Fast Forward

Wow, this TRImester (feel better Beca?) started off like a shot! There's been so many things happening I don't know where to begin.
Well, I had my mandatory, make-up orientation meeting Tuesday and found out my application for the China program I want is 15 pages long. I also found out at that same meeting LOFT is hiring. I went to my first Study Abroad class which was overflowing with people so much that not everyone had a seat. I then was emailed by the head of the International Office to meet with her to discuss the 15 page application but I had to go with this girl from my Chinese class who already has a job and a class after our Chinese class and therefore little time. I'm really worried about waiting to the last possible minute because I might need to meet my doctor and get certain tests (Japan asks for chest X-rays!). I really hope we're able to find a time we can both meet.
Oh by the way, I was accepted to go to China :)
Also, I'm looking for a job because I've borrowed from my mom for too long (not that she would ever say that) and I've turned in applications for Paper Source, Barnes and Noble, and LOFT. I'd never shopped at LOFT before so when I went in I was very surprised. My friend Jennifer says I have a thing for stripes and their whole line is practically stripes. What I'm saying is if I work there I know where all my money will be going. It seemed like I had a really good chance at Paper Source so it's between them and LOFT. Barnes and Noble really wasn't hiring they just "are always accepting applications" so I don't expect to hear from them. Really I'd be interested at working at either place so we'll see what happens!
Hopefully having a job, plus study abroad meetings, plus papers and homework won't stress me out too much...

Fear

I ended up staying up until four in the morning watching West Wing. So we didn't get to my Grandma's until about noon. My mom called because Grandma thought we were supposed to meet in the morning. Apparently the first thing to go is the concept of time.
After going to the dog park Aunt Joy dropped me off at the dorm and here I've been. Why on Earth I'm terrified of this semester I have no idea because it's school. I've been doing school since I was five years old. I honestly wish I could continue to think of it so simply but then I rationalize it's college.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm probably going to wake up around seven but fall back asleep because it's cold on the first floor and I'm laying under a heated blanket. I'll finally wake up around nine after Duffie and Millie have been walked for the morning. I'll get dressed and head upstairs and have the strong urge to eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast but I have eggs in the fridge that I paid for along with broccoli, spinach, and sausage so I'll have eggs for breakfast and cookies for dessert. By ten I'll start packing my bags and getting everything together. I'll deflate the airbed and store it away along with anything out I can fit in my aunt's recently organized closet. I'll then get the vacuum and Swiffer wetjet and clean the first floor and the bathroom. By eleven my aunt will have the dogs in the car and we'll be heading over to Grandma's house to check on her and her dog. I don't know when we'll leave; it really depends on Grams. Then my aunt will take me to my dorm and that's that. The end of my spring break and the beginning of anxiety and fear of failing everyone but most importantly myself. The beginning of paper deadlines, lack of money, the need for a job but no time for one, less time seeing my boyfriend, and more time worrying about my Chinese skills not being where I want them to be.
Tomorrow begins the last spring semester of my undergraduate career.

More Spring Break

This weather seriously feels like summer and so I'm really going to be disappointed when school starts and I'm reminded I have a whole other semester until I'm done.
So I've just been walking my aunt's dogs Millie and Duffie. Not having a meal plan and having to buy my own food really shows how much it costs to eat! Most of money has gone to food!
Actually this St. Patrick's Day I tried to see the parade with my boyfriend but we thought we missed it so we left. We ended up going to Chinatown for lunch and then I bought three children's books in Chinese. Almost all of them are teaching children English! I was really surprised. Anyway, I planned on trying to read them each day and translate them and learn the new characters in them but I've been relaxing. I even said I'd study but this weather is SO beautiful I can't possibly do anything remotely like work. I really just want to knit but of course all of my things are at the dorm.
It's going to be really hard to force myself to stay inside and do work this semester.

Spring Break

So this week has been crazy thanks to finals so I'm sorry I haven't kept up posting. Anyway, my spring break didn't start off well because I found out last minute my Chinese teacher wanted me to do more work. The first couple days of spring break! Really?! School's over! I thought I'd get to relax! Clearly not yet. It's due today at 10am and I only just figured out my aunt's internet so I have to go!

Not One Less

I just finished watching the other movie I bought because I had to wait for my internet time to restart. It's called "Not One Less" and it's about a substitute teacher who's 13 years old- not much older than some of her students. After about a week of teaching, one of her students drops out of school and goes to the city to pay off his family's debt. She goes to the city to find him but doesn't and no one is much help until her story catches the eye of a TV station.
It's really a movie about poverty and very interesting. Actually, it looks like the director got the actual people to play their parts- Like this is a true story. It at least says the people are playing themselves. I hope they got paid to do so. Anyway, it was really interesting. I'd recommend it but it was hard to understand because they have an accent. My Chinese teacher warned me but I'd already bought it. There's another movie I found out about called "Please Vote For Me" which seems to be a documentary. That's going to be the next movie I buy... I don't know when that will be but it will definitely be the next movie.
Anyway, I need to get back to work. I have a presentation tomorrow at 1pm and my final paper is due at 4pm on Tuesday but I really want to turn it in before that. I did all my Chinese make-up work except for the worksheets. I have a lot of ideas but I feel like I need to focus on the other work.

Make-up Work

Today was dedicated to homework, particularly the make-up work assigned to me by my my Chinese teacher. I've really got most of it done but I don't have all of it done and since my boyfriend can no longer make it I have all of Sunday to finish it which is why I don't feel the least bit guilty about staying up until 1:30 AM watching West Wing.

End of the Semester

About this time things are always crazy. You're rushing around trying to turn in all that work that for some reason your teacher decided to save to the last week of class. You're reading over notes and passages, studying for exams. I had my oral final in Chinese today and it didn't go so well. We ended up talking about the future and my plans. She was pretty supportive of my language teaching interests and, to make up for assignments and my oral final, I'm supposed to come up with worksheets that, I feel, would be better practice than our workbooks. I don't think there's anything super terrible about the workbook except that the questions go from super easy it's practically a waste of time to super hard and tenuous very quickly. Plus, they aren't fun and I think if you can, you should always try to make learning fun. It's kind of like the Mary Poppins saying "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."
Did I really just quote a Disney movie? Yes, yes I did.
Anyway, I have a lot of ideas but it's all about whether or not I can do them in time. I have until Tuesday of this week and today is.. technically Friday. I also have the paper due tomorrow to work on, a presentation and fact sheet due Monday and another final paper due Tuesday. So there's going to be a lot to do this weekend. But after this it's over and I'll have a fresh start!

I Have a Follower!

So I go on blogger just to look at the stats and it tells me I have a follower! *gasp!* There someone out there actually following me! I was so excited because there's all of a sudden been many people from many different countries reading my posts and so I was really curious to see who it was!
It's my boyfriend. :p Aw, yay. :)
Anyway, today was absolutely gorgeous here! All I needed was a long sleeve shirt and jeans. I hope it's nice for everyone else because I know some of you are on Spring Break now.
Today has all been about politics for me and I was thinking how I've never really been interested in politics until recently. Then I realized I've actually been watching politics since I was 13.
Have you ever watched West Wing?
It's really a great show- even as a kid I loved it. There's an episode in particular I was thinking about tonight that I thought I'd share a bit with you. It's one where Chinese people fled China because they were Christian and China was not treating Chinese Christians very kindly at that time. I'm not sure they treat them any better now but anyway, I digress. So China wants their people back and the White House is trying to figure out if these people are just trying to get into the United States or if they are in fact persecuted Christians. The president, who somehow can know everything about history and religion and tell it in a way where I want to grab some popcorn, decides to speak with their leader and guide the conversation to a little known passage in the Bible where a person said a word to reveal they were a follower. The Chinese leader retells the passage to the president and thus the president believes him and the Chinese Christians are saved.
If only everything could be that easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhwLj2qIT4k

This is unfortunately the best clip I could find. On another note I found this clip while searching for the other I hope you find it as amusing as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCgmjqDA7k

Directions

Today in Chinese we reviewed for the written exam which is on Wednesday. It was all pretty boring at first but then she had us get into pairs and give directions to someplace on a map in Chinese. We all kind of took turns making fun of everyone's maps 9we had to draw it on the board) and directions. I thought that was great because if you can't laugh about your mistakes they're going to eat you alive. Also, getting up and having to think on the spot how to tell someone to turn right was better than just hearing my teacher explain it. I'm really seeing how thinking on the spot benefits learning a language.

Life

Haven't done a thing of Chinese today. I spent all day doing things for Modern European history.
This coming week is the final week of the semester save the two days of a presentation and a final paper so I'm really anxious. I really just want to be done with this semester and start fresh. Plus, at the end of this semester I learn whether or not I've been accepted into the Study Abroad program. If I am, I plan on spending my spring break applying for a couple scholarships because I'll certainly need it. I'll probably do a little bit of knitting as well and hopefully some babysitting to bring in some income.

Mapo Restaurant

Today our Chinese teacher invited us to an Asian restaurant called Mapo. Actually it's kind of part of our grade because we have to accept three of her invitations to do Chinese things outside of class. The last one I did was attend a meeting about travelling to China in December so I could answer any questions the students interested might have about China. However, today was much more relaxing, we just had to order in Mandarin. I didn't have an actual Chinese meal though; I had fried rice. Fried rice in China is not at all like the fried rice here. In China it's white rice with peas and eggs and maybe a few vegetables. Here it's somehow brown because, I'm guessing, they put some type of sauce in it. I knew it was going to be more than I could eat in one sitting and I'm broke so I ordered something I knew I'd like and could take home with me.
In China the portions are usually huge because it's "family style." Basically, the dishes are meant for everyone and everyone eats everything so only one person pays. In China, people actually fight to pay the bill. You can then imagine how crazy it was to try to have separate bills by the end of the meal since none of what we ordered was actually by us. The Chinese sit at circular tables and there's a platform on the table that spins. So you put the dishes on the center platform and spin it so everyone can get to the food easier.
I'm really glad I went because I get to spend outside time with people studying what I'm studying. All of my friends here are psychology and education majors. Except for a physics major, biology major, and then a chemistry major. Oh, and an English major. I'm really the odd one out in the group so it's always nice to spend time with people also learning Chinese.

Skits

Are skits really that helpful with learning a language? I don't believe so. I would think teachers ask us to perform the skit so we can hear the phrases "in a real-life setting" but is it really that when the lines are memorized and butchered? Can't we just read the dialogues and examples given in the book to see how the phrases are used in real-life? A teacher might object that we aren't then practicing speaking and to that I ask couldn't we just read the dialogues out loud? A teacher might then say the entire point of skits is to practice the phrases with memorization. My argument is wouldn't being asked on the spot to respond to a question and forced to think be more beneficial than memorization?
So are skits really that helpful with learning a language?

Four Fails

In Chinese, 8 is the luckiest number, which is essentially why the Olympics in China began on 08/08/08 and at 8 o'clock. The unluckiest number in China is 4 and today I had 4 fails.
So I was getting my blood work done this morning which meant getting up early. I got breakfast and caught the train and managed to get to the lab where they were taking my blood 20 minutes early.
Good thing too because I had forgotten the sheet with all the information regarding which tests they needed to do.
Luckily I called the doctor and had them fax the sheet to the lab. I still call forgetting the sheet Fail #1.
Well, it turned out their computers had been down that morning so the lab was running behind. Thirty minutes later I emerged blood taken and immediately started walking the wrong way to the train station. I soon corrected myself but then went the wrong way again.
I missed the train.
This really wouldn't have been so bad except that I had a mandatory meeting at noon about the Study Abroad program and that was the last train that would get me there in time. I called the office and the receptionist called me back and said I needed to get someone to get the paperwork for me or pick it up from the office but there "were no make-ups" so I'd have to learn what happened from people who were there. Fail #2.
I, however, did get to spend lunch with my boyfriend so that was nice.
So I caught the next train at 12:30 but lunch had made me tired so I set an alarm to wake me up right before my stop. The alarm went off a little early but I figured I could manage. All of a sudden a man is talking over the intercom saying this is the last stop and we all need to get off. I missed my stop. Luckily there was another train leaving in about 30 minutes so I just hung out but I did have to pay for the one stop we passed to get to mine. Fail #3.
By the time I got to my dorm it had felt like a long day and so I decided to take a nap because I was still tired. I ended up sleeping right through class and finally woke up at 7:05, five minutes after my therapy session started. Luckily, I called her and told her I was coming so I didn't miss it entirely but, yeah, Fail #4.

I understand these could have all been worse but really- all of these in one day? Seriously?