The Pain of $10 Puma's

Thursday, September 6th, 2008



60 rmb is pretty cheap for a pair of good looking red puma’s, but when they start giving you blisters in the back, that’s a whole different story. You would say, why didn’t you change your shoes? Well funny thing is, I forgot my key in my room and I was running late for class. I swore to myself that I would never take 8am’s while in school, and up until now that worked out. Of course when I get to China, I would be forced to go to 4 8am’s. Oh life. Classes started on Monday. I have 12 classes to choose from. In China, or at least Fudan, you’re allowed to attend as many classes as you would like for the first 2 weeks. After getting for a feel for the professor and class, you can then decide which classes you would actually like to take. So this week I’ve had the privilege to attend 9 classes so far, 3 tomorrow. The classes we are offered are different from the ones we were actually told, go figure. Our choices are,

Strategies for International Marketing
E-Business
Logistics
Market Analysis in China
Westerners in Early Modern China: 1600-
Modern Chinese History
Introduction to Buddhism
History of Chinese Thought
History of Diplomacy in Modern China
Regional Scenario: Asia Pacific
International Political Economics
Comparison of Foreign Policies

Each class is offered once a week for 2 hours a day. That’s not too bad. For regular students, the schedule is the same except theirs is for 3 hours a day. I guess that’s just about the same as the schedule at WJ. Instead of spreading it out 1 hour for 3 days, its just taken all at once. So after tomorrow’s classes I’m going to try to figure out which 4 classes I will be taking and then go to them next week. Along with the 4, I will also be taking a Chinese language course, but I don’t get the assignment for that until tomorrow. As we normally take 4 or 5 classes, the Fudan students actually take from a range of 12-15 classes a semester. That’s a lot! I was shocked when I heard that. But they are also not involved so much in extracurricular activities. The professors here aren’t bad. I haven’t met my business prof. yet because he’s been having visa problems, but he’ll finally be here tomorrow. The main one I’ve had my classes with is with a prof. from Mexico and his method is through presentation and lots of participation. Kind of reminds me of Prof. Murphy’s. This weeks there’s a lot of students in the classes because it’s trial period, but next week will probably be less. Here’s a picture of one of the classrooms.

Classroom

They’re kind of weird since the seat nor desk move. But it’s adjustable. Today I also made a tour of the dormitory but it doesn’t seem to be working.:( So I’m still working on that. Camera’s, oy.

This week, since I’m still in the deciding factor of what classes I want to take, there hasn’t been too much studying yet. So, the great person that I am, I decided to jump on the UC wagon and go on the tour to the Shanghai Museum, the Yuyuan Garden and the boat ride. Since you all know I’m bad at names, yea it’s a bad habit, if I’ve made any mistakes, please correct me. Thanks!

museum

Lots of historical exhibits. My favorite were the Buddha and the calligraphy. I just tried loading the pictures but it says I’ve maxed out on my picture uploads. That’s weird. I’ll have to try to make a album on a website and link it to there. Boy, these blog things can be so complicated. But along with the museum, we went to this famous garden near old town. If I could show you pictures, I would. Also at Old Town, we have the famous Shanghai dumplings. mmmm! they were so good! After that, we went on a boat ride down and up the river. It was really pretty because it was dark and we got to see all the lights. Oh, how romantic!

And of course I have a confession to make. While we were on the Bund, I got season 4 of the OC, and now I’m addicted. But don’t worry! I’m almost done. This weekend there’s a lot of people going to travel but one of my cousins is actually going to be in Shanghai! What a small world right? I haven’t seen her in so long, and we’re finally going to meet up in China! But I hope everyone has a good trip, and bring back lots of pictures! I’ll try to get those pictures and video’s figured it in the mean time. Until next time, zai jian!