Kept my head down after Friday nights' antics, managed to get a new phone cheaply off a friend and even got my old number back. Continuing tutoring this 15 year old student, Ansen, looking forward to being paid for that. I'm actually getting paid something like $40 an hour, which is ridiculously good, even better considering how much further that amount of money goes here. This just stuck me as a nice photo coming back from Thursday night's lesson, this is the foreign student apartments where I live

考试及格了！(Passed my exams!)

Class photo after successfully completing the morning's exam, which was just a play that we made up about a group date. We even got Adam to hit on the teacher, which was pretty funny. I managed to get some study done the day before, still didn't have a replacement phone though. The afternoon's exam was fine too, in the end I passed all my exams, even got decent marks for a couple, which was a pleasant surprise. I've heard that they basically don't fail exchange students here though, which is a relief. Still, working hard and getting results is always a good feeling

Quite possibly the most drunk I've ever been

This is a Saturday night birthday dinner after a very interesting 24 hours. The food here was very nice though, so that did make me feel better. I don't have any photos of that period, but at least I didn't lose my camera, losing my phone was bad enough. So, you remember that photo looking out of my window, there's a tube connecting my building to the next one? Someone decided that it would be a good idea to have a party in there. I'd already completed 3 exams by this stage, and had two more on Monday which I had mostly prepared for, so I figured I could afford a night out. It was great actually, we were expecting to get kicked out but we all brought beer, wine and champagne and got quite drunk before heading out to Wudaokou. I even brought my guitar, and got everyone singing along to 'Wonderwall' and 'I'm Yours'.

Then we went to a bar, had another drink or two, then went to a Korean club called Global, I doubt I will go back there just out of embarrassment. Someone knew this American guy who could get us in for free because he knew the owners or something, then for some reason he decided to get behind the bar and pour out two enormous mojitos, they would have had to be at least a litre each, and get two teams of three to drink them through straws in a boat race. Sirui took a few sips, then backed away, and my brain said "free alcohol? Don't mind if I do." So I stepped up to take his place, and proceeded to finish the whole thing practically by myself. The girl next to me, Lucy, was actually just pretending to drink. I remember turning to Sirui and saying "decent effort by me, huh?" Then apparently I went to the bathroom, threw up, then passed out on a couch for nearly 3 hours. Erik and Luigi, two other friends, had to literally carry me home. I have no idea what happened to my phone. The next day, I woke up at 2pm, and was still drunk. And not just a little; I was still properly drunk, and didn't sober up until 5 or 6. Went to this Japanese girl from my class's birthday dinner, and didn't stay out late. I'm still proud of that effort to drink that much, wouldn't like to do it again though.

Australian (not Canadian) Embassy visit

I've been meaning to visit the Australian Embassy for ages, before I left I had an idea of working there in the second half of the year as an intern. Yes, I know this is a photo of the Canadian Embassy, but the guards at the front of the Australian Embassy wouldn't let me take a photo. I should have just taken one without asking, but I wouldn't put it past Chinese guards to confiscate my camera or something. But anyway, I actually got to meet someone in the Australian Embassy, Clayton, and he showed me around and told me about what it takes to be a diplomat.

Which is quite a lot, as it turns out. The average age of entry into DFAT is 26 or 27, and the people who get accepted have an impressive amount of experience, so that gave me some good perspective for the future. I am definitely going to need to go back to Uni and study a further degree, a Bachelor of Arts really isn't enough. I thought that's what I would do anyway, but I still don't know what that next degree would be. But back to the visit, I got in touch with Clayton through one of Dad's patients, David, who used to be head of recruitment for DFAT and was High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and a bunch of other cool things. So Clayton showed me around the Embassy, then we went for a coffee afterwards. He told me that there aren't currently any interns at the embassy, and he doesn't know if they'll have one in the future. So that kind of killed that idea, which is really the only idea I had before I left for China to fill the second half of this year. But strangely enough, I didn't mind too much. Whatever happens next, it'll just be a chance to gain some experience and hopefully keep improving my Chinese, so I just need to find a different way to do that. Actually finding something is kind of daunting, which is the next big thing that I need to worry about. I'm leaving it pretty late to start looking for positions, but what with study and everything, finding time is pretty hard. Anyway, here's hoping!

So the B-grade didn't end up finding a better opener after all! Very happy to have gotten this news, I love being part of the Uraidla community, and since I'm pretty rubbish at footy, cricket is something I can actually get involved in, so to get a trophy for that is even better.

Study break



Got back from Qingdao, and depressingly realised that I needed to do lots of study. I wasn't very confident for my exams at all. You will notice that I am writing this in the past tense, I keep neglecting to update this blog, but given my time constraints I think I'm doing pretty well. Anyway, I realised that I'd been doing a whole lot of fairly unproductive socialising up to this point, so I decided to pull my head in after getting back and get some stuff done. So there aren't many photos of the week leading up to midterms, seeing as most of that time was spent in my room. The weather, however, was gorgeous, so on occasion I did take the time to chill out, there's always time for that, and what better way to do that than to play guitar in the sun. I should do that much more often, I miss Australia's sun and weather. But spring really has taken off here, which does make me feel better, the weather has a surprisingly large influence on my mood

Weekend in Qingdao

Going back to Qingdao was, on the whole, a far different experience than I had expected. After having lived there for 5 months, experienced my first independence and something approaching adult life, I was very much looking forward to going back to the place that has arguably most shaped me as a person, outside Adelaide. This time around was very different though. I had a strong feeling of "been here, done this." Which is probably a good thing, but it made me a little sad that Qingdao will never be the same for me. The first time round I was there with very close friends, this time I was with different groups of people with different priorities and some people I'd only known for two days, which wasn't bad, I think it just made me feel like a stranger in my own city. The local was being renovated, so we couldn't drink there! I was so disappointed. Le Bang had closed, there was no longer a buffet lunch on the TV tower, for some reason fresh beer was hard to find on beer street and places kept trying to charge us Y40 for one jug. There's a subway now under construction in Qingdao, which was being talked about when I was there. All that said, Qingdao remains a beautiful city, a great place, but now I feel very ready to grab Beijing by the horns.

I did have a great time when it came to sitting down and drinking fresh beer (even relived the thrill of Baijiu, why I thought that was a good idea I don't know), went back to Feeling with the bouncing dance floor, everyone enjoyed that. I definitely wish I went back and visited my old school. Unfortunately I have mid-term exams next week, and yet am still procrastinating by updating this blog. I don't know when I'll go back again, but I will, hopefully they'll speak to me in Chinese not English this time and help me practice