life is calming down a bit...well sorta. bastian from germany is staying at the dorms here for 5 days. yesterday we did some recruitment at fudan, a total of 6 people were recruited then. we started the session off with an icebreaker, then an intro to aiesec, Q and A, my victoria power point about aiesec victoria, then we had some team building games then an we interview the candidates. later that night we had an online recruitment session for the people who couldnt show up today. it was so weird doing selection just by how they typed on the chat.
later , i went clubbing for the first time in china. it was ok...expensive...and nothing out of the ordinary except the place was really fancy...just darn expensive!
going to suzhou tomorrow for the day, should be interesting, but now im so tired from a lack of sleep..must go

today i went with my roomate edwin to go visit his cousin and her family. i had some traditional shanghainese food. it's usually quite sweet compared to other regions. after that we went to Yu Gardens to buy gifts and then to a place with stores that sell cheap stuff. we bought some stuff for our dorm: posters, mop, mats, pencils, snacks. Edwin's cousin lent us her speakers for our room.

today i met up with the aiesecers from jiao da again. they were welcoming a korean girl who will be working in shanghai for the next 6 months and German ceeder visiting fudan. shes a Chinese major so her chinese is pretty good already...unlike mine. i just noticed that almost all of the aiesec jiao da people speak shanghainese all the time so its next to impossible to understand what their saying. they are teaching me some shanghainese though. i heard a couple of words that are really similar between the two dialects So we went to Taco Bell for dinner...but this is like fine dinning Taco bell...which means its expensive. then we went to an arcade to play some games. after we walked on Nanjin Lu before heading back home.

as i walked into the lobby of my dorm building. a bunch of people were playing some drinking games, most of them american. it was funny no one even looked or talked to me as i watched them. these people i've talked to in my class...and they didnt even say 'hi'. people are so 'clicky' here, reminds me of highschool.

tomorrow i should study my ass off..geez..cant fall behind.

Classes are tough,...well my class is tough! I moved into C class from B class because i know most of the B class words. I feel like im between the C and B classes. I seriously have to prepare a lot for it. its really hard to be 'immersed' in the language when you're surrounded by foreigners. i would rather be in a homestay then live with a foreign roommate. nevertheless, i must try very hard to speak...even though speaking with foreigners is strange because they speak differently than native speakers and cannot correct u if u get speak incorrectly. shanghai is very big and there 's a lot of construction around the campus so its hard to navigate around the campus. i havent found many 'good' stores yet, but that comes with time. life is so fast, people are very aggressive here when selling things. There aren't a lot of @ers here at Fudan. So my list of connection has shrunk. jiao tong uni is very far away so it is hard for us to hang out, but i will still try to keep myself busy. many people have been telling me that beijing is a better place to study...and i believe them now, i liked city a lot, lots to see and do. and its cheaper there! i miss beijing!! trying hard to make the best out of things.

today is my first day in fudan university. i woke up at 6 to travel from jiao da to fudan. it was raining soo hard today. non stop rain. registration was long and then i hadto find a bank of china to get more money because i didnt have enough, then i couldnt withdraw enough money so now i have to pay the rest on monday. i  m in a double room, so ihave a room mate, hes from new york, hes a young guy. his chinese is pretty good. after i had a rest and settled in my room we went to look around the area . unfortunately it was too windy and it was pouring rain so we quickly retreated back to the safety of our dorm. later we introduced ourselves to our neighbours. we met  a guy from york univesity and some girls from the netherlands . so cool! so any ppl from holland here. tomorrow i'll fix my internet and figure out where some good places to shop for materials are. also theres a chinese level test tomorrw..so scared for that.
its gona be great! and challenging

So i'm back in Shanghai after over 3 weeks in Beijing an Tianjin. I arrived in Beijing on Saturday and stayed until tuesday. I went to China's most desirable university, Beijing University to see what kind of programs they offered for language study. My last day in beijing i had to good bye to everyone again. I went out for dinner and then played some tennis and badminton. I'm not good at saying goodbye. I dont know how to say goodbye. I'm sure theres a lot u can do in that situation but i really have a hard time expressing myself during this time. I've made a lot of close friendships here at Uibe and it was very difficult for me to leave. but alas, i must move on, fudan university needs me. i might come back to beijing on the last week of my trip.

I actually like the challenges of living with a host family especially when Ying is not around. Well, every morning and afternoon I have to speak Chinese. I wish I could do it 24 hours a day. I know it would be exhausting but I would improve so much. I was talking to Ying about her experiences coming to Canada and the challenges she faced. I could totally relate to her on that being immersed in a different language takes a lot of energy. There's just a point where you don't want hear another language but your own so you shut off your mind and stop listening. The same for me, after 3 or 4 pm after speaking for 8 hours in Chinese I just stop listening. It's not that I'm ignoring my host parents its just that I'm totally spent trying to interpret them and trying to figure out what to say. I wanted so badly to speak English. I'm always relaxed when Ying comes back from work but at the same time, I won't speak Chinese much when she arrives, because she can just translate it for me. An easy way out, but I'm not learning. Anyways, I'm enjoying the journey.

 I've had lots of time to think about what the possibilities for my future might hold. Right now I have two paths I'm leaning towards. One is to finish my 3^rd year in Victoria, then go on a traineeship and/or study Chinese abroad for a year with a scholarship. I would be able to develop my language faster. After that I would resume my studies and earn a BA after one more year. The other path is to quickly finish my degree and study here for two years. I can always go abroad on a traineeship in the summer. I can also apply for a VP or an LCP position in Victoria and continue my Aiesec growth. I can get my degree out of the way and then focus mainly on learning the language and I think getting a job will be easier for me once I get a bachelors. So many choices and so many possibilities, but ooh so much fun planning it.

As you may have noticed, i have gotten access to my blog. Over the last couple weeks i have tried to publish but the internet here is really restrictive. i've added a couple entries dated back to the beginning of the month. it'll keep you readers busy.