To Suzhou!

Happy National Day! Not a clue when the actual day is, all i know is that from today we have a week-long holiday ^__^ Huzzah for China. To celebrate this momentous 61st anniversary of the PRC Louise and I are going to Hangzhou 杭州，Suzhou 苏州 and Shanghai 上海 ^^ We shall rendez-vous with Ruth and buy her the best damn wedding dress the UK has ever seen. *MISSION* She's said she wants a strapless A-line dress... but I'm sure once she sees the frilly-cake-monstrosities they create, she'll at least want to try a few of them on

I've managed to cram 5 days worth of clothes in to my computer rucksack ^^ We're actually travelling for 7 days... but my standards are low and I'm willing to wear some outfits twice *cringe* This is probably the reason I have to do so much laundry -_____- As a massive upside, I also got my passport (complete with residence permit) back yesterday ^^ Good times! I arrived at the bureau and, even though most people were handing in their receipts and being given their passports, the woman took my receipt and wandered off with it o.O; When another woman asked me for a receipt I pointed at the woman and literally said "She took" (fabulous Chinese, I know). The woman then looked completely blank (O_O), asked: "You gave it to me?" *head-desk* On the bright side they then left me to wait for an hour and a half whilst they retrieved my passport from "other people" (probably scanning my photo for criminal features -_-). Eventually I got annoyed and told the woman that I'd been there for an hour and a half. She looked really suprised at this, next thing you know my passport had materialised -____________- The bureacracy here literally demands you set aside your entire day to deal with it. Cos. You know. People don't have lives. I just hope I don't ever have to deal with a bureacracy again where it's common practice to interrupt the desperate foreigner to talk to your sad, saggy husband on the phone and tell him you love him.

Class-wise I've thrown in the metaphorical towel and moved down to B Class - there's such a huge gap between the difficulties of the two classes, it's unbelievable - B Class is more akin to high-school, you do the same lesson for a long time, but as it's Chinese high-school, the teacher drills you relentlessly in the vocab and explains everything in detail <3 Whereas C Class is like university: the teacher talks at you, no class participation is involved, and you are supposed to glean knowledge from this~ Apparently it's standard to move up a class after one semester. If so, I have complete faith the B Class teacher will make sure we're good enough (total faith, and love) ^^

With regard to the American... I think I last posted on Sunday... well on Monday I finally snapped and told him where exactly to shove it. Basically he started whining about how we keep calling him culture-less and how he can't speak Chinese because he's American. This was not going to fly, purely because this is what he'd been saying to us >_< I yelled at him for being so rude about saying our accents mean our Chinese sucks, but he said I said it to him first (actually it was another girl, Daisy, who said that, but he still likes her -_-). The resulting conversation basically involved him scuttling away in to the student building whilst I chased after him informing him of the failures of talking about yourself solidly for 3 hours - Eventually I cornered him by some stairs and he responded: It wasn't 3 hours. My response: IT FELT LIKE IT. *calm* This isn't my main problem. The main problem is that, despite how nasty I was to him each time he acted like a twat, he noticed nothing.
Yesterday he rang Louise asking where they stood. Apparently he actually processed slightly what I said *shock* To quote: Apparently Becka thinks I'm boring... but I'm a gay ex-mormon! How can I be boring? *bangs head against wall* The problem with arguments is that you never say half the things you want to say. Not because you fail, jsut because there isn't enough time.

Why is so much of this post dedicated to this argument? Because it's annoyed me more than I'd like to admit. I'm sick of picking up weirdos who decide to make me their best mate after 10 seconds and don't get the hint when I try to lose them >_< I think a weeks holiday will chill me out. Hopefully.

Also techie innitiation happened last night at Bedlam. It's probably best I didn't get to adopt again, my only child has adopted enough first year students for the both of us *maternal pride* But I miss Freshers' Play week, the atmosphere is so exciting. Hope you guys are having fun!!