Saturday, November 1, 2008

I Died More Times Than I Can Count Today...

It turns out that playing lazer tag where you actually are out of the game if you die to many times, has taught me that I have a knack for getting killed. This weekends activity was, of course, lazer tag. When I signed up to participate I was understandably expecting the regular running around in a room with black lights, fog, bright colors, and big bulky vests. Well, I learned today that this is not what Chinese lazer tag is like. When we got off the bus upon arriving, we were greeted by two men in military camis, and they promptly told us to line up in two lines and count off, then we were divided into two teams. After listening and not understanding all the instructions in Chinese, we proceded to go put on different clothes. When I first heard we were putting on different clothes, I was honestly really confused and kinda weirded out. When we walked in the building we were each given a pair of military camis to wear. The pants and belt were hilariously too big, but in the end it all ended up being okay. I was still very confused though as to why we needed to where military camis to run around in a black lit room. I later found out that we actually were going to play outside! So after putting on our issued camis we proceeded to put on the rest of our military outfit, complete with helmet, vest power pack, and huge bulky gun. They were all decked out in camoflauge too. After getting properly outfitted we headed outside to go play a series of military stragized lazer tag games. This was definitely not the run around in a dark room kind of lazer tag. This was like paintball meets lazer tag. This was a hide in the bushes and run crouching close to the ground or even crawl on the ground kind of lazer tag. It was lots of fun and we played several 15minute games, and each game had different rules and different places to play. We were playing in this huge park that had castles and fountains and trees, etc. It turned out to be very useful to be wearing different clothes because you didn't stick out, you didn't have to be afraid to crawl on the ground, and it was just plain fun. Unfortunately I have terrible aim and only averaged about one kill a game, but the last game I was really successful and killed a grand total of four people! :) Granted it was only because I rushed the opposite team and I had 8 lives before I died. So now I know that lazer tag is not the same everywhere you go.

We had Halloween here yesterday. It was fun to see everybody attempt to dress up for Halloween. It is kind of a challenge to find costumes here because Chinese people don't celebrate Halloween so you kind of have to be exceptionally creative. I didn't end up dressing up, but I ended up following everyone to the place everyone ended up hanging out. The place we ended up going had a lot of foreigners and it was fun to see a bunch of foreigners together in one place celebrating a common holiday, even if it was just Halloween. I do miss the corn mazes though. :(

I ate Pizza Hut for the first time since I have been here today. I never, ever thought that I would enjoy pizza so much. It was the most American thing I've had since I got here, and it definitely helped cure my craving for cheese. (They don't eat cheese here normally)

This week was my first week of class after my fall break. In some of the classes they have definitely kicked up the difficulty. It's all of course to 'improve my Chinese' and I am grateful that they care so much to push me, but it does have an effect on my stress level. So safissed to say I have been pretty stressed lately and I don't really know if the stress level will really every go down. If you could all keep me in your thoughts concerning that I would appreciate it. My midterms turned out pretty good and I ended up doing well on all of them. So I think that's it for now. Love you all!

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