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.
