OWLS and House Points

Went to take my placement test this morning in the YiFu building at 8am. I found out where my placement test was when I registered. It was on the bulletin board outside of building 3. The placement exam was very simple. There was a section of fill in the blank with the correct word, and reading a passage and answering if it the provided statement about the passage was true or false, and also choosing the correct sentence out of 4 possible sentence structures. The very last part was writing 100 words on one of the questions that you can choose. There were 3 possible choices and you just pick one to write about. The questions I got was: 1)do you like exercising? What kind of sports do you like? 2) Talk about a special person 3) Why did you come to Beijing? What do you hope to accomplish here?

I chose number 2. It was easier than the others haha. I forgot a lot of the words if I were to answer question 1 and 2. To answer question 3, i used some of the other vocab words from the actual passages and questions that were on the test. After the written, the teacher asked us several questions as to if we have studied Chinese before, where we are from, and to read some passages outloud to her. She asked if I had difficulty with the exam and I said it wasn’t very difficult so she gave me a harder passage to read.

There were many words that I did not recognize so I just skipped them. I didn’t make it pass halfway of the passage and she swapped it out with an easier passage. Again, there were a few words I did not know and she asked me how much I recognize and I said about half. Then that was it! Super easy. I hope I get into B or C. A is the easier, B is a little more difficult, and as you go up the alphabet, it gets more and more advanced. We will have to go to building 3 to check on our placements and what classroom we will be in.

They will post them up between 2-4pm. After checking the placement, we will go to R100 in building 3 (I think) to pick up our free books.

After the exam, I went to Chau Shi Fa grocery store to get breakfast. I got two white buns with pork filling. They were rather plain tasting. It was 2 for 3 kuai (so 50 cents US), and I bought this container with a free water/ tea bottle, and a pair of wooden chopsticks which came with a wooden spoon. So 3 + 13.90+ 3= 19.90…about 3 US dollars. I think I might go to the other grocery store in wudaokou because it is cheaper there. I will buy fruit and sandwiches or something there.

Oh by the way. The packets of milk that I bought the other day turns out to be yogurt (酸牛奶) or sour milk…I didn’t recognize the first Chinese character (sour) so I bought yogurt instead of milk haha. Whoops. So I will need to go back for some milk. I will also have to pay room and board today. Boo…

Special Dedications for making my life easier in China:


Of course, Andrew, who talked to AT&T for like 4 hours trying to get my phone situation figured out. They kept giving me the wrong un locking directions and codes and it was just extremely frustrating. Good thing he talked T-mobile into giving him an extra 300 roll over minutes that will be good until June because he probably spent just that much time talking to my banker, my parents, and my phone company to solve all of those problems of paying tuition, getting money transferred over, my cell phone, and worried and crying mothers. Thank you for attempting to create a checklist for me for the process of registration and getting settled. Unfortunately, my situation was different because dorm 4 was filled and all, but it still gave me a general idea of what I was supposed to do when I got here. You also filled in the specific locations of shopping malls and grocery stores on my school map so that I would know where to go. This was very helpful and I would’ve died without it. In addition, China blocked blogger, facebook, and youtube, so you have been the one who has been keeping up with my updates for those sites and helping me keep other people who care about me updated too. Thank you for all the frustrations that you had to go through to make me better settled in this new city and new school. Thank you for having your computer on all the time and waiting to talk to me at weird hours because of the 13 hour time difference. And for this, I shall grant you infinity house points…plus an imaginary 100,000 roll over minutes!!! And add in a pot of Kevin’s chili to top off the prize…that’s if it’s not spilled on the floor.



Another very important person to thank is Ella Ly. She was the one who travelled an hour from her home to come here and show me the area. She was very generous and very helpful when I asked her for advice about food, the subway, the malls and tips on bargaining. Since she is a graduate of BLCU, she was very familiar with the area. Thank you for spending basically most of your Sunday with me shopping and eating around BLCU and taking me to Zhong Guan Cun. I need to treat her to food again.

Also my parents and everyone else back home, I honestly couldn't have done it without their loving support. Hopefully this blog that I'm keeping will give you guys a glimpse of what I've been up to and you will all continue reading up on my journey here in Beijing.