How I Celebrated My Birthday

Since I recently celebrated my first birthday since I was 16, I figure it deserves its own entry. Most Chinese people I've talked to say that I'm the first person they've met who was born on Leap Year Day. I wonder if it's because they know fewer people than people do in America. Actually, the USAC students are pretty heavy on late-February birthdays. Mine was the 29th, another guy's was the 28th, and one of my roommate's had her birthday on the 27th. Our program director bought us a huge cake and after the break on Thursday all of us had some. Sofia put the copious icing to good use, but couldn't escape a retaliatory hug:




After class Friday I found out that I had been rejected from CET's program in Harbin. It was the middle of the night in America, so I couldn't call my mom until the evening, China-time. That left the whole afternoon to deal with the news myself. Class had gone really well. I totally nailed a vocab quiz we had, so I was in a good mood about Chinese even though my study abroad plans had been thrown into the air. It was a beautiful day, so we all went up to the roof of one of the apartments. I went up even higher to the top of a little water tower thing, and lied down and took a nap.

When I was done feeling so mellow, I decided I should at least do something with the good weather, so I got two people to film me juggling and made a short video. The file size is large if you're using dial-up, but it's a pretty good video , and has scenery that you would never find in America. The tricks are pretty difficult, by the way. Here's the link:

http://www.jugglethis.net/filemgmt/singlefile.php?lid=1039

That night we went to the best Western restaurant in town. The twelve or thirteen people I got to come treated me to a burger and milkshake. Even my language partner and her friend came, so it was quite a party.

When we came back to the apartments, everyone got drunk, since it was a Friday night. If people didn't get drunk here nobody would practice their Chinese, but once they've played a several rounds of beer pong, chatting with the guards outside loses its intimidating aspect. I sat in the other apartment talking to my mom about being rejected and trying to enjoy being twenty.