On Sunday my roommate and I and a friend of my roommate's who it doing a CET program in Beijing (another chinese language program in Beijing) went to 798 which is Beijing's art district. It was originally just one factory building that held artists' work, but since ethen it has expanded to a fairly large area with nearly a hundred galleries and small cafes and shops. Since we went on Sunday, many of the galleries were closed, but we managed to visit a few.
Since then I've been going to class every day and strugglisng to finish all the homework every night. I think all af the teachers (there are 18 in third year, I think) know that we have almost unmanageable amounts of work and yet they don't try to make it more manageable. I think they have a strange pride in knowing we work all afternoon and evening.
Since last might was Obama's inaguration, many of the students went to a bar to watch the ceremony on TV. But, since we are in China, it began at 1:00 AM and they didn't get back until after 2:00AM. Needless to say, people were very sleepy in class today and it's very hard to hide in a class of 8, 4, 2 or 1 student(s). In my largest class of 8, three students were noticably nodding off and since the class depends on knowing the answer because you may be called on at any time it was quite obvious. The teacher even began throwing chalk at one of the students.
The teachers will also often aske when we went to sleep the night before. If I say I went to sleep before 1:00 AM they think that that is great and that six hours of sleep is sufficent. (I do not agree).
The pollution has also been quite bad lately. I tried to take a few pictures, but it doesn't really capture whgat's it like.
Next weekend is China's biggest holiday- Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival. Everyone has work or school off and millions of people go home to be with family. We also have a few days off to go out and see the city, which will be nice.
Photos: http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss353/klebling/