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End of week three is finally here! It was definitely a long one. After I couldn't understand my teacher and actually cried during class (yes I'll admit it and yes I am embarrassed) I've been studying 7-8 hours a day on average. It's really paid off and my classes this week went really well for the most part. I haven't had much time for the gym lately though which is kind of a bummer.
We have the option to take extracurricular classes and I chose to take a cooking class. Our teacher is a Chinese man who started out by first telling us he was 86 years old. He is one of the most animated 86 year olds I have ever seen. This evening we went to his apartment and we watched him make a dish (his kitchen is pretty small so there's not enough room to help out). He had eggplants, a potato, and a green pepper. In the US I would never touch green peppers or eggplants, but here they've become a regular part of my diet. After deep frying them for a bit and then frying them in some sauce he mixed up, we ate and it was delicious. I never thought that eggplant and green pepper could taste so good.
Tomorrow I think I'm going to go with a classmate to the Daoli district (the district right next to our district, Nangang) and see the sites. I haven't really had the chance to do this yet so I'm excited to see what we can find. I'm hoping to to take a lot of pictures and will have them posted soon!
Facebook is still blocked, I check everyday. Who knows when they're going to open it back up.
After next week I'll officially be halfway done with my summer session here in Harbin. It's crazy how fast it's going and it's crazy how much I still have to learn. All of my classmates tell me "Oh you have 6 months, that's plenty of time! You'll improve more than you can imagine." But right now, I really think that 6 months isn't long enough. Maybe it's because I'm still in my first month here, but I just feel like no matter how hard I work, no matter how many hours I study or how many times I put myself out there and try and actually have a conversation (knowing I won't be able to explain fully) I just won't get to the level I need to be at in 6 months. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope all of this pays off. At this point the only thing I can do is continue to do what I'm doing and see where it takes me.
:) :)
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