Daily Essentials in the Northern Capital

Ni men hao. It is Tuesday here in the northern capital, very exciting. Today my posting will be brief. I have laundry, studying and general mischeif to get about to. I will probably get around to writing more later in the week. But the honeymoon is officially over, things are starting to become a little more normal and there are innumerable Chinese characters to memorize.

Today I wanted to share with everyone my Beijing Essentials, some are present in the photo above. Let's start with the head phones. Now, I love my roomate but she is obsessed with watching Friends. Anyone who has known me for a while is most likely aware that Friends may be my least favorite television show of all time, right next to Dawson's Creek. She watches Friends everyday, and though she tries to keep the volume on her lap top down, sometimes irking little bits of base humor manage to slip from her headphones into my ear. I politely combat this with my i-pod and head phones.

Essential item number two is the fine point marker. It is for labeling everything I can find in an effort to teach myself better Chinese. Even my camera has a little piece of label tape on the bottom with the correct chinese characters. So far I'm not sure how well it's working. However, the marker is also useful for writing down directions, names of landmarks around the city and putting my name on documents and personal effects. Hen you yong.

Essential number three is toilet paper, pretty self-explanatory. Forgetting it and not realizing until after you've finished your business is a real pain in the... well you know. Moving on, number five is the brown envelope containing my monthly meal stipend. Each month CET gives each student about $130 for dinner, breakfast and weekend meals which are not provided. Believe it or not, you can stretch that much money really far here. Daily breakfast for me is about 50 US cents.

The sixth essential item is my key chain complete with red knot for good luck, and a key to my room and desk drawer. My roomate was sweet enough to give me the knot the first night we met. I take the darn things everywhere, they have become something of a security blanket. And of course my last pictured Beijing essential is my bright red student ID card. This gets me discounts at the bus station and into the gate should I happen to return to school after curfew (midnight).

A Brief List of Other Items I Couldn't Live Without:
1. LONG UNDERWEAR
2. Medicated chapstick
3. Hand sanitizer
4. Giant print map of Beijing
5. Earplugs