Yup, still facing jet-leg

Good morning! Actually, for me it is nighttime, but for you all it is the morning. I hope everyone is doing well. I am exhausted again, so I decided to call it an early night and head up to my room. Besides, I have some reading to do for my classes yet.

I had my first day of classes today. My Chinese class is great so far. I only have the class with Kendall, the only other person from my group who came out here second semester. It is just us and an instructor. We enjoyed it a lot! I love only having one other student in the class with me because we get tons of attention, which is great for a language class. Our professor is great. He is so cute and it seems like he is practicing his English on us. But he really is a great teacher and I feel as though I learned a ton in just my first day of class. The reason why Kendall and I have the class together just the two of us is because we are so far behind the other students. But they are hoping that because we are getting such great one-on-one time that we will be up to speed with the rest of the group in about 2 weeks. We'll see... I'm not that great! I'm trying really hard though and I've been working on using what I have learned, so hopefully it will start to come easier later.

Once class was done Drew and I went out the back gate to eat at a restaurant that many in the group have frequented. I actually enjoyed the food! I was so happy to finally find some food that I like. It's been rough. The food hasn't made me sick, but it scares me. Who knows how well most of it has been cooked, and who knows what the food actually is half the time! While I am trying to be adventuresome, I really just can't enjoy the food. I miss American food a lot, so I'm going to be in heaven when I get back. But for now I am just working on finding a few dishes that I can at least stomach. So far I enjoy this potato and green been dish, the egg-fried rice, a few chicken dishes and there is this great fried beef that you dip in ketchup. As many of you know, I LOVE pork (I would kill for pulled-pork right now!) but unfortunately most of the pork over here is so fatty that I can't even swallow it without grossing out. The fish usually is pretty good, but really boney. I've been working on allowing myself to put a piece of meat in my mouth and working around the bone... sometimes it's just too gross though.

My Eastern Asian Studies class was later this afternoon. That is being taught by Professor Ni. Today was a basic introduction to the history of China. It was only an hour long class, so it was definitely very basic. But towards the end Professor Ni started to talk about the one-child law. It is so interesting to me and I want to know more, so hopefully tomorrow in the beginning of class I can find out more about this. What I am so confused about is how my book and Professor Ni only speak of how the women either get abortions or they get sterilized. There is no mention of orphanages. I know that they want the orphanages out of the public eye, but there seems to be such a huge lack of information. Another thing that was interesting was that Professor Ni brought up abortion and how many people in the US look down on the Chinese for allowing this to be an option for their people. But he was saying that here in China it's not really about the moral issue. They have to get abortions, they are forced to. And on top of that, it's either get an abortion or have no food because many people would not have enough money to raise their child. Now, I am very pro-life, but this whole situation makes me think a lot. And it brings me back to the adoption thing. So many Americans want to adopt from China, and there is a huge waiting list. Why can't they allow the children to be adopted more easily rather than making the mothers get abortions? It's so frustrating to me, but yet I hardly know anything about it. I want to sit down with either Professor Ni or Professor Shang and get some answers.

Okay, well after class Drew and I were exhausted so we went up to her room and watched "Failure to Launch". Oh how I love Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker. Such a great movie. It was even better though because Drew bought it here and paid practically nothing...

Later we went out shopping with a few of the guys. We were going to go to "Copy Market" but it was across town and would have taken too long to get there. So we went to another local shopping mall that foreigners hardly ever visit. None of the shop owners spoke any English. Luckily I had Jason with me, who speaks great Chinese, so he could translate for me... for the most part at least. I know some of the key phrases when shopping... like "Hello" (Ni Hao) and "I don't want" (Buya) but other than that, I can only say "du", which means bigger, so I have to show them with my hands and say "du" in hopes that they have a bigger size. Of course they are all so small over here that most didn't. But I did find a pair of Puma's for me and Leah. (I can't wait to show you Leah, yours are so cute! I didn't have your foot drawing with me, but I tried them on and they were one size too small for me, and when I got back to my room I held them against the food and they should be perfect!) Tomorrow we are hoping to go to "Copy Market" where you can barter and they all haggle at you. This should be fun, I'm great at bartering!

Well, I am heading to bed. Thank you all for your kind messages. I'm doing well in the homesick area. I miss Joe and all of the rest of you like crazy, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Maybe Joe should just come and visit? I'm sure that would make me feel better. But I am not allowing my homesickness to get in the way of my trip. Thanks for the great advice Alex, you are so right and I am trying my hardest just to enjoy everything here. Mom, your emails mean the world to me and I will email you back one of these days, but it just gets so hard to write about 50 emails about the same things. Thank you everyone else for your kind words and prayers. They make me smile, laugh and cry all at the same time. Please be patient with emails back if you have been emailing me or leaving me messages on facebook. I'll get to them slowly. I hope you all have a great day, and I will be updating again tomorrow!