Maybe taking Chinese Medicine is good for the Heart

So i am going to start this blog with some things I saw riding my bike home today that I thought were distinctly China: First I ran into a guy "walking" his two dogs on his moped. Then, coming out of the alley by my house, I saw a teenage boy doing tricks on his bike in front of 6 men pulling down power lines by all grabbing hold of them and running away from the pole until the power lines fall to the ground.
So I left off on Monday... ...
Monday I had class in the morning than I went with Ben (I finally learned the name of this chef guy from New York) and Martin to the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. Besides Ben and I, Martin and Zack will also be taking the class. Martin is Swedish and Zack is American and could not come with us because he was back in the states for a wedding and that is pretty much all I know about them right now. We met with a guy who worked in the foreign office and went over the syllabus. Then we tried on chef coats. The coats are really cool. They have the school seal on the breast and they come with hats and white aprons, it's so professional. Then we paid him with a huge wad of cash and he took us to this huge, industrial SAM'S CLUB like store to buy knives and things. I could have spent hours in there, but he clearly wanted to get going so we picked out knives, shears, and some small dish towels and left. After that we got lunch at a delicious street side restaurant and went back to school. I went swimming and had a group meeting with Andrea before I could go home. I usually leave at 8am every morning and don't get home until 8 or 9pm.
Tuesday we had a meeting with some people from the Asian Languages Department at UW who came to check out the possibility of setting up a more extensive exchange program with SCU. They are thinking of possibly setting up going to ChuanDa as an option for third year Chinese. I like the idea, because I think everyone should get to have an experience like this and it is so awesome. But, I also don't like it because part of the reason this program attracted me is the freedom we have here, which would disappear if UW did a larger program here. It would be a much more self-contained program. Also, they kept wondering about how we worked this out with our academic programs and host departments and the answer is we didn't. The only major going to China really works for is Chinese. In any other discipline, you have to basically agree to take a year off or at least delay graduation a little. I don't know what they'll do though. Tuesday night was wrapped up by another Quiz Night at the Bookworm. Team Awesome is moving up in the world and did not get dead last this time, we tied for second to last. First, second, and third place get prizes and our goal is to win something by the end. Fun was had by all.
Today has been even busier than the previous two days. After class I had to go to the hospital to get a "heart check". I am competing in a track & field meet at Chuan Da this Friday and I have to get a heart check before I do it because people have died running before. I'm serious, last year and then two years before that students have died. Anyways, my heart is fine but I was very proud of myself after I went to the hospital by myself. I had to ask about a million people where to go next and couldn't have done it without help, but the point is I went to the hospital by myself, spoke all Chinese, and came back out again with what I wanted, a piece of paper certifying a clean bill of health.
About the sports meet. Everyone at Sichuan Daxue, as well as other schools though I'm not sure which ones, can enter. They have all the normal track and field events; running, relays, jumping, shot put, etc. I signed up to run the 3000 meters. I figured if there is one thing I have on Chinese people, especially Chinese girls, it's endurance.
After going to the hospital, I went to the Foreign Student Office and dropped my health form off. I also picked up my "uniform" for Friday. The Chinese are very big on sweat suit uniforms and all the middle school and high school kids are required to wear them. This one is white nylon and says Sichuan Daxue on the front jacket in blue characters. On the back it says Overseas in big blue characters too because I am competing for the Overseas School of ChuanDa.
Then I went swimming. The water is getting colder and colder and the air is finally starting to cool off a little too. I think air temperature was about 75 degrees F (24 degrees C) and the water was 21 degrees Celsius (I asked) which is about 70 degrees F. After that Deborah and I went to see Dr. Fang again. I'm sure your all wondering how that turned out. Well, I finished all my medicine and nothing happened. He wrote me another formula today and said I still have the same problems, but I haven't gotten it filled yet and I don't know if I'm going to. Taking Chinese medicine was definately an adventure. These are some pictures I took in my class so you could see what it was like.