Yesterday, I moved into my dorms for ACC Field Studies at the Capital University of Economics and Business (CUEB). The actual move-in portion was a bit hectic, but it felt great after I got settled in. The CUEB campus in the Chaoyang District is a pretty small community that is surrounded by one of the best parts of urban Beijing. As I soon discovered, there are many nearby restaurants and stores in addition to the Evolution-Fitness Center (which somewhat resembles Payne Whitney on a smaller scale) and Sanlintun (a really famous part of Beijing that people go to for relaxation and conversation with friends). There’s an underground supermarket called 法宝right across the street, which is most convenient. I went over there and bought a 24-pack of spring water upon arrival. Maybe I’m just lazy, but I think boiling water is too much of a hassle to be done on a regular basis. *Tap water in China is BAD. The water must be boiled before drinking for health purposes. My dorm room itself is a perfect habitat for me. Equipped with air conditioning, hot water, and television, it gets no complaints from me or my laid-back roommate.
A cozy niche
The only bad thing about these beds is that there are no mattresses. Also, there are Pokemon sheets underneath. No kidding.
The window view is awesome! The real version of this picture consumed 15 consecutive minutes of my life when I first saw it.
Yeah, this place is a hot spot at night.
I slept like a baby last night. It was probably the first time since middle school that I awoke at 6 AM without the aid of an alarm. I only slept for about 6 hours, but I woke up feeling refreshed. This is most likely due to the fact that there are no mosquitoes in my dorm, which is unlike my living conditions for the past month. The teachers gave us no time rest though. This morning, I took my written and oral entrance exams. The oral went well in my opinion. However, the written exam was definitely the most difficult Chinese test I’ve ever encountered. I’m pretty certain I got less than half of the questions right. I was also not expecting to write a full-fledged essay for it. Oh, and it was timed. This test is the physical manifestation of brutality. I am very fortunate that the tests are only going to be used as a gauge to compare my skill levels before and after the program rather than as a placement test, as is the case with my friends in the regular ACC program. After lunch, we had an orientation and a chance to meet all of the teachers. There are a total of 16 FS students and 8 FS teachers. That’s a really good student to teacher ratio. In other news, the long-dreaded language pledge began this afternoon after orientation. As of now, I have officially only spoken Chinese for over 12 hours. Out of the 16 FS students, 12 have participated in ACC before. In order to familiarize the 4 students who didn’t (myself included) with our current neighborhood, two of the teachers took us on a tour around CUEB’s surrounding areas and ate dinner with us. On another note, I just want to mention that the homework load is insane. My first homework assignment (due Monday morning) is comprised of reading a 4 page article, learning 2 pages of vocabulary, writing an essay using given sentence structures, and completing a page of additional questions. That’s equivalent to a week’s worth of homework back in the good old days of Chinese 133. I do reminisce.
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