Sunday, February 26, 2006

Second Semester Registration

I returned to Beijing last night after a two week vacation in the States. Classes start tomorrow, and I hadn't registered yet. I was expecting a huge headache when I went today to do so, but I was happily surprised to find that the process was streamlined and - dare I say? - efficient. It was at least efficient for Beijing, and that is plenty for me.

I am registered for another 20 hours per week this semester, and I am now in the intermediate level. I think what that is ultimately going to mean is that I'm going to drown in confusion and long hours of trying to understand on my own what happened in class. I have 10 hours of required courses, and three additional courses that I chose.

I decided to take another reading course because I struggled with reading comprehension last semester, and also because I would like to be literate in this language one day. I am also taking a grammar class, which is different from the type of grammar class I've grown accustomed to in the past few years. The closest equivalent that I can think of is studying grammar like I did in English class in the States. It's presupposing knowledge and delving deeper. I'm hoping that will help me understand some nuances in the language that I'm missing. Finally, I decided to take a cultural geography course because I thought it would be nice to take a course with actual content in Chinese instead of constant instruction in just the language.

I am jetlagged right now. I've been fighting sleep for the past five or six hours in an attempt to beat this and get reacclimated to the time. I think I am about to give in and sleep now, though. 9.30pm is a decent time to go to bed, right?

1 Comments:

At 12:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just want to say that I'm a regular reader of you blog. I hope to one day do what you do and spend a year in china. Keep up the good work and good luck with the upcoming semester.

 

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