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Hey again all!

     so I kind of cheated last time and wrote the post in advance to actually coming to the internet cafe. It's about 9:30 PM here and we just finished the most amazing chinese meal EVER. the one thing I love about China is it's diversity of cuisine. It brings so many different elements to the cooking that I can't even begin to describe the complexity of the dishes.The common theme every chinese dish has is: grease. The food here is nothing if not greasy. But I think it's some of the best grease I have ever consumed. I wish my compatriots were as adventurous as I was in their eating habits. I give an example: At dinner tonight our leader was kind enough to order duck innards. I'm talking intestines, heart, kidneys, lots of the good stuff. it tasted amazing! We throw out some of the best bits of animal in america, where the Chinese embrace them! And vegetables here are also amazing. Take green beans for example. In America, green beans are generally boring, with some salt better, but nothing to write home about. Here, they are the bomb. I don't know how the application of heat and spices works here, but damn do they know how to make vegetables exciting! Any way you spin it, the food here rocks.

     Since I haven't gotten into it that much, I'll go into my living conditions on the lovely campus of Wuhan University. First off, I live in an international student dorm, along with lots of Vietnamese and lots of Africans, and lots of random other people. We have people from Russia, Guam, Philippines, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Austria, Germany, Canada, Japan, France, Palestine, India. Name any other countries, we probably have them. These guys are all crazy too. They stay up literally all night drinking beer that costs (no lie) 50 cents, and call the woman who runs the shop "mama". They're all pretty secretive and edgy when the Meiguoren (Americans) roll around, but get some alcohol in them (and us) and you're in for a great time.
     Speaking of alcohol, I've got a couple things to say about it. Firstly, quite a few of my American compatriots have consumed alcohol every night since arriving in China. I can see the temptation behind this because it's cheap, but it's also excessive. You would never (I hope) get wasted every night at JMU, so why do it here? There's one case especially I'm speaking about. I'll call this person Chris. Chris is worse than the others. HE drinks every night, yes, but also stays up till the wee hours of the afternoon. Last night, a bunch of people went out to the clubs. This was fine, but when I went to the store the next morning, here I found Chris still sitting there drinking, at 10:15 in the MORNING! Things got worse as Chris chose to not sleep, but stay up still until roughly around 2:30 PM. At this point, Chris was really incoherent and out of it. He was concious, but it was quite obvious his brain had checked out for the duration. While the rest of us went to class, Chris went back to the room to pass out. This is an outrage. How completely disrespectful. To us, our teacher, our leader, and his parents. He is also quite the slob and a very high-nosed kid. One example, and Bush haters, just run with this one: we have a political science class. The teacher is Chinese and a member of the CPC. He was comparing the Chinese reaction to the Sichuan earthquake to the U.S. reaction after Hurricane Katrina, who responded faster and why? While we all agreed that the U.S. response was definitely lacking, Mr. Know-it-all had to go and say: "It's because George Bush hates Black people." What a ****head! Now I'm not saying people can't have their own opinions on Bush, but to say that to a person who a) doesn't really get sarcasm or skepticism or b) really understand American culture, this is probably the worst comment he could have ever made. Because of this, he has been slightly shunned from the group for making America look like a bunch of racist ****s. Alright, I just had to get that out.
     Back to the apartment. I live in a 4-room apartment on the 5th floor of these dorms, overlooking East Lake in the Wuchang district of Wuhan. It's an amazing view to wake up every morning, walk out on the balcony and drink in the lake and surrounding districts. Our bathroom is a little different from most, but at least it's not a hole in the ground. Most toilets in China consist of a hole you squat over. We have a western style toilet (thank the gods!) and about one foot from that, we have our shower. The shower is always cold, but in a region where it's hot and sweaty most of the time, this is tolerable. The rooms consist of: a floor bed, a small desk and chair, a bookcase, and a dresser. Some people really complain about the room sizes, but I like it. If I were living here long-term, I would definitely add some things, but I'm mostly happy with the set up. The one thing I really wish I had was books. I brought: 3. I need: 500. Seriously, there's lots of downtime here, and I'm on round-two of book two, so things will get old fast.
     I'm not really homesick yet. I don't know when it will set in, but I'm thinking it will sometime. I miss some American stuff like: my own internet, a pillow, my blanket, and being lazy at home. Mostly I miss school. I thought I would never say that, but it's true. I miss all my brothers, both PBr and KKPsi, I miss my crazy INTA friends, I miss playing music in some form or another.

       well that's all for now, until next time, I'll try to keep you guys updated as much as possible.