FINALLY!

Sorry it has taken so long for me to make the first update - the commies here have blocked blogspot (too much freedom of speech) and had to figure out alternative means to update it.

So it begins - I am in Beijing! As most of you know, before I start at Columbia Business School next fall I will spending 6 weeks in China at Peking University for a summer language program. it will be pretty intense, with 4 hours of class 5 days a week plus additional stuff in the afternoons, but going to be really fun and it will be very cool to see things ramping up for the '08 Olympics. so far ,a couple of observations:
1) Cattle class sucks on 13 hour flights
2) It is hot as !@#$% here....no really, like Atlanta is pretty temperate compared to here. the kind of thing you walk outside and you can barely breathe
3) traffic laws are just a suggestion in Beijing
4) it is just unbelievably odd that a country/city that is so capitalist and prosperous is ruled my communists - preposterous!

anywho, so my program is great. 22 of us, although most are pretty young, like entering soph/junior year in college, and some that are entering college in the fall (crazy...born in 1989, unbelievable) . For my age there is a cool dude Richard, here, he's 25 gettin a masters at Georgetown in international relations; before he came there was actually some question if he would be let in b/c in his previous life he did some defense work at NASA and Lockheed-Martin. also a guy named Mike who is 30 and married. other than that, pretty much 20 something year olds but all pretty cool and mature.
we all live in this internatinoal student complex call Shao Yen, and our program is building number 5, 5th floor. so we call ourselves the Cinco Cinco. i've been pushing for a 5th floor community dog, stereo, and ping-pong table, but not sure that is going to happen...
There are 5 total groups here for a total of 108 people, and our program (called ChinaLink) is by far the most rowdy and loud. we are proud! but the cool part of that is we are still all smart kids and fun. although rich and I agree that there is no way we can keep up with the young'ins going out schedule.
we live 3 to a room, and each room has a bathroom; the building/rooms are pretty nice, a little old but you cant beat the fact that we have freakin maid service every single day! I get back from class and the bed is made, the floor vacuumed, bathroom is cleaned, and brand new towels. unbelievable - im' going to be pretty spoiled after I leave here. our Cinco Cinco is a lot of fun b/c it is essentially a co-ed frat house - no one closes their doors except at night and we just hang out in each other rooms. hopefully, at some point, we will get a chance to study some Chinese.
The campus of Peking Uni itself if gorgeous, a mix of modern buildings and really old traditional chinese style buildings. we still have not figured out how to upload pictures to this "back-door" of blogspot, but as soon as we do I will post lots. the campus is pretty big and self contained with lots of restaurants, stores, couple of gyms, etc, with lots of trees, trails, and lots of pretty ponds. although the ponds = lots of mosquitos, which is nasty.
Class is pretty cool, but 100% in Chinese - like, the teachers are from Beijing and can't speak English, but I suppose that will help us learn faster? these classes will definitely take a lot of studying - im' guessing no less than 2 hours a night. which doesnt sound like a ton except for the fact that we already have 4 hours a day, which probably means i'll be doin chinese a minimum of 6 hours a day! last night i fell asleep with the chinese TV on (its not so cool....all state controlled TV) and maybe if i just sleep every night with it on, I will learn chinese without studying?
gotta run - will hopefully be posting much more often now that I actually can post!