As first weeks in a new country go, this past one wasn't that bad.

My trip across the world went about as well as could be expected, except that I forgot to bring my copy-protection busting software so I couldn't play the new Civilization 4 game on the airplane. Poor Bobby.

There was a bit of a shock waiting for me when I arrived at campus, though: the school didn't have a dorm for me, which was something I'd kind of worried about. I'd given them my application form for the dorm very late in the process, during their vacation week, so when I got out there, 150 lbs of bags in my hand, there wasn't anyplace for me to put them down.

Undeterred, I dragged them a quarter mile out to the main street, hailed a taxi and headed over to my college roommate Dan's apartment. He and his super-cool Chinese girlfriend put me up for the night, took me out for Margheritas and burritos and generally cushioned my landing significantly.

The next day I headed back over to the school. After speaking with my contact, a very nice woman named Jane who's English seems better than mine sometimes, I learned that I could stay on campus, but only for ten days.

There was another caveat, but I wasn't going to discover it until about 8:30 the next morning: my room isn't really a dorm room, it's kind of a hotel. The pros are that I get clean towels daily and there's always an extra toothbrush I can use if I lose mine.

The cons are that every morning a surly Chinese girl repeatedly hammers on my doorbell, then begins pounding the door and shouting "open up!" until I drag my half-naked ass out of bed and let her in. Then she tells me I'm a slob and that I should hang my clothes up while she mops my already-clean apartment and jabbers on a walky-talkie that's got the volume turned up to eleven.

This morning was the best. I got in late last night, having been out late drinking and eating noodles with my old Guilin friends. At nine thirty my "maid" was pounding on the door, completely ignoring my groans of protest and promises that I hadn't made the room dirty yesterday.

"Wo shui jiao le!" - "I'm sleeping!" I shouted as she let herself in with the key and started pounding on my bedroom door.

"Wo zhidao le!" she shouted back. "I know!"

Last night was my last night in this place. Thanks to a savvy English-speaking realtor named Robin, I was able to find an incredibly adorable apartment within walking or bike-riding distance of my school, on the 14th floor of a building that's full of China Air Stewardesses. I think I can handle that.

New apartment's got the Internet (cable modem), a Television set, a washer/drier combination unit, a really sleek and sexy modern kitchen (no dish washing machines in this country, though) and it's even got a couple of windows that open into an interior shaft that runs all the way down the center of the building - so when it rains, it rains inside too. That's freaking sweet.

And it's thoroughly modern, safe, and cheap - 2800 RMB per month, which is somewhere in the area of $330. You couldn't get a place like this in an American city for under $1500, I swear.

All I have to do is not piss of my Chinese landlord or my neighbors and I'm pretty straight. And once I've got internet access that isn't running through an incredibly outdated proxy server, I'll be able to get my Bonochromatic photo gallery up and running and, god willing, get some work done on The Zombiephiles, my primary means of income while I'm a student here.