HBA Week One (featuring a lack of sleep)

I moved in to the dorm at HBA on the 13th of June (a Friday). Due to some logistical foul-ups, for the first two nights we were sleeping two to a room in what was meant to be a single, meaning one person on the floor, but, on Sunday, I was able to move into my current room, which is relatively nice, if a little messy at this point. On Friday, after a campus orientation, a group of us, including my then-roommate Ilan (another Yalie), and several other HBA-ers who had already arrived (interestingly, most of whom were grad students), enjoying our remaining freedom to speak English, went out to dinner, and then to a club in 五道口 (Wudaokou, the local center of college activity). The club wasn't too interesting, featuring for a time an over-drunk Texan badly singing not very good music. On Saturday, Ilan, Lena (yet another Yalie), and I after lunch made our way by subway to the Pearl Market, a center for all things fake, a trip featuring several exciting bargaining episodes when Lena bought a bag and some shoes (all wonderfully fake name-brand merchandise). But it was the following day that HBA really got going.
On Sunday, at 8 AM, was the HBA placement test, a two-hour affair featuring multiple-choice, an essay, and a speaking component. Everyone seemed to get placed in the level they applied for, so future HBA-ers probably shouldn't worry too much about it, though none of us really knew what to expect going in. After the test, I went along with a group to set up computers for internet access (340 yuan for the 2 month period, which is actually a pretty large amount, around $50) and get cell phones - which are extremely cheap in China. The afternoon featured a lot of speeches, from BLCU people and HBA people, including 冯老师 (Professor Feng, the extremely long-winded, though mildly entertaining director of HBA), after which we split into class level groups to be introduced to the curriculum, given our course books, and lastly, to sign the much dreaded 语言誓约, the language pledge. No more spoken English for the next 9 weeks, except for phone conversations with one's parents (which HBA emphasized should be short, infrequent, and quiet - though mine haven't really met the first two requirements) is a fairly daunting prospect. And HBA, to its credit, enforces the language pledge strictly. My fellow third years put massive effort into avoiding even a single word of English with no teachers anywhere nearby, and everyone is really embarrassed when they let a few words slip, usually in an accidental outburst (on the order of "ouch" or "oops").
Sunday night, we already had homework, preparing for Monday's class. With no idea how long it would take, I mistakenly waited until fairly late to start it. It was a big mistake, I was up until 3 A.M. studying, giving me 4 hours of sleep before getting up at 7 for class the next morning. Those 4 hours of sleep, however, would prove to be the most I would get all week. I'll save a description of class format for a later week, given that so many other new things happened this week, but I'll say now that HBA cannot be called "fun," "enjoyable" or any similar word in any sense. It is certainly useful (at least, it looks like it will be) and perhaps even "rewarding." But it's not fun. I've spent every day since Tuesday (at least) longing for the weekend - and not to go out and do something, but simply to get enough sleep. If I were capable of working 12-13 hours straight (with only a lunch and dinner break), I could probably finish everything in time to get 7 hours of sleep or so (5 hours of class, 7-8 hours of studying, 4-5 hours of miscellaneous stuff liking eating, showering, errands, e-mail, talking to parents, limited internet use, etc) but I simply can't go home and start work immediately after 5 hours of class, so time gets wasted doing other things, and I end up not sleeping until 3 AM or later. Alternatively, if I can find a more efficient way to memorize 100 new vocabulary words a night (which, for those of you who haven't studied Chinese, is even worse than it sounds as it means learning a character or two, or three, as well as a pronunciation - which includes a tone) I'll get more sleep, but for now I'll muddle my way through.
But there are some positive things - I'm definitely learning a lot, and it's kind of exciting to have a successful conversation in Chinese with my 1-on-1 teacher on a subject like how Americans view Chinese Tibet policy (note to my teachers: this is far more interesting than drilling me on grammatical concepts and vocabulary related to the day's lesson on, say, students' part-time jobs, 4 hours of that in the other classes, along with homework is enough).
Anyhow, as I said, I'll discuss the details of class and homework stuff at a later date. For now, I'll finish off with the remainder of the week's main events. After our weekly test and presentation on Friday, we were given the exciting (and you should understand this word as if I had said it in a voice dripping with sarcasm) opportunity to take the HSK (汉语水平考试) the Chinese equivalent of TOEFL. Needless to say, after several hours of testing already that day, and given the fact that the HSK is well beyond the level of any third year student, it was mostly a slaughter, though I'm proud of the questions that I was able to answer (or at least think I was). That night, we got to meet our Chinese host families who we share with another HBA student. Mine has invited us to their house next Sunday to learn to make dumplings, which should be a lot of fun. They also have a 16 year old son, whose accent I find, for some reason, nearly impossible to understand (I have no problem with the mother's).
Today, most of the program was at the Great Wall at Simatai, but I decided to skip it, given that I preferred not to get up at 7 AM today and I had already been to the same place about 2 weeks ago. But, since I have been, I'll include a picture for those who want an idea of what it's like.