Life today

Other things from today:

--Basketball! I knew lan qiu was hugely popular, judging by how the courts outside my window are occupied from 7 am until 10.30 at night, but I didn't realize how big it was as a spectator sport until today. I walked by a tournament of sorts that was happening in the center of the campus. There were eight or so hardcore teams complete with uniforms and referees, but the more impressive thing was the 2-300 spectators lining the sidelines elbow to elbow. Lots of cheering and big drums playing, and I think this is a pretty common occurrence, nothing special. Yao Ming's influence, or is this what got him playing in the first place?

--Junk food. I've been doing well at living on about 10 RMB a day so far, which is good until you consider that I'm not paying for food or lodging or entertainment mostly out of that, and am spending it all on junkfood. There's a store that sells cookies and chocolates right on my way to class, and I'm getting pretty familiar with the owners (after one bad run where I heard 'liu' for 'liang' and gave them four extra kuai, which were patiently returned..). The main question is whether to go for Dove dark chocolate or some Chinese brands that are 1/3 the price but a very different product. At the moment I'm leaning towards Dove, since the other ones are good but sort of waxy and a lot harder to eat a little of. I figure if I get 3-4 fixes out of one bar versus eating a whole Chuy bar at once. Other junkfood is ice cream, packaged versions of which can go for about 20 cents, and variations on rice cakes and cookies, which are incredible. And for not sweet there are carts everywhere which do different kinds of kebabs, and roasted corn, and squares of goat cheese with chili on them, and yummy yummmmy....

--Yesterday I got my first modeling job offer! Ho yeah.  But I turned it down even though it was 400 kuai since it was all day Saturday plus the training on Wednesday, which would only have been about 20 kuai an hour and sacrificing a weekend. Still, I might go for it if I get another one, since I doubt I'll get the chance back home.

--I had a dinner meeting today that I was a little late for, so I was walking sort of quickly, but I was impressed that people walk a lot more slowly than I'm used to. Probably a good idea, and something that I should work to adopt.

--Related to that, I just tried the cheeseburger at Salvador's and it was amazing :-).  A friend from frisbee is from Kunming but goes to school in the US and is considering transferring to Swat, so she took me out to eat to ask questions about it.  Small world.  We went for western, so I had a HUGE mushroom onion cheeseburger and an oreo float on the side. Cathartic. 

I think that's all I've got.