Well if you want the in-detail discussion of what happened with the old g'friend incident you can look over to the entry previous to this one.
Monday starts the last week of the first five week session of intensive chinese.
I thought I was doing rather well up until this last incident that tried my sanity.
The final is Friday, and it is going to be ridiculously hard. There is a two hour oral exam part, but we should only have maybe ten questions for that part. If you get lucky, you will get the easy ones, if not, well it wont be that cool.
Then there is the two hour written session of the exam.
Thats going to be extraordinarily difficult. We have learned approximately 300-400 characters in this short 5 week period. The teachers expect us to be able to translate entire sentances from english to chinese characters on the final exam. This task is utterly ludicrous.
My character recognition is excellent. If I can see the character, i can easily recall how it is pronounced in chinese, as well as its meaning in english. However, when i see the english words, I often draw a blank when trying to recall which of the 300 odd characters we learned, as well as the different combinations of characters producing entirely different meanings.
So if the exam is mainly choosing correct grammar patterns, answering questions in chinese from chinese sentances, or putting elements (in chinese) together to form a sentance in chinese, i will do relatively well.
HOWEVER, it the exam feautures a lot of english sentances for us to translate into chinese, questions posed in english for us to answer in chinese characters, or a section where they provide the english word for us to give the chinese characters for, I will perform very poorly.
This brings me to if I should continue to take the next five weeks of class. I've tried to list the pro's and the con's.
Pro's:
I get to stay in the Twin Cities.
I get to interact more with people I have met here from the twin cities area.
I get to stay with this girl I met up here from the class, and hang out a lot more.
I get to be away from the horrible town that I come from.
I will get to be around a lot more people up here.
I will get to live on my own for five more weeks.
I will get 6 more credits, assuming that I pass.
I can't think of any more at the current time.
Con's:
My stress level will continue to increase, with only a two-day pause next weekend, before starting in the second session. (this most likely would not have been a problem if that old girlfriend BS wouldn't have come up)
After the summer session has completed, I will only have two days to go home and get ready for fall semester.
I will have a shitload of homework, that will only continue to grow.
I will have to work doubly hard to keep up.
I won't be able to see my friends from home, until the next break, most likely the thanksgiving break in fall term.
(thats all i can think of right now)
Pro's of going home instead of attending second session:
I will finally get a decent break from studying.
I will get to see my friends from home.
I will have the time to get drunk, with friends
I will get to play video games again.
I will get to paint again.
I will be able to go over my japanese some, because the chinese and the japanese are not inter-mingling so well.
Ill get to go kayaking again.
Ill get to go recreational biking more.
Cons of going home:
MAIN CON: I won't get to see this girl i met up here anymore.
Its home. It can really blow ass sometimes.
Its a lot more lonely.
I really dislike most of the people there.
I'll be around, and most likely associate with people i hate around my old town. (in order to access free alcohol occasionally)
Did I mention that willmar really sucks? People don't like to talk about anything intelligent in willmar. Except my closest friends and parents.
I won't have nearly the privacy I have here in the apartment.
I don't know, i think that is about it.
Monday starts the last week of the first five week session of intensive chinese.
I thought I was doing rather well up until this last incident that tried my sanity.
The final is Friday, and it is going to be ridiculously hard. There is a two hour oral exam part, but we should only have maybe ten questions for that part. If you get lucky, you will get the easy ones, if not, well it wont be that cool.
Then there is the two hour written session of the exam.
Thats going to be extraordinarily difficult. We have learned approximately 300-400 characters in this short 5 week period. The teachers expect us to be able to translate entire sentances from english to chinese characters on the final exam. This task is utterly ludicrous.
My character recognition is excellent. If I can see the character, i can easily recall how it is pronounced in chinese, as well as its meaning in english. However, when i see the english words, I often draw a blank when trying to recall which of the 300 odd characters we learned, as well as the different combinations of characters producing entirely different meanings.
So if the exam is mainly choosing correct grammar patterns, answering questions in chinese from chinese sentances, or putting elements (in chinese) together to form a sentance in chinese, i will do relatively well.
HOWEVER, it the exam feautures a lot of english sentances for us to translate into chinese, questions posed in english for us to answer in chinese characters, or a section where they provide the english word for us to give the chinese characters for, I will perform very poorly.
This brings me to if I should continue to take the next five weeks of class. I've tried to list the pro's and the con's.
Pro's:
I get to stay in the Twin Cities.
I get to interact more with people I have met here from the twin cities area.
I get to stay with this girl I met up here from the class, and hang out a lot more.
I get to be away from the horrible town that I come from.
I will get to be around a lot more people up here.
I will get to live on my own for five more weeks.
I will get 6 more credits, assuming that I pass.
I can't think of any more at the current time.
Con's:
My stress level will continue to increase, with only a two-day pause next weekend, before starting in the second session. (this most likely would not have been a problem if that old girlfriend BS wouldn't have come up)
After the summer session has completed, I will only have two days to go home and get ready for fall semester.
I will have a shitload of homework, that will only continue to grow.
I will have to work doubly hard to keep up.
I won't be able to see my friends from home, until the next break, most likely the thanksgiving break in fall term.
(thats all i can think of right now)
Pro's of going home instead of attending second session:
I will finally get a decent break from studying.
I will get to see my friends from home.
I will have the time to get drunk, with friends
I will get to play video games again.
I will get to paint again.
I will be able to go over my japanese some, because the chinese and the japanese are not inter-mingling so well.
Ill get to go kayaking again.
Ill get to go recreational biking more.
Cons of going home:
MAIN CON: I won't get to see this girl i met up here anymore.
Its home. It can really blow ass sometimes.
Its a lot more lonely.
I really dislike most of the people there.
I'll be around, and most likely associate with people i hate around my old town. (in order to access free alcohol occasionally)
Did I mention that willmar really sucks? People don't like to talk about anything intelligent in willmar. Except my closest friends and parents.
I won't have nearly the privacy I have here in the apartment.
I don't know, i think that is about it.