A good week!

Now I got all my classes fixed so that I have the right ones. I now have the speaking class first and then the writing class. 

I feel really good about my self now. I feel like I get some thing done right. I'm good in the speaking class and the teacher corrects my tones like I'm crazy or something. But I guess she just do it to help me. Although sometimes it a bit annoying since I feel like a have a way better pronunciation than some of the others and they get "非常好！" (really really good) and I get a mere ＂好＂... But again.. I'm here to learn and I am learning stuff! Even though the pace is really slow for this class compared to how we do it at home! 

This class is a great warmup for the writing class. The teacher talks a lot faster and doesn't always translate to English. So when I've had 90 min chinese talking and listening warmup I can get most of what she says. 

My main goal for being here is actually to get better at understanding what there's being said to me. I can read up on my characters and practice speaking by my self. But not listening and understanding. That's where I'm the most troubled. So I'm getting better! :D

  

Monday 7/7 2014

I didn't get any sleep last night.. Like maybe.. 2 hours.. Even though I was really tired for the first class I was a happy camper. Bc you. 

I did mess my article up today though. We had to write about what we like about Saturdays and what we usually do on Saturdays. I started out fine: I like Saturdays because I can sleep in. Then I proceeded to write about my school days. Like from 8-12 I have classes and then lunch and so on.. I was half way through the assignment before I realised it and had to start over. By then the time was up and I only handed in "I like Saturdays" and "I'm sorry, I'm really tired" :p haha

Next up was my new class, elementary chinese. She has decided the class into two groups. Advanced beginners and semi beginners. I got on semi beginners and it was lovey and easy. We have to buy a book for this course. This class starts at chapter six in the beginners book and the other class starts at chapter 15 in the next book. I took a look on that one and that seems like (still below) my level back home. So I asked if I can try that class tomorrow. I could. So I bought the book and in my lunch break a prepared chapter 15. It's really weird to have pinyin beneath the characters again. I totally only read the pinyin and not the characters. It was done really fast. I even had time for a power nap!

Well.. Today I dropped the last course. The marriage and family one. Not because it wasn't interesting. It definitely is! Really ! It's just that it takes too much time from me studying chinese language and that is the reason I am here. It is really important to me. 

So yeah.. I dropped it... 

Tonight I'm getting all greased up in fried.. Food. I honestly have no idea what's inside this. Don't think it's anything fish though. I guess is chicken or pork. I don't know :b

Here's a selfie from my lonesome dinner :b

Bonus selfie without the tilted head :o

Friday and the French

I had my regular writing class this morning and after I had my new class: elementary chinese.

This class is so much better for me! I get to use the chinese I know and learn a bit more / refresh what I have forgotten (sadly that's a lot of it) :(

Then I finally made it to my third class: marriage and family in china.

It a chinese teacher but she speaks very well English. She had like 108 slides to go through, but we only went through 40 or so on 3,5 hours. Yes... This is a damn long course! From 2-5:30! Ever Monday,  Wednesday and Friday! Gonna be tough! But it's not all bad. I really like the content of this class so it's all good! I learned a lot of great stuff!

Bad thing is that she gave us a presentation to prepare, and I am in the first group to present. So that would have been Monday. Like only a weekend to prepare. But she postponed it till Wednesday. So we have to hear two presentations on Wednesday. 

After school I call home. Finally got my viber to work, and after that I was like seriously hungry! But I didn't have any more cash and the ATM in the dining hall was broken. So it took me like 45 min to track down some cash. Then I sat down in a cafe on campus called circle. When I'm hungry I get mad. Like.. Really mad and cranky! I now feel sorry for the waiter. 

He didn't have lasagna.. And then I felt like my world broke down... No.. But.. I was pissed... :b

So burger for me and a Heineken. Them I saw 4 guys playing cards, and I was all alone, so I asked if I could join them while eating my dinner. Sure I could. Turned out they were French.

They invited me along for later. They were gonna go see the game (Germany-France) in the city with some friends. Sure.. Why not? They hadn't had dinner, neither their friends, so we went to a street market where they had some food and some beers and then we were gonna take the subway to the bar where we were gonna see the game. Too bad we forgot that the subway closes at like 10:30.. So we decided to walk. Then after some time, they decided to take a cab.. A bit difficult... Ad there were some mistakes made and it was really hard to find the place. I don't know why, but it had to be this specific bar and it look expensive and they smoked inside.. Eww...

Well... It was all in all a good night. Even though France lost, and that night I was French... 

 I was home in my bed at 3 am I think.. Up since 7 am. 20 hours and no nap! ..

I really need to get control of my sleeping..

Xx

Shopping

So thursday i had a half Day. Only classes from 8-11:30. 

The early class is still fun and I can do the exercises fine. But the second class was ... Not fun. 90 min of pure chinese that I could not understand. Well.. The most of it I couldn't understand. 

So after class I hurried over to the office and got some papers to drop that course and was told I had to talk to the other teacher before I could get admitted to that course. .. So far so good. 

Then I had some lunch. I picked what I thought looked like chicken, but it was some mushrooms.. Buhu! I didn't like them. So I just had rice and bread for lunch.

Then I went shopping, by my self. On my way to the mall there was this hobo of a chinese man, with an umbrella. He swung it around and tried hitting people, including myself, with it. Not nice. 

I walked two malls thin. Like two (to me) huge malls and some stores under ground connecting the two malls.. And then I got to a supermarket that was my actual destination, to buy some more dried mango! Yummy! But I can't eat that much a day, or my tummy will get upset :/

I found a place selling mango juice with yogurt. Sounded delicious, so I went for it. I think that was my first encounter with bubble juice... Anyways.. There was bits in it and that I did not care for, so I threw it out...

I bought some dresses and different stuff before walking home. 

Then I just came home to my bed and instantly fell asleep.

First day in school!

I woke up about 6 am, thinking that I should prob get a shower before heading to class, starting at 8. But then I realized that I don't have any flip flops, and I really don't want to barefoot in those shared showers.. So no shower for me. I got my dry shampoo and a washcloth that'll have to make do, until I buy some shoes.

Then I had a lot of time free, I decided to go for breakfast a bit earlier than planed. I was the only non-chinese person in the canteen.  

How the canteen looks at 7 am

How I look at 7 am

When I had to choose my own breakfast at the chinese canteen. The only place open that early!

Bun with fishy stuff and cabbage? Thanks, but no thanks..

Then I had my first class: pre-intermediate chinese writing. It was great! Even though its a chinese teacher only speaking chinese. No.. That not fair. Some words she translates.. Like.. The simple words, that I 100% understand in chinese :b

We went through some slides and then had to write a bit about ourselves in what she calls book A. Then hand it in to her, and tomorrow she will give it back to us and them we have to re-write it I'm book B. I think we have to do this every day. We talk a bit too. It's great, since I'm really bad at understanding a conversation, so that I practice here. 

My second class was semi-intermediate comprehensive chinese. Design for those who've studies chinese for 6 months to 1 year. Unfortunately the class was filled with peeps (from the same school, I think in Iran) that had studied chinese for 3-5 years.. That was a bit too difficult for me and the level if the class is not as described :( 

****NOTE: as I'm sitting in my bed my roomie farted... She's chinese.. It's is so wierd!*** 

I'm giving that class another shot tomorrow and if its still to difficult I might ask to get transferred to elementary chinese.

Then I have a confession: I didn't go to my last class :(

After the difficult class, I went for a nap, a thing I do a lot. A lot! I didn't register when my alarm went off, so I slept till about 5:30 pm. And the class started at 2 pm and ends at 5:30 pm.. I'm a baaaaaaad student! :(

I met up with Bella around 6 and then we went to the opening ceremony. I think it is really silly and weird that they have the opening ceremony after we've already started. There were some speeches and then some students played so e traditional chinese music. I really liked the music. It was beautiful. It was really funny, that none of the speakers were good at English. Eventhough there was an aussie/American (didn't get that) and a guy from Ireland, they didn't speak clear enough for me to understand all that they said!

Oh well... The ceremony started like 45 mins too late and I was already starving since I hadn't eaten since 7 am. So after a couple of songs Bella and I went to get some dinner. I think Bella had already eaten though. She told me yesterday that she eats dinner at like 5 and it was 8:20 or something by then. But she had some dinner with me and she ate everything too.. Wow.. Chinese peeps can eat! I ate like 1/3 of my meal and then I was full. Cheap it is! Like 26 yuan for dinner and 5 for a can of coke.

We ate well and talked and then we headed home to our own dorms.

Here I am writing it all up at 11:34 in the evening.