School...

...is not getting any easier. But I suppose if it were easy, everyone would do it-or at least that's what people tell me.
Here's a quick rundown of the classes I have going:

• Newspaper Production Workshop: This class produces the weekly newspaper, The Journal. Some people write 2-3 articles a week, but because I have 2 8-week classes I've decided to only take on one/week until they are over. I want to be able to devote myself entirely to something and I don't feel like I can do that if I'm stressing over something else. I think this is a wise choice, because while I may not have as much for my portfolio, my articles will be good quality, hopefully.
• Copy Editing- Woah. This class is tough. It's not so much that the work is hard, but there's so much. There's an unbelievable amount, to where even one of the editors of the paper (who is in my class) stresses about it. We have weekly quizzes, which is good, but not fun. I have a lot more respect for copy-editors now.
• Layout/Design- This class uses InDesign to create newspaper/ magazine layouts. It's tough, but only because I'm still learning the program. I decided to purchase the program for my laptop so I can work on it a lot more, and not just at school. I really like doing it, and I like the finished product, but it's very time consuming. We also have quite a few quizzes in addition to the layouts.
• Media Law- This is one of my 8 week classes. It's not so bad. A lot of what we're learning (libel, trademark, privacy, etc.) has been drilled into us since day 1. Of course, we dig a little deeper into the issues and discuss how they affect speech. I really like this class and the teacher is awesome.
• Investigative Journalism- The teacher of this class is also awesome, very tough- and that's what I like about him. We are working on a project, which I won't tell you about until it's finished. Ten of us have 8 weeks to complete an assigned investigation. The investigation isn't really that cool, but I'm learning a TON! Most recently, I learned a very important lesson that I should have already known. I'm not going to tell you about it though, because it's embarrassing.
• Introduction to Dreamweaver- This class was the very basics of Dreamweaver, which is used to build websites. It was a 1 credit hour class that I took last weekend. It wasn't too bad, but a little slow. I wish we could have done more. I definitely think it could be an 8 week course, with as much as there is to know.

I'm still working on the weekends. During the week I have class from 1:30-9:30 with just a short break in the evening, enough time to eat dinner. Luckily, I only have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Friday and Sunday I work. Wednesday is my day off, but I usually spend it interviewing for my assigned newspaper article.

In 3 more weeks I will have 2 fewer classes, and have completed 7 credits in 8 weeks! Like my sister says, "It's like eating an elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time." I like that.

China Trip 19- Time to move on

I've been blogging about my China trip, trying to get out all of the amazing awesome things we did while we were there. But there's not a whole lot more, so I'll try to sum it up quickly. The rest of school was pretty much the same.

The kids ended up really liking me and I felt bad when I told them goodbye and they kept telling me they would see me tomorrow. Some of them brought me really thoughtful gifts and since their parents weren't there, they just had to make do. One girl gave me fer favorite doll, another a pink (kids) necklace and bracelet set, a fan, little notes, and an ear cleaner. Like I said... they gave me "found" items. Most likely something they wouldn't miss, but very, very sweet.

I brought cookies for my last day and tried to teach them "heads up 7 up" which they didn't even get a little bit, even after we went down to 3.

The night before we left we had dinner with Junior and the 2 girls we met at the coffee shop earlier in our trip. But one of the girl's grandmother was sick so they ended up having to leave. She looked very sad, which was quite a contrast to the perky girls who insisted we go karaoke. Understandably.

We went back to Brittany's room and watched a movie and talked for awhile.
I really liked those guys.

We had an amazingly long bus ride to Shanghai (6 hours!) where a lady threw up on the bus and they laid her in the street and moved on. And i had to use the most disgusting "bathroom" I've ever seen in my life. ew. There weren't even doors. Just girls squatting, some facing each other, some facing opposite. I decided I couldn't do it and went back to the bus. But upon finding out that we still had 3 more hours and it was the only stop we were making, I had to use it. I went back in and used it alone as about 40 Chinese people stared at me like I was... well, I don't even know. But I could tell they thought I was ridiculous.

We went to the Broadway Mansions again, and had trouble with our reservations. They said they didn't get them, but we had a printed out reservation. But they didn't have our room available so they decided to upgrade us. I knew this would be a problem and that they would want the extra money, but that's not how it works. They did, but ended up letting us have it for the price our room was supposed to be.

On our last day in Shanghai it was Barb's birthday. We decided to go all over Shanghai and some places downtown. She wanted to go to the aquarium first, Shanghai Ocean Aquarium.

The aquarium was really awesome. I took pictures like crazy, because G really likes fish and I knew he would appreciate it. I used almost all of my battery taking video. There were 4 stories of fish with a Jetson's style conveyor belt to keep traffic moving along.

We were in the gift shop at the end and I was trying to pay. I had my wallet on the counter and I was getting money, when I felt something. I just reached back and brushed it off though. Probably just a kid rubbing up against me...

I didn't want to turn away from my money to see what was up. But I should have. Someone stole my camera right out of my purse. Security took my name and number (more for my sake than theirs) and said they were sorry. That's it. They didn't want to call the police and Barb thought we would be there all day trying to expalin what happened. We walked around a few hours looking for "suspicious"people and I still think I might have saw them.

Two young Chinese guys were looking at a cell phone. They had a fanny pack (full of stolen things?) and when they saw me looking at them they hurriedly put it back in their pack and walked away really fast. We tried to follow them, but China is big and it's easy to lose a Chinese person when they all have black hair...

We looked for red cameras (there are surprisingly few) incase they had already sold it, and mused that they wouldn't be able to even read anything on it.
I was very sad that I lost my camera. It was new. I had just gotten it for Valentines day this year. And I was sad that I lost all of my pictures. Luckilly, I had just uploaded all of my other pictures the night before, so I just lost the aquarim pictures; there were a lot, but at least I didn't lose them all.

I had to wait 5 hours to call G and cry about it. The hotel was very nice and let me use the internet for free to call via Skype. G was really understanding and said I was lucky I didn't lose my passport, which is true.

I was too sad to do anything else and hung out in my hotel room the rest of the night. I feel bad that I ruined Barb's birthday, but she was okay with watching HBO in English in our room. After G made me feel a lot better and after I talked to him I was able to take Barb out to dinner.

When I got back, within 2 weeks, someone broke into G's car and stole his radio. I'm not bitter at the Chinese, these things happen everywhere.

The flight home I couldn't do much except sleep. I was so worn out and exhausted. And ready to be home. I was so happy to see G. He brought me a COLD soda and Sprees (my favorite) to the airport, which was wierd because I was just saying I wanted some Sprees. I don't know why, but I was amazed that Junior had never had candy... wow.

I was super happy to see Vin and scooped him out of his bed and slept by him. I couldn't sleep much, because of jet lag. It was only 4pm in China!

So. There's the condensed version of the rest of my trip and now I can move on to something else. I hope you guys enjoyed taking a trip to China through my eyes! I will add pictures later. I have a weekend class to go to.