1/13/06 

China Update #7 by Darrol Butler

Dear Family, Friends, Fellow Students, and Professors: 

January 1-6, 2006 

Finals & Moving #1...      I am starting to prepare for moving once this week of finals is over.  Of course my main focus is studying for my finals right now.   My last final will be on Friday January 6^th.  I must mention that is has been quite trying having to return to my last week of classes, before finals week, the day after Christmas.   To make the situation more challenging, we don't have a dead week, and in all three of my classes we were studying new material even on the last day of class.    As if that was not enough, I had my first final on Monday January 2, the day after New Year's Day.

As for the moving, I am fairly sure that I am going to end up paying more than I am currently paying, for an apartment not as nice as where I currently reside, but the location will be much better for me.  I will be much closer to school, and also closer to many small restaurants and coffee shops where I can eat cheaply and study easily. 

This is important for me because the area where I live now is not very convenient and it is pretty far from campus, making it difficult for me to get to my 8:00 in the morning classes on time.  There are few restaurants in this area, and I have yet to find a good place where I can go out to study.   I guess you can call this move a sacrifice for convenience.  The move will also prevent me from having to move during the middle of my next semester, when my roommates will vacate this apartment.  

The downside is that I had to pay my next three months of rent on January 1st, so I am not sure how much rent money my roommates will be willing to return to me.  In total I paid them about $340 for the next three months of rent and they already have my $115 deposit.  Because they will be unable to get a new roommate to move in for such only two months, I am expecting that they will keep my deposit, and my January's rent (I will be moving out before the end of the second week of January.)  I hope that they will not want to keep more of the rent.  However, the apartment owner already came over and colleted the rent from them, so it is hard to say how much I will get back in the end as that amount will have to be paid out of their own pockets.  Additionally, I will still need to subtract the money for the utilities/internet bills from the remainder that they return to me.   I did mention the possibility of moving in January to my roommates back in the beginning of November, however I had no choice but to pay the next three months of rent on January 1st because I still had to be here for my finals week.    My roommates are very kind though, so I think they will probably be willing to give me back two months or rent, while keeping my deposit and the rest of January's rent. 

January 13, 2006 

Finals & Moving #2...      As for my finals, I finally finished taking them and am pleased that I came down with a cold today (because I didn't get it two days earlier!).  I think I did extremely well on two of the three exams, but very badly on the other exam.  In the best case scenario my grades might be, 2 A's and 1 B.  However, it is more probable that I will have 1 "A", 1 "B" and 1 "C".  Though these are not the grades that I was hoping for, considering that I was taking 20 units of intensive Chinese language classes with professors who don't speak English, and a majority of the time I could not understand what the professors were saying, especially when explaining rules of grammar, and also considering the many difficulties I had to overcome in the past semester due to being sick and adjusting to life in China, these grades are acceptable.  Of course, I will try my best to do better next semester, and a new location will also help with that.   ***Quick note: I ended up getting a "B" in the class I thought I was going to get a "C" in.*** 

As for moving, I've been extremely tired lately as my flu turned out to be stronger than I had expected, (yellow phlegm and all), and I have been out in the cold (highs around 32F and lows around 20F) most of each day looking at apartments with my friends and haggling over prices.   The experience is extremely different from getting an apartment in the states.  There are many middleman involved who get various finder fees, sometimes up to as much as 1 month's rent, and everything is bargained for, from the price of the room to the price of each bill.   This bargaining is necessary since the utility bills may, or may not, be shared with the other tenants, and in any case are mailed out to the apartment owner every two to three months, whose honesty is unknown.   This means that if you bargain the price to low, he may not tell you the correct price of each bill.  Additionally the apartment owner may or may not cover some of the bills, or parts of them.   A good example of this is the heating bill (using the hot water radiators I explained in my Dec. 3^rd email update) which is a fixed price for the whole year and which is only used during the coldest four months of the year, November-February.    The hot water which heats the houses is controlled and provided by the city, with landlords paying a fixed rate every year.    However, the landlords usually pass this fee onto the tenants (which may or may not include a markup).  Fun, fun, fun!!!

***Note:  I feel very fortunate, and I am very happy every time I receive postcards, letters, and packages from everyone.   However, please don't send me anything until I get my new address posted in the next email update.  If you have recently sent me mail, there is no need to be worried.   I will be able to pick up anything that has already been sent since I have a close relationship with my roommates. 

Until the next email update, take care, and thanks for reading, 

Darrol Butler

戴龙
Dai   Long 

hairyleprechaun@gmail.com
 

Photo: My roommates, my friend Mike Williams, and I while decorating our Christmas tree.