Day 26 -- June 19

Today began like it usually does. I did a lot more studying this morning though see as we had a test later on this afternoon. There was a script for us to memorize. That in itself wasn’t too difficult but when you don’t know which part you are going to play it gets kinda funky. I also decided that I would attempt to forgo coffee (please note this is  terrible decision for any coffee addict). I eventually left the room to grab lunch down at the little cafe outside the MTC building. I’ve been eating on their porch for a while I figure I might as well patron the place. It was an egg and cheese sandwich.

    Class today involved mostly review for the first half. We watch little video clips that have the conversations recorded on them. They are really cheesy, so cheesy we can listen to them without laughing. They do more harm then good. Also the people speak really strangely. It doesn’t sound like Laoshi at all, most likely it has to do with accent. We took the the test, it wasn’t so bad. I’m not really worried about it. Actually there was a little bit where we were all waiting for Chen Laoshi to ask for the test. Then we had about 15 minutes to review for the oral part. It turns out that our Laoshi had gone out of the room to go pick up coffee for all of us to act with. Which was very kind as I needed some desperately. I had to run through the script twice because I volunteered to be the extra person in the last group. Apparently we all did very well.

    I walked back and ended up having an interesting discussion with James and Reid. We were talking about different nation’s stereotypes. James grew up in Nigeria and Reid is Canadian. It’s interesting the how they view the world and what they know to be true. Some of it is spot on with how I understand the world and some of it is not. I had a great discussion with Reid about social reform for Canada and the United States, it’s great learning about your country from a different perspective.

New Store!

    Since this was the end of the chapter and we start the new one tomorrow, I was given a good three hours of homework. So I went back to my dorm worked on it for about an hour and half, then went to find dinner. I wanted to try a new place so I picked at random and sat down. I was pleasantly surprised. I got wonton in a spicy broth. Very delicious, and very filling. It took them a while to get me my order but I think it felt longer cuz I was by myself. Everyone eats food at random times so it’s hard to meet up. I do always like company though. I will get it eventually. Afterwords I came back and finished my homework which took another hour and half. Which took me to about 9:30 at night. I’m pretty much done for the evening, I’ll shower and maybe review the pronunciations.

Condiments....

Street art as a filler...

    On an interesting note I did discover I am learning things differently from the other English speakers in my class. We were talking about taking the quizzes which  involve listening followed by dictation, when Laoshi reads it to us, I just write down the characters. Sometimes it takes a few times listening to her repeat it, but I never write  bo po mo fo or pinyin. Usually if I miss any points of the quiz it’s because I got the romanization (pinyin) wrong. I am also very good at confusing tones. I did discover that all the other English speakers in my class actually write the pinyin before they write the characters. Talking to Reid he said it had to do with the fact that the characters are not phonetic. But for me writing down the sounds would take much too long I’d end up getting confused. Perhaps I am used to thinking in symbols? I don’t know, it’s weird when I am in class, I am likely to get confused when there is a comparison made with English and Mandarin but when Laoshi compares Japanese to Mandarin I do just fine. I don't really know what to think about it. Just an observation. I think it is time to sleep, chapter three starts tomorrow!