name of.

Anyway, I've been up to a lot more, but those are the highlights. Again, sorry about being unfaithful with this blog; I will try to be better about it.