My 21st Birthday in China! | Vlog | CoolAznTutorials

New video is up; here's a recap of how I spent my 21st birthday here in China!



I think this video sums it up pretty well and there's not much need for an additional post, so I'll just paste a blurb from my Instagram picture:



Had an awesome, very memorable 21st birthday here in China! 


Started out a little hectic getting 4 hours of sleep preparing for my managerial accounting teacher's present to us (the final), but once it was over, all was well :) got a nice dim sum dinner with my fellow exchange student friends and local 风雷 brethren; ended up getting 5 different birthday cakes from them in the end! We shared an ice cream one at the dim sum restaurant with everyone together, ate a chocolate one out on the concrete (in box pieces, don't worry) late at night with the 风雷 friends after sessioning, and when I got home, my roomates surprised me with a fruit cake! Still have two more left to eat haha
I'm really blessed to have met so many kind people from so many different backgrounds since coming here; I feel really loved by them despite only having been here for a little more than a month. I know the following months will be filled with happiness as we continue to get to know each other more :D

Hope all is well with everyone,

-Germy

Help from Unexpected Places

I got a second hand bike a few days ago to replace the one that got stolen and the back wheel had been making grinding noises since last Friday. After getting home about an hour ago, I decided to try fixing it using some oil that my (bello) Italian roomate Andrea had lent to me, but in my own inexperience with bikes, I flipped it upside down to try applying the oil to the underside of the back gear, and when I turned the pedal, the chain fell off and got caught on the inside of the front gear. I flipped the bike back up and tried fixing the chain by hand, but could see that I was getting nowhere.

 Not knowing what to do, I asked my apartment's security guard for help in slightly panicked Chinese with the help of a Chinese-English dictionary app that my friend from Australia, Cameron had showed me when I was enrolled in Chinese-taught classes. After the guard tried to fix it a little with his bare hands and a broomstick, he turned to me and started making statements that I couldn't understand. We worked through the language barrier (true Beijingers speak Chinese in a different dialect than standard Mandarin and have a lot of terms only used in the area) and I figured out that he was saying that he needed some tools.

 My roomates didn't have any, but I then remembered that I had brought my Swiss Army Knife that my parents had bought me in Middle school with me, so I rushed up to my apartment to get it and handed it to him. Carefully considering the tools it had, the guard took out the reamer and with a bit of straining, got part of the chain back onto the front gear. He then lifted the bike right-side up, grabbed a pedal with his hands, and told me to grab the other pedal to rotate the gear with him on the count of three. With two pushes, the chain snapped back onto the gear and was fixed!

After thanking him, I told him the original reason why I was trying to fix my bike (the wheel was still making noises); he grabbed the back wheel and frame, pushed hard with his hands, and fixed the problem in a matter of seconds. Looks like I don't need to take my bike to a repair shop anymore :)

If the guard had decided that I wasn't worth the trouble and not agreed to help, my friend hadn't given me that app after we got to know each other through a Chinese-taught class, or my parents had never bought me that Swiss Army Knife/I hadn't brought it along since I rarely use it, none of this would have happened. Thank God for modern day technology, multi-tool knives, the goodness of people, and help from unexpected places!