Day 59 - Day 60

October 18 - October 19, 2010 - Xi'an, Shaanxi Provence, China

The weather is shifting. I have to wear a hoodie everyday now. I've been working on a scarf, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess we'll see how that comes out.

Every class is essentially a forward march through the content of our books, in order. The classes are really very basic and, on a lot of days, pretty boring. Four straight hours every morning can really wear on you. Even with the ten minute breaks every 50 minutes. I do feel like I'm learning some, though, don't get me wrong. My conversation skills have improved, even if I still have trouble just listening and interpreting. My reading and writing is still excellent, and only getting better. Whenever my classmate Sanket gets a text message in Chinese, he hands the phone to me and asks me to translate, and whenever a teacher makes a point of something in class she uses me as the barometer for understanding: If I get it, I can explain it to the other English speakers.

I'm surprised at just how fast the time goes. Before I know it, it's Saturday. And that's every week. And it's been nearly two months now (tomorrow, officially). I have decided, due to the advise of my adviser to stay one semester instead of two. Like a number of other things, I was a bit misinformed about the length of the semesters before I left America. If I were to stay for a full Chinese school year, I would not return home until the end of July, just in time to start the fall 2011 semester in America. Now, that means I would be missing out on the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 semesters, as planned, as well as the Summer A, B, and C 2011 semesters. This would, according to a little thing called math, put me way behind on my schedule to graduate. That, along with a number of other factors, have weighed heavily on my decision. So, come January, I'll be back in the states. That makes tomorrow, essentially, the half-way point.

Hayden