Success!

So, after considerable effort, I found the correct bus going the correct way to get into the center of town! I took a bunch of pictures, I guess I'll start a Flickr account and upload some of them. In fact, why don't i do that now, so I can link it in this very post!

Brb.

Well, while all those upload:

The incentive to get a goddamn cellphone has reached fever pitch, so I'm picking one up tommorow after lunch. While I was headed out to the middle of town I missed my chance to pick up a new cell because I don't have a cell. Bah.

The trip to the center of town was satisfying, if only because now I know I can do it, by myself, whenever i need to. Or between 6 am and 1130 pm. For 1 Yuan, at that, or roughly 15 cents. The difficulty yesterday had me pretty down, but this at least is some kind of achievement.

I talked with Zhu Ting about tutoring. Basically, I told her I would learn as much as she wants to teach, and she got pretty Jazzed at the prospect. It looks like i'm looking down the barrel of 3-5 classes a week, an hour each, and homework. The general thrust of it is to improve my spoken a LOT and get my reading good enough to where I can understand most signs, get around with a map, etc.

For those of you in my comments suggesting i strike up conversations with random persons, this is just what the doctor ordered. Like i said, the diminishing returns as I get closer and closer to the state of my Chinese about the time I left Beijing has been a source of frustration, so I'm eager to get started.

Classes begin as early as next Wednesday. I'm jazzed.

Also, I fixed a scratched disk with toothpaste a few minutes ago. What's up with that? I didn't actually expect it to work, since it left the disk looking WAAAY worse than when I started, but lo and behold, I can play Viva Pinata again. Or I could until the wattage converter gave out. Gotta let that sucker cool, hope it still works in the morning. I'd put it in the freezer, but something tells me that'd be a bad long-term plan.

Bit torrent has been up and running for a long time now, and I've downloaded some 25 DS games or so. Filled the poor hard drive to the max.

Anyways, another boring night tonight, but at least i got something done, and tommorow should be pretty interesting.

Ah, upload's done.

There. All commented on and everything. I gotta take more pictures of the school.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13966429@N05/

They're all out of order, but there they are.

I'll be putting other random pictures up too. I've got a ton on this camera, dating all the way back to my first China trip. They'll get less comments, but I need someplace to dump this stuff.

Peace