Welcome to China!  This is the view from my dorm on the 12th floor of the International Dorm on BLCU’s campus.  On a low pollution day (like today!) you can even see the mountains in the distance.  My university is located on the 4th outer ring of the city.  However, I hear it is only a quick subway stop to get to the center of Beijing.  That will be a future adventure.  My roommate’s name is Rafhanah.  She is from New York and we seem to be getting along really well together.  Us clean freaks have to stick together!

This is my bed.  The only complaint I have so far is that the mattress is about 2 inches thick.  So although I am sleeping on straight plywood, at least my back is getting excellent support.

We have a nice desk and chair, a working TV and lots of shelves.  I can already tell through the orientation we had yesterday that I will be spending a lot of time at my desk and chair studying.  For our Chinese class alone, we will have class 3 hours per day plus spend on average another 3 hours studying.  At least my other two classes, sociology and foreign policy, only meet once a week!

Our bathroom is pretty neat because the shower is part of the bathroom.  There is only a shower curtain that doesn’t even go to the length of my knees to keep the water from going everywhere.  However, the water still gets everywhere on the floor.  I’ve already learned this the hard way but never run around on your tile floor after someone has taken a shower.  It will not be pretty.

I must admit that our campus is absolutely gorgeous.  There are huge trees, lots of green space, and many people walking and biking everywhere.  Our campus is located on a very special street.  On this street (essentially called university street) there are 5-6 universities directly next to each other.  In some places the campuses just blend from one school to another. Beijing University, one of the most prestigious in the country, is a 15 minute walk away.  The area I live in called Wudaokou which has the highest concentration of students in all of China. Pretty neat, huh?

Just so everyone knows the internet connection has been pretty bad here.  I’ve had difficulties connecting to the internet even on my Ethernet cord so Skyping will have to wait till I figure out how to fix the bad connection.  Otherwise, I am having an absolute blast!