in which i accidentally join a science fiction club

Today I was coming out of the lunchroom and noticed that there seemed to be some kind of activities fair going on. Since I had a good 30 minutes before my next class started I decided to go check it out. It had happened yesterday and one of the kids in the group had joined the photography club, but I had assumed the fair was over. So I was pretty glad to see that it wasn't, and started walking through. Well that was kind of a bummer because no one handed me fliers or tried to talk to me, and I was feeling too shy and insecure about my zhongwen to try to talk to anyone. Plus, I couldn't read any of the signs! The only clubs I could figure out at all were the karate club and the anime club, because they had pictures, and I wasn't particularly interested in either. Oh, I also was able to figure out the breakdancing club because there were people breakdancing but again, not exactly my style.

So, feeling sort of disappointed (mostly in myself) I went to the student center to get a pop. But then I realized I still had a bit before class and I really wanted to try again- this time, if no one talked to me, I'd go up and talk to someone. After all, I'm a foreigner anyway so the worst that could happen would be that some Chinese kid would think I was a stupid foreigner, which happens on a regular basis when I fall or bump into things or nearly get hit by buses. So I turned around and marched right back to that activities fair, where I was immediately waved over by a cute girl holding a parasol to shield herself from the sun. My comprehension of our conversation went something like this:

Her: *handing me a flier for her club, which has a small table, a pretty sign that says M2M, and some other girls standing around with parasols* ???????Magic and Mystery???????
Me: *looking at the flier which I cannot read because it is in Chinese and full of characters that do not appear in my textbook* oh!
Her: ????????????????
Me: (in chinese) oh... so, what do you guys do?
Her: ????????????????, watch movies, ????
Me: Oh, ok!
Her: ??????
Me: Huh? *suddenly realizing she just asked me to join, but by this point she had waved over a friend who spoke English*
Friend: She means, do you want to join our club? You put your name and phone number down.
Me: Okay
Friend: Here *leads me over to sign up* And whenever we have an activity, we will call you! We will become very good friends!
Me: Okay great! *signing up* Thanks! I have to go to class bye!

So then after my class I spent a good 2 hours translating that flier. It is not easy because unlike a word in Spanish or french or something, I can't just type a character into an online dictionary and have the meaning pop up. To be able to use my Chinese typing abilities, I have to know how to pronounce the character, i.e. if I know it is pronounced "Shen," I type in "Shen" and a menu pops up with all the characters that sound like "shen" and I pick the right one. But if I haven't seen the character, I don't know what it sounds like, so that doesn't work. Instead, I have to go to this special dictionary where I can search by the radical (the part of the character that indicates meaning) and the number of strokes in the rest of the character. For example, the character 飯 (food, pronounced "fan"), has the food radical 食 and then the other part 反 that almost always makes a character that contains it sound like "fan". So if I am looking it up in the dictionary, i search for the radical 食 plus the 4 strokes that appear in 反. Then, if the lone character is part of a multiple character word (instead of being used as a standalone one-character word) I have to go to another dictionary and look up the meaning of the whole word. NOT SIMPLE.

Anyway I finally figured out what most of it means, or at least the gist of it. This is the club I signed up for by accident:

Magic&Mystery

Do you have an interest in mystical things? Are you excited by the unknown things in the world? Are you tired of the dry, dull and tedious life? If the answer is "yes," we welcome you to join the Dong Hua University M2M Science Fiction Club!

M2M, Magic&Mystery, magic and mystical always make people feel excited. Based on the club's students' vast and plentiful extracurricular activity training them to become (something), and think more clearly, comprehensively and positively, and explore new ways of thinking.

We will organize these activities:

1. Classes, lectures: explaining magic, fairy tales, and the discussion and introduction to the world's unsolved mysteries

2. Enjoying things that have to do with magic and fairy tales, and science fiction movies like Harry Potter and (something)

3. Magic, puzzles, rubics cubes, etc

If you have any friends that you think would be interested, please bring them!

Ok so it's definitely not a perfect translation but that is basically what it said. So yea I basically joined a giant nerd club full of magic people and science fiction girls. LOL. Even my roommate was like "We have lots of activities to choose from, and you chose that one.... I think it is very weird!" Whatever, I'm gonna give it a shot, at least I will meet some people and maybe speak some Chinese. Even if it is all Chinese words that have to do with magic.