SU's "Olympics"

On Friday, we had the day off because Sichuan University was hosting an athletic competition among the different departments on campus. I'm not really a track kind of person...so I didn't sign up for any of the events...but I decided to participate in the opening ceremony. Honestly, I feel like this event is going to be the closest I'll ever come to knowing what it's like to be in the Olympics. The ceremony was set up such that when you walked into the stadium, you actually felt like you were representing your group, this being the Overseas School, like you were in the Olympics. Each group department set up such that when we got to the middle of the stadium, we did something special. Our signature were these huge confetti canons. I'm not kidding...they were just like a overblown popper. You have the peel the safety tape off the bottom and then when it was time, you twist the bottom until the canon pops and releases this huge amount of confetti. It was great. Only me and Sarah participated from among our UW friends...but we had a blast. All of the overseas students got these jump suits...sort of funny actually. On the back of the jackets, it says "overseas". How perfect to draw more attention to foreigners. :)
Some of the other groups used balloons, others had flowers, while some just danced.
The competition was to last for 2 days...with events from running, high jump, triple jump, to hurdles, shotput, etc. Not many of the students from the overseas school were competing in the morning, so we just hung out and watched the other events, cheering whoever on. It was a rather cold day however. Sarah, Ewan (a student from the Carribbean who just graduated from pharamacy school), Aaron (a guy from NY who has been in China for the past years), and I climbed up onto the reserved seats and hung out there. Most of the seats were not being used...so we decided that we would put them to use.
For lunch, Li Juan, one of the overseas administrators, arranged for Laura and me to be surveyors of this new type of instant noodle. It was rather interesting...we were going to treated to lunch for doing this. I guess they wanted to see if we could help them target foreigners with their noddles. They weren't that bad actually. Lunch, though, was superb...of course! It was Sichuanese food. I don't know why...but I never really liked eggplant that much in the States. However, since being here, I can't help but love them. Must be the way they are prepared because they are absolutely delicious.

In the afternoon, Sarah did her 3000 meter run and came in 2nd!!! Her race was crazy...in her grouping, she ran so much more ahead of everyone else...and alot of the girls collapsed as they reached the finished line. The first place winner was only ahead of Sarah by 4 seconds...but she was in the 2nd grouping.