Chinese New Year

I feel an overwhelming sense of happiness and contentment today. Yesterday was such a grand day and even if today's starting out kind of slow because I have to get a little work done today feels like a fine day to be alive.

Yesterday was the Chinese New Years Eve! My friend Wei invited me to come help with making jiaozi and celebrate with the other Chinese graduate students. I was so flattered to be invited. I actually showed up at the multi-purpose room a half an hour before he did so it was slightly awkward initially. They were very friendly and forthcoming though, I felt very welcome to enjoy the experience. 

New Years is a huge holiday in China. Wei told me that in Chinese mythology at the end of the year an evil energy (or a demon, I can't remember) resides in the world and on New Year fireworks are launched in the air and loud drums are banged on to scare away that bad energy and begin with a fresh start. Wei also told me about the city of Beijing where you can see the Forbidden city, the Ming dynasty's tomb and eat traditional Chinese food at the restaurants. I've decided that if I were to go to China, I'd want to tour Beijing. I have no interest in Shanghai because it's just a huge city and I feel that would be overwhelming. 

I mean I know being in China in general would be a paranormal experience for me. It would take a lot of courage for me to go into another country, but I definitely intend to do so someday. 

Wei also showed me some very sweet videos and pictures of his family back home. He has a wife and a three year old daughter, she's so cute! 

Last night was also fun because I went to a party at Bruce's house. Met quite a few chill people, drank some hard apple cidar, had a wonderful time. I did get pretty drunk though surprisingly enough didn't get sick today. I suck at Kings Cup. Honestly I suck at all drinking games. 

lol, lovely. Yeah it was a great day overall-- even got some studying in and played my guitar for two hours, and I feel great

peace. 

Should be easy to sleep tonight

Ha ha, this is a picture Reina took yesterday and posted today. 

The last couple days have been exhausting for me so this picture already feels like it was taken a week ago. I finally got that horrible critique paper done-- which I had to pretty much entirely re-do from scratch because my first attempt at it was an absolute fail. Good thing we did peer reviews otherwise I would have been in for a rude awakening. Granted I don't think my paper that I wrote is outstanding by any means but it at least follows the assignment guidelines. 

Today I also had an econ quiz which was a little stressful because I haven't been keeping up with my econ studying as well as the first part of the quarter. I'm happy to say that I did barely pull a B on that quiz (I got 4 wrong, so 81%). Tomorrow I've got a finite quiz that I'm pretty prepared for and spent a solid hour studying for tonight. 

I haven't been playing guitar as much as I'd like too... Now that I know the precise day of the recital however and will be starting a new week tomorrow I'm feeling good about using guitar pro this week. That's basically what Jacob told me at our lesson tonight. He's like, "You've got the right piece now, it matches the one on guitar pro, break it up into little chunks and keep working on it." This week I didn't get nearly as much time to practice as I would have liked too but that's how it goes when it gets to this point in the quarter.  It starts getting more difficult. After tomorrow I'm pretty sure there'll be four more weeks of class. 

At least I'm done with accounting, ha ha. Any time I complain about this quarter I think of how much MORE stressful last quarter was. Last quarter that accounting homework would take me at least an hour and a half a day. I'm thinking statistics is going to be just as hard. Maybe I'll pick up the text early and start looking it over during spring break.. whatever it takes to make this class easier on myself. I also of course have to make sure I register early to get a decent professor. 

I had to do some reading for english tonight, too, but after spending hours on that paper my brain feels completely fried. I'm back to drinking coffee again, by the way. Wasn't doing that for a couple weeks but I'm back to drinking it again. I've been kind of getting back to feeling "Normal" again regardless of the fact that I'm here. For a long time I didn't feel like myself because I was so pessimistic about this place but things have been improving. 

Getting the hell out of my apartment has helped a lot. I don't have a job, though, and I'm kind of nervous to check my balance because I've been eating away my student loan money. Surc food is so f'ing expensive but I've really liked hanging out with Bruce and Trent this week and have met a lot of new people just by hanging around there. Just having two people that I feel comfortable around has made a world of difference for me. I was trying to make friends with girls when I first got here but I've gradually given up. I just feel more comfortable around guys generally; or at least they're easier to hang out with. 

My roommate and I still don't talk, really. I'm sure it's predominantly my fault. I haven't been as friendly as I could have but I still have difficulty talking to her for some reason. My friend Abe has come over a couple nights and he usually talks to her but I can't get into the brief conversations. 

Jessy and I have stopped talking. We don't walk to finite together because I've been walking to Abe instead. Honestly he's more entertaining to talk too, Jessy and I don't really click and since we saw eachother at that party it's been kind of awkward. She's started sitting next to this guy she knows in our finite class. This guy always wears really trendy looking clothes, blegh. Not my thing. I don't know why, I can't take a person seriously if they seem to take way too much time coordinating their outfits. Maybe because it's something that doesn't concern me what so ever. 

I like the way I dress though, honestly. I feel like when I'm ready and have more time I'll incorporate more into my look but for now it's so comfortable just being simple. 

peace.