在北京的情况

Everyday in Beijing feels so gloomy now. Because we're officially in winter, at least in Beijing, the nights come at around 4:45 pm and it's already starting to get dark while I end class, if I have afternoon classes. It's pretty sad considering the fact that, IF I do have afternoon classes, chances are I've slept in until lunch time, whereupon afterward I immediately go to class. So, what this means is I wake up, go to a quick lunch, go to class and while class is still in session, the sun begins to set. I guess it's not so bad since the short days are also experienced in the US as well, but to top things off, my room is FREEZING all the time, probably because the building was built with poor circulation or something, it's China, who knows?

But especially right now, I'm sitting in front of my window, the coldest part of my room, with the window open. I'm only doing this because today they sprayed their third round of cockroach killing spray (the fumes are suffocating), not bad considering the first month they didn't try a single thing to fix the roach infestation problem. I think I may be to credit for this monthly spraying, I think after all the complaints and threatening to take it to the head of the Study Abroad Student Housing, they got the point and are making attempts to appease this angry American. HAHA.

On that note, let me describe how much I think I've changed since coming to China and being here for about 4 1/2 - 5 months. Now, whenever I hear English or see white people (they can be American OR European), I can't help but stare. I know it's bad, and I don't do it for very long, but I look at them as I feel like the Chinese looked at me when I had just arrived to China, fluently speaking English (though I feel like they still give me "the glare"). I've turned into one of them. Oh well, I guess that's what being in a country that's not your home will do to you.

With midterms coming up this week, I really shouldn't be blogging, but I also really wanted to show you guys a glimpse of what light, after-work traffic looks like on the "small" street outside my window. This street is hardly small, but in China they have classifiers of street widths: 路, which is a road, 街, which is a street, and 大街, which is an avenue. I guess there is also a 胡同，which they define to the meters across, I forget how wide. But, this street would be considered a 街. Something I would definitely consider much larger if it were in tiny Piedmont.

I'll give you two views:

The left view.

The right view.