Olympic Games

I've been getting e-mail updates this entire week about things I need to do to prepare myself for China. My volunteer program, CC International, has given us the list of Olympic events that we can choose from. They really hooked everyone up because everyone will get to see 4 Olympic events. They have tickets for nearly every event including Taekwondo, Canoe/Rowing, Track & Field, Gymnastics, Baseball, Basketball, etc. I'm thinking my events are going to go along the lines of Beach Volleyball, Mens/Womens Track & Field, Tennis and Water Polo. But, of course, that is all subject to change once I talk to Devon and Jimmy.

Devon, for those of you who don't know her, is my friend at Fordham who introduced me to CC International. She lived above me in Alumni Court North and we've been good friends ever since. She'll probably try and keep me from eating seahorses on a stick, fried scorpions, bugs, and small animals. I'll probably try one of those anyway though!

Also, I got an e-mail from my school saying that they rearranged the class schedule. I'm usually pessimistic about changes because sometimes my luck doesn't work out and I get the short end of the stick, but in this case, it worked out just fine. Actually, my new schedule is much better! Here it is:

Monday: Chinese 9:50-12:20PM
Tuesday: Chinese 9:50-12:20PM, Arts of China 1:30-4:15PM, Business Finance 4:30-7:15PM
Wednesday: Intro to Buddhism 7:30-10:15PM
Thursday: Chinese 9:50-12:20PM, Fundamentals of Marketing 4:30-7:15PM
Friday: Chinese 9:50-12:20PM

Yes, you read that correctly, Wednesday I have a class until 10PM. It's actually not that bad and I guess no matter what country I'm in I'll always have a night class on Wednesdays. At Fordham, I haven't gone a semester without taking Chinese class for 3 hours on Wednesday nights. This past year, I didn't return to my dorm until nearly 11PM. I'm used to it by now, so in China it won't be much different.

That is all for now. I'll let you know on Monday which Olympic games I'm going to see.

Things are Coming Together

I was going to update last week, but I was heading to California for a week for a leadership conference. I just got back to Denver, so I'm going to tell everyone what's up. I received my visa last Monday, everything was good. I have to enter before Jan. 1, 2009 and I can only stay 180 days from my date of entry. That works out perfectly because I'm leaving August 5th, and I think I'm only in China for 140 something days.

I received notification of my school dorm. I'm rooming with Jim Lechleitner and we got into the apartment style buildings on campus. This means we have our room, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. If the food is really horrible, we can always cook our own noodles and rice. Also, I received my class schedule. Here it is:

Monday: Chinese 9:30-12:20
Tuesday: Chinese 9:30-12:20, Arts of China 1:30-4:20, Business Finance 4:30-7:20
Wednesday: No Classes!
Thursday: Chinese 9:30-12:20, Principals of Marketing 4:30-7:20
Friday: Chinese 9:30-12:20, Intro to Buddhism 1:30-4:20

The schedule isn't too terrible. I don't like the fact that I have a class on Friday afternoon, and Tuesdays will definitely kill me. If you know me, I eat all the time so I'm going to have to figure out how I'm going to prevent myself from starving on Tuesdays. Other than that Monday will be pretty easy and I can already predict myself missing a lot of Monday morning Chinese classes because I'm going to be traveling around.

I haven't started packing yet and my chinese language books are still laying on the ground where I left them at the beginning of the summer. I finally picked up some of my informational books, and I'm currently reading China's New Rulers by Andrew J. Nathan & Bruce Gilley. I'm surprised how much I like reading about the politics of China. Interesting stuff to me, but I have no time and other priorities that keep me from really getting through the book. I'm about 90 pages deep out of 250. Maybe I'll get to 150 by the time I leave.

Other than that I've been good. I'll be updating more often now, so put me on your RSS feed if you have it.