Countdown

I may have mentioned previously how stressed I am feeling regarding my school studies. Well, the countdown has begun, our mid term exams will be held on Nov 13 and Nov 14, and we still have three more lessons to cover.

We have to cover them next week and still have time to review what we have learned in our Foundation class. As for the Listening class, I don't think there's a lot of hope there. You have to listen to all the initials, finals and tones and indicate the letters and the accents. Some words contain 2, 3 or 4 different tones. We're happy just to get the spelling correct, let alone trying to determine the tones. You would think that if you attended these classes it would sink in. I am waiting for the day that the light bulb goes on, but that hasn't occurred so far. A few students, mostly Chinese decent or Asia decent, seem to pick it up much more quickly than the rest of us, who have either dropped out or have given up on this class. I haven't done either, but I have been tempted on more than one occasion.

As one expat said to me, who happens to speak Chinese fluently, "you need to be completely overwhelmed in your classes, and if you are not, you are in the wrong class." You will all be happy to know I'm in the right class.