Sunday, December 7, 2008

The One Week Mark

In 45 minutes I will have crossed the threshhold into having just under a week to go. Time feels like it has been going by so slowly lately, I am really appreciating every day while at the same time steadily building excitement for returning to America.

The brunt of our tests finished on wednesday, thursday, and friday (yes consecutive - ouch) with the friday being concluded with a huge 3 hour program where we all had performances. They provide us with a DVD of the performance just like last year. No, you may not see me embarass myself yet again.

Ron came in from shanxi for the day so I got a trip to hang out with him, seeing him made me remember the old Hangzhou crew and I got a bit Hangzhou-sick for a bit. Good thing I get to see the JJ and the Bob in a week. AHHHH TOP SCORE

I need to map out the list of places to eat at before I leave, I've been mainly focusing on buying things for everyone else and forgotten to plan that part. I also need to make sure I buy a few things for myself, some good CD's, books, and Chinese movies.

CHINAAAAAAAAA WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

One Month To Go

My friend's Chinese roommate gave me a book to read a few weeks ago after hearing how much I like the movie "To Live". The author wrote the book To Live that the movie is based off of (which I plan to buy before leaving), and this book is similar is story. I picked up the book two days ago to see if I could read the first page or two and understand it, and to my surprise it sucked me in. I have now in two days read 42 pages of a Chinese novel. In Chinese. 42 pages. I gave a report on what I'd read to my teacher today and she couldn't believe I was reading so fast, and to be honest I can't believe I'm reading it so quickly either. I never imagined that I would be able to pick up a Chinese novel and read it at a pace equivalent of an English book. I am excited.

Today I drew a picture of a ninja doing a sky uppercut on a dinosaur holding a mace while using the gun in his other hand to shoot at a robot below. Meanwhile a space pirate if flying in from the left firing a cannon while Thomas Jefferson and Gandalf swing in on a rope to join the fight. I did all this on the dry erase board before class and thus got to use the picture in a lot of our grammar structures. I believe this is an outward manifestation of missing my friends. Dan is clearly Gandalf, and JJ is clearly Thomas Jefferson. I believe the robot is probably Anita, the ninja with a gun is Bob for certain, and the dinosaur wielding an awesome mace is probably Stevo. Mandy is definitely the pirate in the flying space capable pirate ship. That doesn't even need to be stated.

I miss home.