March 10

I woke up about 8:30in the morning and started to prepare breakfast. As I was thinking that therewas no need to hurry because there were after all about 2 hours left until thelab meeting, I was startled to find from the cell phone I bought the other daythat the time was 9:30! I did not know why, but it seemed that there should beproblem with this time as indicated by the new cell phone. So I had to quicklycall a taxi service and ask them to pick me up as soon as possible... and Icalled Mike to tell him that I would be there about 10:20. Finally without thetime to enjoy my breakfast, I got into the taxi. From the driver I came to knowthat there was just a change in time on the weekend! Damn it. I just did notknow.

Somehow I get to thelab meeting at the time as I told Mike. There were about 6 group members andProfessor Andrew Yonelinas sitting there waiting . I was so sorry.

So I began my report.Most of the time I was fluent, yet, sadly there were times I just did not knowsomething in my own powerpoint! How embarrassed I was...in front of theseAmerican listeners. However, I did manage to finish the preport (surely inEnglish), and then collect responses and comments from all of the listeners.Despite the proficiency I thought I had in English, I had to admit that I haddifficulty understanding the speeches of some members. The funny thing is thatI pretended to understand them... and said "yes" most of the time...It is just a little inconvenient for me to say "pardon me" thatoften.

Following the report,I went to Rite Aid, a small supermarket to print out some photos. Unfortunatelythey dis not have the right size. Then, after buying a bottle of snapple juiceand some chocolate there, I tried to search for a post office with the routeinformation one staff member in the supermarket had kindly told me based on theGoogle map on his cell phone.

Fortunately, there onmy Samsung pad I had installed Google map, which, amazingly could give me theinformation as to where I was at a certain time. So I walked and walked andfinally I got to the post office on the 3rd street. I saw about ten peoplequeuing there silently and I started to think about what the typical situationmight be in China: People just stand there without any order and as soon as thedoor opens they will just rush into the room... It is hard to imagine thatpeople will automatically queue!

   Later to my disppointment this is not theright place for me because they did not provide photo-taking or printingservice and all I had to do was to go to another post office on the 5th street.  I did not where exactly it was but I believedI would get there with the Google map on my pad. And I truly wanted to explorethis area by myself...Getting lost, to me, is not something to dread but torelish.

  So I walked and walked... for about an hourand finally, thank God, I reached the destination, the Mecca! It cost me 15dollars to take 2 photos and about 4 dollars to send the documents to theEducation Consulate in San Francisco. The woman working there seemed to advise me to use the prioroty mail service whichwould cost me 5 dollars, but, feeling it was a little expensive, I ultimatelyopted for the common mail service, which cost me about 3 yuan.

   Then after waiting for 20 minutes, I gotonto the bus of Q line to get to Memorial Union Terminal, which is close to thelab.

  I went to the canteen to fetch some pizza, something I did not really like that much.I just did not know what it was made of... I also bought s bottle of strawberry juice that cost me 3 dollars. ThenI went to the lab called Dad, contacted a taxi service, and waited until 21:00,where I hurriedly headed for the Memorial Union Terminal to take the bus to ArlingtonFarm Apartment, where I would take the taxi to get home.....I arrive homeanyway at about 22:00 and, after watching the film by Chaijing about the airpollution in China, I prepared myself for sleep.