I am "Miss Black EyeLiner 2009"

My appetite has returned with a vengeance from its 2 year sabbatical. I eat like a freshman exposed to the dining halls for the first time. I want to try everything, and it is so cheap that I feel justified. Last night my dinner cost $1.70. I didn’t even eat any rice or noodles; everything was vegetables and meat, which is more expensive. Another restaurant, called Nine-Headed Bird Restaurant, serves sautéed baby Chinese with garlic sauce. I think I will try that dish tomorrow. Haha.

I forgot to mention that when I was in Xi’an I saw cigarette propaganda. It was awful. Inside an arcade room, there was a game that looked like it wasn’t targeted for any particular age group, but rather that all ages would play it. If you won, the prize was not tickets, or points, but a box of cigarettes.

On my dorm room walls, there is a cemetery of mosquitoes. Like a head on a stake, my enemies’ limbs are sprawled around the outskirts of my kingdom, a warning to any future perpetrators. Yet my itchy arms and the occasional blood, my blood, that accompanies those limbs, reminds me that I do not always win my battles.

¼ of a semester will soon be over; that is as soon as I finish tomorrow’s prelim. The studying never ceases; its worse than at Cornell! I have 4 hours of class in the morning, followed by an hour lunch break. Then, I prepare myself for my afternoon class, after which I do my homework until dinner time. I allow myself a two hour break for dinner, but then its back to studying for the next day’s lesson until bedtime (which is about 11pm). I wake up at 6:20am to re-study that day’s lesson before leaving for class at 7:20. Yes, I only sleep about 6-7 hours a night, but strangely I feel energized and awake all day. My eyelids never slide shut, including at the appropriate hour of my bedtime. Did I mention that yesterday I went to the gym for an hour, and today I wrote this blog entry? That is my life. Outside these walls, the world spins, but mine stands still.