The Beginnings (Day 5?)

So today's post is my first official blog entry and for those of you that are new to blogs (including myself), 'blog' is a portmanteau of web + log. I just learned this on wikipedia. By the way, on the United flight we were given sporks for our cup-o-noodles.
So to begin, I'll be in Beijing for a semester (Dec 17) and my plan leaves Hong Kong for the States on January 10th. This means I'll get a chance to visit family in HK and maybe travel a bit. I am attending the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). Here I am part of The Beijing Center (TBC), a program for international students across the world.
I have been doing my best to keep a journal and originally I was just going to post my journals on my blog. But I realized that reading every thought that popped into my head would not be a good investment of my readers' time. Instead I'll be posting individual topics about the weather, food, how much money I've been spending and how much things cost, etc. I encourage you to ask my questions so I'll have more to write about.
The weather. Beijing has extreme seasons with hot and sticky summers and cold winters. According to the Sino Hotel Guide, the average temperature is 25.8C (78.4F) in July, the hottest month. I have no clue where they got their numbers but it is hot as hell here.
Beijing has been experiencing very strange weather lately. A few days before I arrived here, there was a record rainfall in most places of China. Massive floods killed around 137 Chinese people. I understand that the government is under pressure about the pollution for the coming Olympics so one of the Chinese government's response is experimenting with artificial rain. This means they shoot chemicals into the sky and somehow it starts raining. I'm confident that people have begun spontaneously combusting but the government just hasn't reported it yet.
Rain is needed here to wash away the impressive amount of pollution. The air is not clean and certainly not safe to breathe, like hydrochloric acid. The last time I was in Beijing (2 summers ago), I didn't see a single blue sky. So with my meteorologist degree I could tell you the weather for everyday of the week: hot and smoggy.
Over the last 4 days we've seen 3 days of blue sky. Many of the TBC workers say they haven't ever seen weather like this in the years they have worked here. I'm sure the locals are just as confused. Also there was a massive flash flood yesterday and I got stuck in the "Stadium Store", a convenient store underneath the soccer field. There was about 50 people in the small store just waiting for the rain to die down. The rain came down fast, hard, and chubby. I wouldn't be surprised if the acid rain was more toxic than a sewer in Maine.
According to weather.com, today's temperature should reach 32C (really freaking hot F). As I look to the sky, it's no longer as blue as it was an hour ago. It's turning gray again. I just hope I don't melt the next time it rains.

Until next time,
Alex, Shan, Alex Lee, whatever...