Classes

Wednesday we started classes. They broke us into eight levels, four advanced and four intermediate, and each level has a speaking class and reading/writing class. I have those two classes every day, and then on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I have my elective which is Contemporary Social Issues in China. Then Monday-Thursday afternoon I have a one-on-one class. So it's a pretty busy schedule, but it is kind of nice that it's not the exact same every day.

Wednesday my speaking and reading/writing classes were fine. I can understand pretty much everything the teacher is saying which is great. The hard part is if they say something I don't understand or if there's a character I don't know, then I start writing it in my dictionary and by the time I write down the English definition the class has moved onto something else. I've learned to just wait to look things up until after class. Wednesday after class a bunch of us went to lunch at a small restaurant close the south gate of the campus. That side of campus is much nicer; it has the law school and a lot of old pretty buildings. We learned that they are built according to the Methodist style architecture. It's nice to see something other than dirty white buildings.

After we ate lunch four of us went to a coffee shop to study for the afternoon. (It's the first building on the right in the picture, kind of overhanging the water a little. Everywhere in Suzhou has these little canals, it's why Suzhou is called "Little Venice") It was called I Miss You...Fisher Coffee. They had iced coffee which is what all of us wanted, and it was a nice treat. It wasn't the same as Starbucks but it was still good. We studied there for a couple of hours. The studying was fine, but the frustrating part was if we had a question we also had to say it in Chinese to each other. It's exhausting being around people you know understand English perfectly well but speaking only Chinese to them. We were getting restless so we left and went back to the dorms to finish studying. I studied basically all afternoon. I don't know what it took me so long - I was studying for a quiz and doing homework but I guess the thing that takes the longest is looking up stuff in my dictionary. They gave us electronic dictionaries so it's pretty fast to look up something, but after a while looking up many things is time consuming. A few of us wanted to skype in the evening so we didn't go find dinner until around 8. We walked out the main gate of the university until we found a bunch of restaurants with tables outside on the side of the road. It was pretty crowded and loud, but the food was really good and super cheap.

Thursday I had my elective for the first time. It's twice as long as my other classes, which makes it difficult to sit still through. The text book has some more challenging vocab, and then our teacher will use that vocab to ask us questions that I have a hard time understanding. Then she calls on me and I feel flustered and then I can't think of anything and it's just a bad cycle. I'm not a fan of the class, and I would like to switch to the easier level of the same class, but the teacher thinks I'll be able to handle it. We'll see how it goes next week. Thursday afternoon was my first one-on-one session. I thought it was going to be more of a tutoring session, but it has a separate text book and tests and assignments. That was kind of a disappointment but I really like my teacher. Yesterday we spent the hour just talking, because she just wants to spend the whole time listening to my Chinese. It was fun just chatting with someone in Chinese.

Usually on Fridays we have tests in every class, but since we only had two days of classes this week we just had regular class. With quizzes and tests in every class every week it's going to be a busy schedule! Plus next week we add in our extra curricular activities plus mandatory lunches twice a week. We're leaving in a little while to head to a couple of different cities for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday night and maybe have time for an update.