Hi ho, hi ho, It's Off To Work We Go!

Every body has their own standards by which they divide they world. Some people say that you are either a cat person or a dog person. Others say that you are either a beer person or a mixed drinks person. Bush used to say "You are either with us, or you are against us."

I have my own standards. In my opinion, you are either a tea person, or you are a coffee person. Sure, some people say that they like both, but we all know that there is always a favorite. I can say with 100% confidence that I am a tea person, and proud of it. Black tea (English breakfast, to be exact) is what keeps me going through the day. It's what wakes me up in the morning, what gives me a burst of energy in the middle of the day, and what puts me to sleep at night. I get this from my dad, who drinks probably 8 cups of tea every day. With those kind of numbers against you, it is a wonder that I drink anything else besides tea.

This little ramble does not really have anything to do with my day, but it was something I was thinking about this morning as I was getting ready for class. The first thing I did after waking up was to put the kettle on, and then get back in bed to wait for my tea to be ready. In opinion, it is an exceedingly civilized way to start your morning. If more people did it, the world would be a better place.

My day might have started civilly (in bed drinking tea) but it quickly turned into reality. Monday of the second week of school, after a weekend of lazying about enjoying myself. Do I even need to say how hard it was to go back to class? I didn't think so. Hard to focus, hard to answer questions. By the end of class, all of us in the class were tired, and not answering questions very well. I'm surprised that the teachers didn't through the American teaching standards out the window and start beating us with rulers. I would have. As you can see, there is a reason that I have no interest in becoming a teacher.

Today's challenge of the day involved a Chinese newspaper. That's right, guess which American teenager just read a newspaper article? You guessed right. ME! I read an article about the Chinese education system. that talked about how with so many Chinese students going abroad to study, the time is ripe for a change in the education system. It was actually really interesting to read. Although it was an editorial, there is something seriously interesting about reading an international newspaper. So much of a country's culture and morals go into newspaper articles. I am starting to believe that one cannot really understand a culture, until you can begin to read the newspaper.

Chinese newspapers are special though. This special point has to do with their language. Most of the words in Chinese are two characters. But when writing newspapers, the Chinese want to save space, so they often only use one character, to represent both (and therefore represent the word). So even though when you learn the word, you learn two characters, when you read it in a newspaper, you have to be able to recognize the word as one character. I know that that is confusing, and believe me, it is not easy. I am no good at it. I spent an hour the night before, practicing with my language partner to try to understand one article. I don't even want to think about how long it would take me to read the whole newspaper. More time then I want to spend, anyway.

Otherwise? Class not so interesting. No amount of wit or sarcasm could make it interesting to read out. 3 hours of sitting in the same place learning Chinese does not make for interesting conversation.

In addition to the newspaper I had to read a 7 page text from my textbook. Fun bloody stuff. Honestly, I sometimes wonder why I have volunteered to give up my summer. Well, that's not true. I am glad that I am here, but my Chinese is definitely improving. But I am still a teenager! I like having listless summers of doing nothing.

Now ladies and gentlemen, I have to ask you to cross your fingers for me. I have to go try to rent a bike, and so far, I have not had a lot of luck. I have been there everyday for the past couple of days, but everytime, he says that there are no bikes, and to come back again tomorrow. So, hope against hope that he has a bike tonight. I sure am.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave questions or comments.