I'm everyone's xiǎojiě

So, in Chinese 101, you learn that "xiǎojiě" means "Ms.", or "Miss". Turns out, it also means "whore". This has become a joke amongst the group, of course, and so I've become a xiǎojiě in class according to my teachers (they, of course, mean "Miss" 凯琳 when addressing me). Of course, I've learned some other words to use in my defense: qíba and wǒngba. Since our exam, I've done a few activities, including signing up for a Dragonboat race with some other Carleton kids. We've practiced a couple of times, and I just found out today that we get free, awesome track suit-like uniforms. I hope we win, though I know we won't, since our main competition is a group of ripped, attractive, and serious Chinese men. I went to a club on Saturday night, which reminded me of the Japanese club from Collateral, if you replace all the blue lights with red ones. It was extremely Asian and just a lot of fun. Many of the people we met there were so excited to welcome us to China- well, to welcome us to a fun, awesome Chinese club. I also saw about an hour's worth of a Beijing opera, here in Tianjin, and I hope that on a weekend, I'll get to go see one all the way through. The costumes were very beautiful and extravagant, and although I couldn't really follow the story, the songs were interesting and funny in parts. On the down side of things, I discovered yesterday that my Wachovia debit card doesn't work in this area at the ATM's, so I'm currently living on 50 kuai and without a way to withdraw money at least until the weekend. Hopefully, I got rid of my bed bugs today when I got the hotel to change my sheets. I am pretty fed up with having new bites every morning! Well, Trey and Fred are bugging me to hurry up and get dinner and study for our quiz tomorrow, so I'll write about the Chinese teaching style sometime this week.