view of the campus just inside South Gate

Is it normal for a person to consistently sleep over 12 hours a day? Because my roomate does. She must think I don't need sleep at all because so far I'm the one who sleeps later and wakes up earlier. Anyway, I snuck out of the room today at 1pm because today is the day where new students are bussed to a health center for a full medical checkup. Foreign students are required to have a clean bill of health to attend BLCU which means bloodwork, physical exam, chest x-ray, and ECG.

I can't say this was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon (I'm not fond of needles) and I was annoyed that they did not accept the report from my Canadian doctor (I did all the tests back home before coming here). Still, a bus ride, lots of waiting, and shared pain and awkwardness makes for a pretty good environment to meet people. Today I had a taste of how international this campus truly is. Here's a breakdown of some people I met during this 3 hour experience alone:

Magnus - Sweden. Studied mandarin for 1 year in college, 2 in high school. We passed Beijing Ikea on the way to the center and he took a photo to email home.
Charlie - UK. Unlike most of us, he'll be in Beijing for 4 years, actually doing his undergrad in Chinese Language Studies at BLCU. Which means this is his freshman year.
Emma - France
Nicolas - Canada (yay! Quebec)
Dave or John, I'm not sure of the name - Puerto Rico
Tang - Thai. Learning Chinese because he wants to work in the tourist industry.
Rumi - Bulgarian

Among BLCU students, Rumi stands out because she is older - 46 years old to be exact - instead of being about 20-30. She is an amazing lady who speaks unbelievably good mandarin. She's studied chinese for 3 years already and received funding to come to Beijing to learn the language for her doctoral research comparing historic Bulgarian literature to historic Chinese literature. Her husband, whom she misses very much, is back in the states working on his second(!) doctorate, speaks five languages, and is very supportive of her being away to study in China for one year. They have no children but she showed me many pictures of her two nieces who she absolutely adores.

Back on campus, Tang and I met with Craig from Boston (complete with accent) and taking a year off from grad school at Hahvahd to study at BLCU. We were trying to find a Japanese restuarant that Puja suggested but due to my lousy sense of direction, we ended up circling around Wudaokou for 40 minutes before giving up and eating dinner on campus. We spent the rest of the night sitting outside, talking and drinking Tsingtao - apparently the unofficial beverage of the campus.