I haven’t written a blog entry in forever. Well, two weeks. I would go back and fill you in on midterms week and China, but they can be summed up in two words: horrendous and insane. Once again, writing a decently-sized essay for every class whilst (finally) constructing and exhibiting our sound project from last semester does not for an easy week make. I’m glad that the sound project is over as it was becoming far too stressful towards the end, and we (Jack, Scott and I) were extremely surprised and happy when approximately thirty people (twenty-eight more than expected) showed up, took off their shoes, and experienced our sounds as we intended.

China was sort of insane. Shanghai is probably the strangest city I have ever visited. In the city of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (I went to the museum and lost count of how many times the words ‘bourgeois’ and ‘imperialist’ were used) the skyscrapers are immense, modern and entirely commercial. I ate pretty much everything I came across, including turtle and frog (turtle was delicious), and enjoyed how a litre of beer costs approximately 30p.

And then, after twenty-four hours of travelling in each direction (a total of 17,000 miles), I was back at Haverford, unable to believe I was in my room once again, and not entirely able to grasp the time change for a couple of days.

On Thursday, my friend Lizzie, from Edinburgh, arrived after her semester abroad at Dartmouth courtesy of the theology department. So far I haven’t been a particularly good host, although I’ve made sure to introduce her to as many people as possible in a lot of different social situations.

We went into Philly to go see a film (Watchmen – well worth seeing), and because I don’t really know Philly all that well still, ended up in a bit of a ghetto area. After getting off at the 69th Street Terminal, it turned out that the metro wasn’t working and that we’d have to get a bus instead. So we hop on the bus, take our seats, and watch as the areas we pass through get progressively rougher and rougher – there are lots of derelict and partially demolished buildings, burned out cars, crazy-looking people, and suspicious-looking men standing on corners trying not to look anyone in the eye. There were approximately thirty blocks between the terminal and our stop, and when there were fifteen blocks left I was practically praying that the area would drastically improve in the coming blocks. Luckily, it did.

Having gone to school in a succession of pretty interesting areas, I usually feel at home in the sketchier ends of towns, but American ghettos are something else. The cinema was definitely worth the interesting trip there, however, as it had comfy leather seats and was surrounded by restaurants from all my favourite cuisines, which means that this is an area definitely worth exploring (but keeping away from the ghetto-y bits).

Keep safe, kids.