03-06-2016

So this was the only picture I took today. I know it's not exciting, but there is sort of a story behind it. Not a very exciting one, but a story nonetheless.

A few days ago, I went with a group of international students to the phone store so I could get a Chinese sim card for my phone. I struggled getting the original American sim card out of my phone, and I had already paid for the Chinese one. The workers' English wasn't too great so it was kind of a struggle to communicate. They finally told me to just 'take the sim card and try to get mine out by myself' (I want to say three different people not including me tried to get it, and none of us had success). I actually had to YouTube how to take the sim card out, and even then it wasn't the video itself that helped me (I had already done what the video suggested with no success) - a comment on the video suggested using an eraser to slide my sim card out. So that worked, but my phone didn't like the new sim card because I hadn't unlocked it (I had even read about that before getting to China. I obviously plan things very well).

A couple days later, I end up unlocking my phone, and then decide I can finally try to get a WeChat, because that's what everyone uses (even the study abroad office!) even though Xintong told me it's the Chinese equivalent of Tinder (o_o). But there was one problem.

When I bought the Chinese sim card, it came affixed to a plastic square thing which had my phone number.

And, well, of course, I seemed to have misplaced it..

So today, 3/6/2016, my neighbor accidentally locked herself out of her room. That was probably around 1:00pm or 2:00pm, and she was told that the guy who could let her back in wouldn't return until about 6:00pm. She told me that she had taken a nap on a bench in the hallway (!) and I told her she could hang out in my room until her issue was resolved. At some point, I mentioned my phone problem, and she suggested, "Why don't you call my phone so we can figure out your number?" I felt silly that I hadn't thought of that before, and we actually started to make our way to her room to get her phone until we remembered that she couldn't get in.

Anyways, we retrieved my number later. I tried making a WeChat account, but it gave me an error. Someone else told me that my phone number already had a profile connected with it. So that's great. But maybe it's better if I don't have WeChat (even though one of the girls from the US said it's great for long distance calling and that the quality of the calls is excellent).