A Break!

This is the first time in the past eight days that I haven't had class. That's right. I had eight straight days of class. Welcome to my life, everyone. I live in China.

We had class last weekend because we had a week long break the week prior to it. So on Saturday and Sunday I had Thursday and Friday classes, respectively. Additionally, on Saturday, I had a class at Peking University (Beijing Daxue, or Beida), as I also did yesterday. I decided that I couldn't handle the lack of music in my life here, and enrolled in a class at Beida to learn erhu. We ordered our instruments through our teacher, and they were shipped in from Suzhou.



Erhu is a two-stringed, traditional Chinese instrument, and it is bowed between the strings. I'm really excited to be learning it. I've never learned a string instrument before. Learning erhu has the double benefit of a new experience and learning new vocabulary in Chinese. The class is taught entirely in Chinese, and I've found that I understand everything so far. That is really exciting! I want to find a dance class to take, too, so I can get even more different kinds of vocabulary.

It's been fun to learn so far, even though I'm still not very good. I'm trying not to be too critical of myself, though. I've still only had two classes where I've actually played the instrument. It's been great. However, fun as it is, it's still a class. It's a two-hour+ class on top of that. I have class six days a week now. Ah, education.

Be prepared, everyone. I'm hoping to be playing erhu all the time when I return to the states, and you may be subjected to whatever sounds I'm able to make with it by that time.