Campus!

It was SUCH an amazingly gorgeous day today! 

The sun was out, the sky was actually blue there were no clouds, 

no big wind, the little fluffies were at a minimum! 

So instead of staying inside and eating my lunch,

I went out for a nice walk in between classes. Was really hoping

it would also help me stay awake as I was having a hard time with that

in my first class! I woke up this morning feeling tired and not so great. Pretty 

much the same way I fell asleep! haha!  Here are some of the things I saw on my walk around campus.

        This is the path that goes along the little river by SIAS. It HURTS!! The stones you see are each sticking up sideways and are not covered very well at all! I have walked it in thick soled shoes and found it to be uncomfortable, but today I was in flip flops {Don't tell my chiropractors please!} and the few feet I had to walk to get to the graffiti wall were so painful! I decided not to continue on that path but instead turn around and head back a different way.
   















       
  We have a group coming Friday from America to be hosted here at SIAS for a week. They will be doing a bit of Cultural studies and other activities all put on by my department. One of the ideas that we had for the week {And I knew I might end up regretting it when I suggested it.} is a scavenger hunt of sorts. We will give the groups photos of things, landmarks, buildings, notable monuments in and around SIAS {all the way to downtown!} and they must find where they are and take a photo there. The idea is to get them to ask people out on the street to help them find these things, as they have all studied a bit of Chinese and their main purpose in being here is to create opportunities to speak with locals. Though the prep was started by another assistant, she only had three photos, so I decided to take a few more while I was out on my walk, and then from these choose a few to use for the hunt this coming Sunday. Its kinda hard though, since for me some of these things are just SO EASY to find since I have been coming here for so many years, while to others they may seem to obscure. Then again, I don't want to make it too easy and have this activity over in moments!

 I'm not sure that you can see it...this plant is covered in the tree fuzz that has been floating around all week. It looked rather pretty glinting in the light, but made me realize just why my allergies were bugging me more lately!

There can you see it any better on this photo to the right? It kinda looks like Spider Webs, {Why I thought that needed to be capitalized, I don't know} but really its really the tree fuzzies!

As you can tell.....I need some sun! Like REALLY need it!

But it makes me more popular here! 

"OH! You so white!!"

Gardening on campus is made 'simple' by never removing the flowers

from the packages they come in! That way, when they die, all you do

is throw it all away. And it doesn't take long to switch around an arrangement,

since there is little to no digging to do. You just pick up the old flower container, and

place the new one in its place.

 This is one of the photos I am contemplating using in the hunt.

Look everyone! The library is beginning to have walls!

The characters that follow the number 6 say the same thing.

The first is in traditional, the second in simplified. 

It made me realize once again that while I think it is so

hard to learn chacters now, and here on mainland, I can't

imagine if I was trying to learn traditional in Guangdong, Hong Kong, or Taiwan!

This sounds like a humble brag, but its not.

This is just an actual thought I had today:

While listening to a Josh Groban {"I am Josh GROVAN!!"} 

song earlier today it popped into my head

"I wish I knew a second language!" 

It took me a few minutes to realize the dumbness 

of that thought, to be honest!

It is just that now, at times, it fails to dawn on me 

that it is a different language. 

#ItsTheLittleThings