The Swing of Things

Talk about building me up just to let me down. Classes started last Monday. Since I placed into 5th Year, I thought that I would probably be one of the best students in 4th Year. That was unfortunately not the case... I was the worst. It took me the entire weekend to do my homework, which was the first indication that I might be in a little over my head. Then, in class, I was able to understand the teacher but I had to focus absolutely the entire time. When I was asked a question, I would stutter and ask the teacher to repeat herself whereas the other students could answer easily. It was the longest class I've ever taken, and I was constantly thinking "Don't call on me, don't call on me!"

Later, during our discussion class, I had an easier time because I could speak freely instead of incorporating grammar points from the lesson... but we were debating the pros and cons of neo-colonialism. Here are some fun vocab words that I found while flipping through the 4th Year compilation of articles and editorials:

村支书： The General Secretary of the Communist Party in a village
特务窝： spy nest
整洁: crux
冥冥之中: inexorably
肠胃炎: enterogastritis
武士道: Bushido
次硫酸氢钠： inferior sodium hydrogen sulfate
渎职： malfeasance

I don't even know what some of those words mean in English. I changed into 3rd Year right after that, which was much, much more suited to my level. I also heard that Ethan, a Yale student who also did HBA and who placed into 5th Year, dropped down to 4th. That means there's only one kid in 5th Year. He takes all his classes by himself... isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard?

Anyway, the 3rd Year lessons are just challenging enough and actually build upon things that I know. There's a lot of variation among the 3rd Year students, though. Some of them speak painfully slowly (the way I did in the 4th Year class) and as a result, Large Class can be very frustrating. I'm used to the teaching style at HBA, where teachers fired questions at students without warning, everyone was on a similar level, and we would all joke around and tell stories while still using the grammar and vocab from that day. The ACC teachers just aren't as fun.

We had a "debate" in Discussion Class last week, only this time the topic was not as difficult. We were the board of directors at Starbucks, and had to decide whether we wanted to open our next branch in France or in a Chinese village. My partner's spoken Chinese wasn't very fluent, so I had to carry the "team" on my shoulders, and I got 2.5 points on my homework for being the best debater. Thankfully plenty of 3rd Year students also speak as well as I do. It's a shame there isn't a Level 3.5.

In other news I've been getting along great with my roommate and I've met some cool people.

Oh! One more thing. students here don't keep the language pledge nearly as well as at HBA. At HBA, people were great about the pledge for the first two weeks, then started speaking Chinglish (which inevitably became English) when going to bars and clubs on the weekends. At ACC, people started speaking English on the very day we signed the pledge. I'm really thankful that I was paired with the roommate that I have. I think he and I might be the only ones who actually speak Chinese to each other when we're alone in our room.

At HBA, when someone didn't know what a certain word meant, we'd use to Chinese to explain it to them. At ACC, people (including teachers) just spell out the word in English. I don't see how this is any better than just saying the word in English (which in my opinion is sometimes necessary and not harmful to your learning.) Once, when I was talking to some other 3rd year students, someone said the word 博物馆. A girl didn't know what that meant, so I started explaining (in Chinese) "It's a place where you can go and look at art..." before someone else cut me off and just said "M-U-S-E-U-M." Oh well.

Some pictures of my sweet room: