Improvement

I've been kind of down lately. I'm still not completely over the virus I got at the beginning of last week, so I think that is the main contributing factor. However, I've been generally unmotivated toward studying Chinese because of not being able to concentrate, and not feeling like my work is accomplishing anything.

Tonight, though, I decided to call my friend Zhengfeng in the states. We worked together at IU, and I practiced Mandarin with him during the summer. Since I hadn't talked to anyone who heard me speak Mandarin before entering this program, I thought talking to him might give me an idea of whether or not I've made any significant improvment.

After talking to him, the overwhelming feeling is that I have, in fact, made a huge improvement. That made me feel alot better about continuing my studies here. While talking to him, I remembered a little bit of what I sounded like talking during the summer, and then realized for myself, also, that I've come a long way. Of course, I still have an even longer way until I'm actually good at the language, but at least I know I'm getting somewhere now.