Why is learning Chinese so hard!

Anyone have any suggestions for getting yourself on a good sleeping schedule? I was exhausted after swimming and hanging out with everyone yesterday and I still stayed up until almost 2:30 a.m.

My body refuses to be put to bed.

Today, BoBo was mad that I didn't bring my homework and Martin (my classmate) just plain didn't do his. So she retaliated with a whole lot more homework!

I have to write a lot of things in both pinyin and Chinese characters. It's a good thing though. We've gotten to the point where we have just enough vocabulary that it's easy to forget some things.

BoBo always says things in Chinese and then we have to tell her what it is in English. I honestly do better when I have to think about it in English and then translate it to Chinese. Of course, this probably isn't great for my conversation skills.

I like the setting with BoBo though. It's nice because it's really informal. She makes me want to learn, but she doesn't make me feel like an idiot when I say something wrong or I don't remember something.

I did a lot of reading today and I'm excited about that. I feel pretty productive — Chinese, reading and laundry all in one day!

I'm starting to feel relatively comfortable with what little Chinese I know too. I took a cab to school and I talked to the cab driver enough to explain where I wanted to go and then we talked about how I'm an English teacher. He asked me some pretty simple questions and switched back and forth from Chinese to English to help me out a little because my vocabulary it still limited and his English vocabulary is pretty limited too.

It was funny though. He said something to me that I didn't understand. I just smiled at him, shrugged my shoulders and said "Ting bu dong." He laughed and told me that I am pretty.

In my class I played a new QA game today. It's basically a drinking game but instead of drinking when you lose the student has to ask a question. It's actually amazing how many drinking games you see turned into QA games.

My co-teacher was REALLY bad at the game though and kept losing. It was pretty hilarious and made for a fun beginning of class.


This is what my hands always look like after class. We have dry-erase boards and even though I use the eraser, it is inevitable that I come out with my hands covered in residue. This is actually a pretty good day, hah.