The program is going well. Our general Mandarin teacher--the one that I mentioned in detail before--recommended that my friend and I transfer to Class 4. We audited the classes and realized that we were in way over our heads. It stresses me out to think that we will be in Class 4 next semester because it seemed like there was so much vocab and grammar that was completely unfamiliar, but we'll get there when we get there.

At the time, however, we were still unhappy with Class 3's General Mandarin course because it was moving so slowly--in one two-hour class we learned eight new words and then had half an hour of self-study! Self-study in class is a total waste of time. We didn't even have any homework! When I took classes before at NanDa I had to do hours of practicing characters each day just to keep up.

However, on Tuesday the class completely changed pace and sped up a lot to the point where we'll be going through one lesson a week, and that's a pace that I'm satisfied with. Our class also now has tons of homework--well, you get what you ask for, don't you? There's nothing like doing homework to really make the lessons stick!

The teacher is slowly winning me over as well, but I look forward to the Class 4 teacher, who is totally 厉害。

It's all still quite intense and I'm still adjusting to my new life. My Chinese has definitely improved by leaps and bounds, but I'm also exhausted every day after classes.

I'm also thinking of taking an optional course on pronunciation and intonation--my tones could still use a lot of work and I'd love to get the Cantonese accent out of my pronunciation. Perhaps that is a bit too much to expect out of one little course though. The only bad thing is that it takes place on Saturday mornings and afternoons. I like to sleep in on the weekends!

One thing is that by being an adult student, who is also working at home, is that it's a bit lonely and boring. Everyone warned me about this aspect of the freelancing life, and it is very true. This afternoon, I realized that after classes I simply don't talk to anyone, and when Scott gets home I pounce on him just for the opportunity to have a conversation with a live person. Poor Scott, now I know how he feels when he was in the same situation before. Starting next Tuesday my resolution is to do more studying and working outside of home so that I don't go completely bonkers.

I'm just two days into my Chinese course, and so far I am absolutely loving it. My confidence in my language skills has rapidly gone up--and where I felt very shy or restricted　to a strict script of pleasantries (all of this is in my head, mind you)--and now I am much more comfortable with Chinese than I was even a week ago.

A big part of it is that now I'm in class and actively working on my Chinese, I feel validated in practicing my Chinese on everyone. Isn't that funny? Of course when you are working, not everyone will be patient with a person's less than stellar language skills, especially when you both need to conduct negotiations quickly. Also, all of my old coworkers can be my language partners now--even the ones that are native English speakers because a good half of them are fantastic Chinese speakers! It is great!

Another part is that I'm determined to make the most out of this year. I shit you not when I say that to get here, blood, sweat and tears were involved. Plus I am paying for all of this myself, and it's a fair chunk of the money that I have saved up. So there is a lot invested in this, and there is no way that this year is going to be wasted. I even try to speak Chinese to my classmates during breaks, even if they also speak English because I don't want to get out of Chinese mode while I am at the school. It's important to establish a relationship in Chinese first and English second, the reverse has been true for most of my time in China.

I am in Class 3, the intermediate class. The texts are pitched perfectly for my level, but we're moving a bit slowly for my taste, and there's definitely a wide range of abilities. As for me, I am totally the Hermione of my class, that annoying girl who is always raising her hand.

However, I don't want to go into Class 4 because I could use the reviewing and the reinforcement, plus there is a ton of vocabularly that I don't know. I've been in the situation before where I've been in a class too high for my level, and it's killer. It's far better to be Hermione than to be Neville! (No offense to all Neville-lovers, and plus I love Neville because he was a gardening junkie.)

So far the classes have had two teachers--one who annoys the heck out of me after only two days, which is bad, because unfortunately she is the teacher that I have the most as she is the general Chinese teacher. First, she's rather patronizing and she comes up with annoying sentences like "I don't like Europe, so I went to China instead" when there's quite a few European students in our class. Secondly, she repeats everything three times and then laughs in an annoying way. Okay, I got you the first time when you said it, although to be fair, maybe she is used to repeating things to students over and over again. Thirdly, when she's explaining new words, she'll often just say the meaning in English, which shuts out all the non-English speaking students. They are the majority as our class has a bunch of Koreans as well. Even when an Italian student told her that he didn't understand English, she kept on! Not all white people speak English! Geez. Anyway, I suspect that she will keep on annoying me throughout the semester.

My other teacher is the reading teacher, and she is pretty good. Her methodology is sound, she is not patronizing, and she's really challenging us to work our brains. Chinese courses are always like this--some teachers are great, others are crap. I just hope our speaking and listening teachers are more like my reading teacher and not like my general Chinese teacher.