Mildly triumphant return

Three nights ago at dinner, at one of the hotel's restaurants because dad and I were too tired to go anywhere else after our great wall adventure, a first ensued. We struck up conversation with one of the waitresses, who was either teasing me or delusional, because she asked “你不是明星呢？” (aren't you a celebrity?) I tried my best to convince her that I was a penniless college student, but she wouldn't buy it, insisting that I sign my name for her. I obliged, throwing in my Chinese name for the sake of it. Dad signed his name too as well. She then scampered off, excitedly showing the rest of the waiters and waitresses her newly acquired possession. Now I almost want to go and become famous now just to vindicate her.

I only bring up the anecdote for two reasons: Firstly, because I thought it was hilarious, and second, to show that even though I've been here for three months, the surprises keep on coming, one after another.

It's going on a month since my last post here. My apologies to my four (!) followers and the Light Fellowship committee. I spent a week of that in Sichuan legitimately without any internet access, and then the last week here in Beijing with my dad, running around the city and taking advantage of the opportunity to eat a nice meal or two. A whole bunch of things have materialized in the last month - I now have a working computer which I have just enabled to circumvent certain obstacles, meaning I can now post whenever I want! Now I have no excuse whatsoever for not updating my blog, which means that I advise you to heckle me if I fail to regularly update.

I'm actually hoping that the computer will enhance my chinese skills by allowing me much easier access to MDBG and such tools, and maybe even finding a good flashcard program of some sort. Mom keeps inferring that not having a computer was probably good for my productivity. She's most likely right, but I hope that over the year I'll still find the time to watch a few tacky sitcoms on chinese tv to keep working on my 听力/listening skills.

I now have about two weeks until my first class actually starts. Other students will start to get here sometime in the next few days, probably about 3 or 4 days from now. I'm going to be moving over to CUEB pretty much as soon as I figure writing this post, which means that I'll have a good long time to settle down, and probably nothing better to do than to fill in the details of the last three weeks.

Actually, one last note - not to be blatant, but what do you guys recommend as the best way to avoid the great firewall? Right now, I'm relying on the yale proxy server, which I unexpectedly still have access to (possibly mistakenly so...don't tell anyone, ok?). I also have Gladder installed, but that's not actually proving all that useful. It appears I can also find other proxy servers online, but some of them appear to cost money. So - what do y'all suggest? Apologies if this is too blunt of a request, but I spent an entire summer using my mom as my blog's courier, and doing it myself will allow me to start posting pictures, including some stunning images from beautiful jiuzhaigou national park.

Over the next few days, expect to see a recap of sichuan, probably something about my time with dad here in beijing, and then maybe more of a "life in china" update. Although I think I might be surprisingly busy over the next few days...shopping, getting situated, and, hopefully, buying a 友友球/空竹/chinese yoyo...I'm actually not really sure how to refer to it, or where to find one, but it'll be a fun hunt.