Second Tea House on the Left: Second class in the third level

Orientation has finished, and class (and with it the language pledge) will soon begin. I have only met a small number of the 90 or so students who are taking part in the China Studies Institute Fall 2012 semester, but those I have met seem like a good group of people. Of those 90, about 25 are doing the language immersion program.

I have yet to meet more than about 20 people because many people have stuck to the groups of people from their own colleges, and I have had the opportunity to do the same to some degree. William & Mary has six or seven people here, and all of them are doing immersion (and immersion students were groups together), so I had a lot of them around me. I met other people through general information sessions, group introductions to Beijing, and a fun night of pizza and beer tonight in Wudaokou, the main bar and restaurant area for the four or five colleges in north-western Beijing. Several teachers (mostly those who are still graduate students themselves) joined us in our night out in Wudaokou, making the whole affair especially fun.

And with that, our preparation and our language placement are complete. Classes start on Tuesday. I will be going into Chinese Immersion 310 to begin, which is right where I would expect to be after two years.

Until Tuesday, I plan to rest (I am feeling a little sick, so rest seems like a good idea), buy a few things to prepare for class (notebooks, small whiteboard, and electronic dictionary), and perhaps go around the city for a while with some friends and/or my host family. As you can see, not too much to report, and with it no new photos, so I will just add some older ones and make sure to get some new ones soon.

A note: As I said, I will begin my language pledge soon, which will mean that I will only speak Chinese from Monday to Friday throughout the semester. I would lie to hold to this as completely as possible. I would still love to talk with friends and family whenever I can, but I will most likely focus my skyping, calls, and blog-writing to the weekends, when I will have the most free time anyhow.

Thanks for following me so far - I have more stories to share about the last few days, including a rather horrible, cramped, sweaty bus ride and descriptions of Peking University and more, so I will try to get back to them over the next two days.