Classes have now officially started, and I have to say I'm glad that they have. It gives me a routine to settle into, a schedule to work with each day, and I think that after the first couple weeks, I'll be in much better shape than I am right now. Not to say that I'm particularly down, but I'm just kind of going through the motions right now, just trying to get through each day, one at a time.
My class is small, only 6 students. Three are Japanese students who have been in Taiwan for awhile now. Two are Germans, and then there's me. I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle in terms of overall language ability--the Japanese students definitely have an edge on all of us when it comes to character writing and recognition, but I think one of the German guys is by far the best speaker in the class. I'm hoping that in a few days, I'll be able to settle into the pace of the class--yesterday and today I've felt a bit out of step, like I'm struggling to catch on even though the content isn't all that difficult. I think part of it is the traditional characters, and part of it is just adjustment. I remember feeling like this my first few days in Nanjing as well, and I guess that makes this a lot less scary, knowing that I'll probably get used to it pretty fast.
Yesterday I actually spent a fair amount of time hanging out with my two German classmates, both named Michael, and their friend, Alex, a German student whose speaking is pretty much fluent (his mother is Taiwanese). We went to dinner together, and thought I was initially a little unsure about Alex, after talking a bit with him I found him to be quite amiable. Dinner became quite entertaining because the waitress kept referring to me as "xiao mei mei" which literally means "little sister," but basically just indicated me, the only woman in the group. Alex and Michael P (the really good speaker) started calling me "xiao mei mei" as well, and I let them go for awhile until we got onto the subject of birth dates and it came out that I was actually older than Alex. He then sheepishly said he would call me "jie jie" from now on ("jie jie" means "older sister).
Last night, I also managed to get myself slightly lost by getting off at the wrong bus stop. I think the 311 line, the one I take to and from NTU, has added a stop on the return route that isn't on the main maps, so when I looked at the map before getting on the bus, I thought I needed to get off at the third stop after NTU. In fact I should have gotten off at the fourth. So I basically wandered the streets of Yonghe for awhile until I finally came across a street I recognized from the night the landlord was showing me around. From there I was able to get the city shuttle (which is free) to City Hall, and from there I knew my way back.
It rained cats and dogs last night, waking me up multiple times because the sound of driving water against corrugated metal isn't exactly a soothing one. It stopped around 10 this morning, and the nice part was that the weather today was, for the first time, bearable. Still unbelievably humid, but much cooler than the past week, and I think it's supposed to stay like this for a couple days before heating up again on the weekend.
It's an up and down time right now. I was just on Skype with Cira, an old friend from Oxy, and I was telling her that I can't allow myself to think about 9 months right now, I can only think in terms of days and weeks. If I think about the big picture right now, I just end up feeling really homesick and lonely. So yeah. It's up and down, but I'm getting through it alright.
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