Having been here in China for 28 days now, I am finally settled in.
Although a month seems to have gone by pretty fast, it feels like i've been here for months. Homesickness gets easier by the day, and with weekly skype calls, my family and friends still get to see me.

I can no longer access facebook, even using the proxy sites (which is a good thing as i am no longer addicted), but luckily my blog still works. The last time I updated was just before my first weekend with my Host Family. Since then, a lot has happened!!

I'll start with school:

It has been pretty stressful to be honest.. Work is a lot tougher than in Thailand, and my work load per night is about 5 hours. It's a lot, but i know that i'm learning.
This Wednesday, thank God, we have a 10 day holiday! Very excited for it, because i will have a lot of time to explore Beijing and i'm thinking of just getting on my bike with my camera, and getting lost.

Now with the family:

Without them, Beijing would be very miserable. If i have a bad day at school, they always cheer me up when i get home. Our meals are delicious, and my mama, after 4 weeks, is still going strong with her diet. Tonight she had some sort of Chinese whiskey and her cheeks are as red as chinese lanterns. She offered me some, but i decided i did not want to be intoxicated with a pile of homework waiting for me.
My baba, he is a comedian. He is hilarious, and when i don't understand him, he puts on a little performance acting it out. Every morning he puts hot water and green tea leaves in my water bottle and tells me to be "safe on the road". And my sister, although she speaks a little too much English for my liking, is very special. She's my little Xenia away from home. We play the saxophone together, and she tells me about her boy troubles. On her birthday last week, her little admirer left a HUGE cake with "我爱你" (I love you) written on it. My family is pretty amazing :)

Friends:

I have a bunch of really close friends who i spend most of my time with. We share the same interests, so on weekends and after school, we have a lot of fun. This friday night, we biked to the Western supermarket so that we could cook an Italian dinner- spaghetti, tomato and mozarella, etc, for one of our friend's host family. Then on saturday, we walked with our cameras hanging by our sides, in the Beijing Art District, 798.

Anyways, if you have read all of this, thank you. Hope you are all doing well wherever you may be. Time to study my 300+ Chinese words for tomorrow's test. :D

晚安 (goodnight)