(1) capstone research project for sociology class, which is mandatory for everyone. it's a 15 page field-research (survey and interview) based research project on any aspect of chinese society you would like to study. mine concerns chinese attitudes about relations with japan.
(2) film final paper, 7 pages, can respond to several provided topics. i think i am going to write about the last film we watched, "shower." highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in seeing a chinese movie that is actually about modern china, not crouching tigers, hidden dragons, and flying swordsmen!
(3) econ final exam, a take-home test (score) with identifications and essays.
(4) chinese finals, not too worried about these.
alas, i should not really be worried about any of these projects. the workload is much lighter than it would be during finals at GW, and i am taking the courses pass/fail in terms of credit. but when a bunch of projects are thrown my way, i revert to psycho-hermit-library mode, no matter what the circumstances. so here i am.
anyway i have come up with a few "highlights" of the week, although putting them that way just makes me feel kind of sad haha.
wednesday: an epic conversation with my language partner, liu jing. i love this girl; she is so fiery and i know that it turns some other american students off, but i think it's awesome. she's a kou-yu (spoken chinese) teacher on the BLCU campus. i think she's about 24 years old. we talk about everything under the sun but lately our conversations have been straying into politics, which make things extra interesting. on wed night she asked me right out,
liu: "xian fang! many of my international students ask me, do i think the china one-party system is good? they think it is bad. i want to know what you think."
me: "... i think it's bad"
liu: "me too. but what to do? it will always be this way."
and so on. we also talked yesterday about the wikileaks concerning li keqiang and xi jinping, china's next prime minister and chairman. the wikileaks have been 100% absent from the chinese news. when i told her about the particular ones concerning china's fudged GDP numbers and li keqiang's favorite movies, she was outraged but not surprised. she hates him to begin with... he was the governor of henan (her home province). she said she would not be surprised if she was the only chinese person in china who knew about the wikileaks. it would be unacceptable for anyone to know that about china's future p.m. we talked about how americans love to know about their leaders' personal lives. chinese people don't know anything about their leaders - where they live, how many kids they have, what they like to eat. all they know is, they wear bulletproof helmets when walking from building to building.
thursday: got a set of 100 business cards made at my campus print shop with chinese on one side and english on the other.. for $7.50. i love china.
front: Grace Shin Fang Warrick
George Washington University Class of 2012
International Affairs and Economics
English, Mandarin
email, mobile, linkedin, skype, QQ
back: 吴贤芳
乔治华盛顿大学2010毕业
国际关系和经济
英语，普通话
电子邮箱，手机，网址，skype, QQ
on thursday, also received another postcard from sue, my roommate in shanghai. she had this photo made into a postcard! i almost cried.
"dear grace,
how are you doing these days? you know, i miss you soooo...o much! looking at this card makes me miss the time when we lived together, that happy summer, i am sad and miss it so much! in a short time, you will return to america. i don't know if we will have another opportunity to see each other. we will always be able to see this picture of us together and feel happy. i hope our friendship lasts for a long time!
love you, sue"
i will be sending an american christmas card back her way :)
whew, i guess thursday was an eventful day. i also went out with christy, katie, bobby and lili to enjoy our last "ladies night" in wudaokou. this means free entry and three free drinks for the girls at both solutions and propaganda, for a total of six. for the boys... shotgunning beers in the back of seven11. ha. it's an awesome time but i realized i am not going to miss suffocating in cigarette smoke and a sea of koreans every time i want to go out and socialize.
friday: shopping for cutsie things that i have wanted to get all semester from the wudaokou mall, e.g. the CUTEST planner ever for next semester.
saturday: found out that i got third place in alliance's fall photo contest (revenge for my "honorable mention" over the summer, muahaha) with the train station photo. you can see below in the post, "photo contest entries."
fun stuff coming up: tonight going to the beijing national performing arts center.. aka coolest building EVER to see the ballet swan lake. i dropped 27 big ones (US dollars!) to see this show with some of my girl friends from the program because (a) i have never been to a ballet, and (b) i really want a chance to go in this building and look around. emma, our in-house ballerina, is dying in anticipation :)
sunday: attending GW's "beijing brunch" at the peninsula hotel in wangfujing. hopefully a fun get together/networking opportunity. also on sunday, becca arrives in BJ! (GW friend and spring 2011 roommate, currently studying abroad in kunming, yunan province). very exciting. next week i hope to meet up with her and on friday we have plans to go to a chabad dinner with her parents. eeek!
monday: "day on the job" at toyota's lexus office in beijing. gotta get my game face on for that one.
tuesday-friday: whirlwind of presentations, papers, and exams
friday night: no sleeping allowed
saturday night: flight!
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