For the last two weeks, they have been doing construction on Fenyang Rd, the street that the school and dorm are on. They started with the actual street, then the curb and then two days ago, they completely tore out the sidewalk. Why? No one really knows. So we've had to walk either in the dirt sidewalk or on the street which seems rather dangerous when lugging a violin and a large bag of music around. But my very favorite part of this is that they told us that on Wednesday, that would be yesterday, they would turn the water off from 8pm to 5am to work on the pipes. However, come Sunday evening at 8pm the water goes off, coming back on promptly at 5am Monday morning. Then yesterday (Wednesday) they turned the water off at noon without telling anyone and it magically reappeared around 8pm the same day. How bizarre is that?
Last week, as you may or may not know, my power adapter for my Macbook broke, so I had to figure out where to take it. Turns out there is an Apple repair center on the 21st floor of this electronics warehouse. So I took it there last Thursday and they told me they would call when the new one came in. So I waited...and waited...and then finally yesterday I called them and they said it would be ready today. So I called back today just to make sure, and the guy on the line was convinced that he couldn't figure out what I was talking about. So I called back later and got someone else who told me that according to the computer, it was ready and that I should just go down and ask for it. An hour later, I have my power adapter!
My violin lesson was today and I was super excited, because I felt like I had really done what Mr. He asked me to do. However to my surprise, he told me that I was doing it in the completely opposite way and was actually kind of angry or maybe disappointed, either way. Also, he somehow assumed that I would be able to get the music for Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 and learn the first movement...this whole request was lost in translation and I ended up at my lesson without even the sheet music. Oops. However, I have three days to work my butt off and make up for it at a lesson on Sunday, so wish me luck (both for my playing and for the two of us actually understanding what the other one is saying!).
In other news, I have officially learned enough Chinese to ask for a metro card with 50 RMB on it, buy a hard boiled egg in the morning, order veggie or pork or sweet baozi, order noodle soup or rice with chicken or pork or dumplings or wonton soup, answer the phone in Chinese and say I only speak English, and tell a taxi driver where I need to go and when to stop! And today we learned some very important and useful phrases for shopping and bartering...so look out Shanghai!
Anyway, after a ridiculous morning/afternoon, the evening has been relaxing and fairly nice. And now I am going to rearrange the furniture in my room.
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