School, Food, and Fireworks

Yesterday marked the first day of classes. Every day except Wednesday and of course weekends I have Chinese language study from 9am to noon. On Wednesday afternoons I have Chinese literature from 2:30 to 5:30 pm, and Thursdays Silk Road at the same time. I'm very excited for these classes, and they are all going to be very enlightening.
I just got back from dinner, where I got food for the first time without the assistance of Darren. I felt very proud of myself. I got kung pao chicken. It was delicious. And roughly 2 bucks, so no arguing with that.
Standing out on my balcony I could see or hear fireworks being shot off from three different locations. I don't know if I already said this, but New Years goes on until the 18th, and it seems like everybody is getting rid of their surplus incendiaries before it goes out of style. It's a little magical, seeing a whole city celebrate something for ten days, with people simply setting up giant fireworks in the middle of the street, or lighting black cats on the sidewalk. I like a holiday with a healthy measure of explosions.
I got to talk to my family today, and at the risk of sounding like an advertisement, Google video chat is the best thing ever. I just can't believe something so awesome is totally free. I'm sure skype is the same, but nobody had skype. Sorry skype. But it was really nice to see everyone's face and show them where I was.
Anyway, that's it for tonight. Just a little post to keep the fire going. I've got a lot of studying and reading to do, which I haven't done in quite some time. I'm still kind of in vacation mode, and I've really gotta shake that out of my head. It's looking like this semester is going to be no cakewalk academically.