The rest of the weekend!

So Friday morning and afternoon passed pretty uneventfully. I talked to my mom and my dad and a couple people from back home who had just started classes as OSU. In the afternoon, I worked on an assignment and then I met up with Sumana to check out the Taekwando club. We couldn't stay long so we just watched them. There were about 30ish people there and they were doing drills for the first 20 minutes. It seemed pretty intense with some crazy drills. Everyone was sitting in a circle with their legs spread, and touching and then one person would jump up and jump with both legs together over other people's legs in a diagonal, back and forth pattern. After that person had gotten about 3 people away the next person would jump up. Once you got around everyone's legs you had to sit back down really quickly and spread your legs so that the person behind you would be able to jump over your legs. They did this a couple times. I thought it was really cool and it would be cool to become active in an organization like that but I am not sure that I want to go because practices are twice a week for 2.5 hours (Tuesdays and Fridays) and I already know of around 3 or 4 of those days that I won't be around for because of traveling and things like that. So after we stuck around there for a couple minutes, we went to go meet up with Sumana's committee members (for Exchange Activities Board) and I helped them begin to plan and helped them make attempt at mooncake making. Mooncakes are eaten on the Mid Autumn Festival day (which is coming up) and in honor of that the EAB decided to have a Mooncake Making event on tuesday (tomorrow!) which I offered to help with. I guess I can't get away from my event planning-ness. Maybe I should go into that for the rest of my life. Its definitely fun.

Anywho I was with them for about 3-4 hours and then I met up with Ray, who was hanging out with his neighbors. One is Brian from Vancouver and the other was India from...you guessed it...India! They were all hanging out with some of Indi's friends. I walked in and I got the "Are you Indian?" question. Ummm. Yes, I am? Do I look Mexican or Spanish or something? Of course I am! Bahh. Anyway..I can't remember all of their names but they seemed pretty cool. I am sure I'll be seeing them around sometimes. Maybe we'll hang out or something.

I ended up talking to Ray for the rest of the night and he was telling me about his speech competition the next day! He was doing impromptu speaking against other UST students. Definitely brought me back to my Forensics days and I got to thinking about all the amazing times I had with the team and Ben and..everyone. We called it a night and I went back to my room and I talked to my mom for a little bit.

Saturday came around and I met up with Ray for lunch to help him prep for his competition. I gave him random words and I had him try and bring around some meaning from them. He was asking me about how to go about relating it to something important or meaningful and I told him about how in high school, my friend Ravi would have like three introductions that he would go to for extemporaneous/impromptu speaking. One was something relating this when he was younger and then another was a more educational intro etc etc. I gave him tips about relating it to being an exchange student, his potential desire to work here after he graduates among other things. I hope it helped. I left him and went back to my room and then went up later to give him some moral support. He did really well. The word that everyone was given was "Flat." One girl talked about how her parents told her that her face was flat when she was younger but then brought about how she doesn't need to go by that..she can be herself and as long as shes confident in herself then she would be fine. This guy named Jack, who has won in years previous, talked about globalization (I thought he was a cheeseball..and not that great of a speaker...). Ray talked about how the world is flat and everyone is all the same, wants the same things- a marriage, family, happiness, etc. It was pretty good, I thought. I don't know why he was so concerned, he seems like the type that would be good at this type of thing...and low and behold...he was! There were some other people that also spoke but Ray got third, the girl with the flat face got second and the cheeseball got first (Blahhh).

After that, I got some good studying in and then I met up with some people and we threw this girl from New York, Heidi, a birthday party. I hadn't really hung out with alot of the people that are friends with her so it was good to get some variety in. :) People played Flip Cup and Pong and it was pretty funny to see them trying to play pong with a bottlecap and a couple cups on a round table. I guess they had to do whatever they had to do to make it work? It was funny because the Americans were teaching the locals and non-americans how to play and I thought it was an interesting thing to watch..kinda cool, I guess.

Sunday rolled around and I didn't do much of anything but study. After that, around midnight or so, Sumana, Ray and I went down to the beach to watch the waves. We couldn't go on the beach because the waves were too high so we went arond and sat on the rocks by the beach. It was soo peaceful and amazing to watch the waves. I haven't gone down to the beach and what seems like a while so it was definitely needed. I love it.

Today was pretty uneventful, I went to class and was bored to death and came back, had a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwhich (YUM) and then fell asleep. I have been getting homesick lately. I don't know why. Its really random moments when I feel like I am missing out on life at home. At times, it really feels like I am going to get back to OSU and Pittsburgh and everything is going to be different and I am not gonna get back in the swing of things. People are going to have moved on and have been doing their own thing..which I'll have no idea about. Its an awful feeling and I am trying to get rid of it..but its been a really trying experience trying to forget about things like that. I am sure everything will work out but I have just been realized how difficult of a reverse transition it'll be..especially with trying to find an internship for the summer..and not knowing what to do the internship in. I guess I'll try and take it as it comes.

Not to be a debbie-downer... soo the rest of my day was pretty uneventful. I did finance homework and then met up with Chris (local) and Ray for dinner. Chris wanted to Ray to teach him some Wrestling moves so they did that in the lobby and people kept looking at them funny but I think Chris really enjoyed learning. Chris showed us some Wing Chun moves and how punching is the main mode of power (kicking to a lesser extent and mostly to the knees). It was pretty cool.

Anyway, I think I am gonna go watch a movie now..I'll post again soon.

P.S. I think we are going to get our Beijing tickets tomorrow! I AM SUPER EXCITED! :D