The beginnings of my summer!

Just took a trip to Datong in Shanxi province and to Inner Mongolia.  Here are a few photo highlights.  I promise, more to come soon!  Also, I realized a better way to keep track of where I'm going and what I'm up to is through my Instagram.  (Mostly because I'm such an inconsistent blogger.)  More pictures at instagram.com/chankrista

我的留学生活

So maybe some of my sentence structure and word usage are a little awkward, but at least I can confidently say I couldn't have done this 4 months ago. Here's my last written assignment for my Chinese class. Its title roughly translates to "My Study Abroad Life". Feel free to fix my Chinese if you know how to do so! Otherwise, a copy and paste onto Google Translate will give you some funny sounding English which offers a rough interpretation of what I meant to say.

以往的我从高中开始，就憧憬将来的留学生活了。 当时，出国留学的机会还遥遥无期，我并不能想到会有今天的我能在北京过的日子，甚至二月刚到北京的时候，我也预料不到今天的我会对留学生活有那么美好的印象。

刚到北京时，我的目的只是提高汉语水平，多理解中国文化。我还记得到北京的第一个星期，因为还没开学我就趁机几乎每天都出去体验一下附近的旅游景点。长城，天安门，颐和园，牛街，前门诸如此类。因为我跟着许多新朋友一起去欣赏这些对我们很新颖的地方，所以每天都兴致勃勃，沉浸其中，玩得非常来劲。

陶醉在这种刚出国的兴奋中，我都把快要开始上课学习的实事忘到九霄云外了。开学时，每天积极出去玩的习惯要随之而放缓了。我还记得在北大上的第一节课，用中文给一位来自欧洲的女同学介绍自己。到那一刹那我才真正地察觉到自己要面对一个全新的语言环境。虽然我习惯下意识用英语讲话，在这个学期刚开始的几个星期，我每天都必须刻意地动脑筋想起适合的中文词来表达自己的意思，偶尔会感到心烦意乱，可是只好坚持下去。

因为如此，我更得到启示去提高我的汉语水平。除了上汉语课以外，我也有参加一些课外活动让自己有更多的机会用中文跟其他人交流，比如游泳队，国际部社团，当志愿者教英语等等。有闲暇时，我也会克服我比较内向的性格去约一些中国朋友一起出去玩或者吃饭聊天。我还有落实若干其它的学语言方法。我的手机从英文变成了中文模式，本来常常上脸书，可是在中国开始多用人人与微信，上出租车为了跟司机聊天会刻意地想谈资，本来用英文写日记也换成中文了。这样过了几个月，我感觉到自己的汉语水平渐渐开始有所进步了，多半是因为我的努力有了回报。就算我的中文还剩下许多要学，我现在的交流能力比起二月的也有大大的提高了。

在中国学语言的过程中，我不单得到更多语言知识，而且也认识了很多新朋友，也积累了许多愉快的回忆。在五一节放假时我去了东南亚旅游，和几个朋友做每天行动的计划让我们的关系变得颇为密切。还有一次，我报了铁人三项的比赛，快到终点时有其他北大的运动员呐喊为我打气，最后我排到第三名，获得一本珍贵的证书与宝贵的回忆。我也很珍惜每天上课，在食堂吃饭，去泊星地咖啡厅和朋友一边学习一边聊天的快乐时光。回国以后，我一定会很经常地追思这些留学生活的日子。

Remembering how to roller blade in order to take advantage of the great deal on shoe rentals.

Scalped for tickets and saw the Backstreet Boys!

Followed shortly by a performance from 风雷,PKU's street dance group.

Representing PKU at a city-wide triathlon.

Day-trip to nearby city 天津 Tianjin.

Night view of Tianjin

Hipsters exist in China.  So does hipster Chinese music.

Saw with mine own eyes and heard with mine own ears from Madeleine Albright!

This will likely be my last post before this semester ends, and I'm genuinely sad to see such a good thing come to an end.  As much as I wish it could go on longer, looking back at pictures from the past months fills me with a real sense of satisfaction and, dare I say, joy at having tried something new and found the experience to be worthwhile.  But I guess for some reason I just haven't gotten enough yet because I'm staying in China until early August!  Which, hopefully, means this blog is not yet dead.  More to come. :)