I didn't know how it happened and all the sudden the problem about good effects and bad effects came to my mind. Yesterday night when I was in CVS with Bianca, my mom called and I asked her if I could painted my nails. She stumbled and said that she wouldn't have problem with that, but other people in general wouldn't think it's a good idea; and it was strictly forbidden in our school. I knew that the answer would be no but I still asked it, I just wanted to know what my mom's reaction would be. She turned out to be cooler than I expected, but the coming long lecture about not being affected by the bad (or corrupted, or not unacceptable by Chinese society and conventions) habits when I was here. 

   Painting my nails, dressing more openly and constantly hanging out with my friends were the three major habits I got since I came here. Now let me explain all three of them respectively.

   First, painting my nails.

   It happened in the first week when I was gradually getting familiar with Bianca and Jenny. I went to their room constantly and slept over for several nights. On those all-girl nights, we tended to do things that were shown in the movie: trying on each other's clothes and shoes, talking about studies and lives back in our own countries, and of course, painting each other's nails. 

   Bianca was clearly the best out of three. She's Romanian and she looks like she's twenty three. She knows how to do makeup and how to dress attractively (by that I mean sexy) and no wonder, how to paint her nails. 

   I didn't know if I initiated the entire process or they forced me to start, somehow it jus began. Bianca picked out a green-and-blue-ish color for me, which turned out to be a perfect match with my skin. First time doing my nails was kind of a disaster, for I couldn't control the brushes properly, and the paint was cracked. After finger nails it came to the toe nails, I used a dark green color with matched my flipflops. 

   Since then, I've been applying nail polish once a week, and it's hard to find a girl here who doesn't paint her nails. It's more of a main stream, and baring your cracked nails is considered as something rude. And most of all, it's pretty but it's not dangerously attractive (you know what I'm trying to say), and everybody is doing that so I'm doing that too.

   

   Second, dressing more openly.

   I bought tank tops once from Old Navy, and a skirt, a pair of jeans, and a shirt from H&M, and a pair of flats from Zara. In total, I spent about 70 dollars on my clothes; in contrast, I spent about 160 dollars on my books and the 81 dollars on my luggage. There was expense on drinks and snacks too, which were probably 30 to 50 dollars in total. 

   Well, coming back to the point I'm trying to address. When my mom saw the picture I sent her in which I was wearing a tank top, she (and my dad) were so surprised. My dad even asked if I borrowed it from my friends, which became a joke afterwards. I admit that I bought those tank tops without a real concrete purpose except for looking pretty, and it seemed like I could live perfectly fine without buying them. But still I chose to buy them because 1) they are cheap 2) everybody else is wearing like that, and 3) they're pretty but they aren't dangerously pretty. 

   Third, hanging out with my friends.

   I'm actually able to learn a lot from my friend when we are hanging out, especially given the fact that they are all from different countries. It's interesting to see the products of different cultures and different societies. And it's a great opportunity to enhance my English, for now I can speak pretty decently native English, which surprises a lot of people when I first meet them. They either ask if I was born in America or if I went to a international school. Though there's still light accent that can separate me from those native speakers, again it's very slight, and normally people won't notice. I think 80% of the result is created by the fact that I'm constantly hanging out with my friends, and unlike other Chinese students here, I normally won't hang out with students from my country, since I think my purpose of coming here is not learning Chinese. 

   

   All three of them could be seen as not proper or corrupted under the social background in China. Since it's already 10:35 pm and I have to go back to check-in (screw the curfew), I'll go on explain my views on that tomorrow.