So, I’m a student now~

September 27, 2019 Jimmer

Beginning the fourth week of studies at this university setting is a moment I’m viewing.

My entire brain is inside-out. Grammar-wise that is.

I’m putting the verbs later, stopping the use of the word ‘do’ and putting time up front.

My mental reflexes aren’t all that are being reshaped. . .

My physical experience of trying to learn to write is a new and different thing. The homework that’s being handed to me includes regular lists of 25-40 words that I need to write seven times in a push. They might be one or three characters long at this point and each character is somewhere between two and seventeen strokes, which of course need to be done in the right order or things get messy, and I have to do it over. 😛

It’s tough. My hand and arm are feeling it, as are my eyes, as is my mental state for how much is being asked of me. But I know I’ve got this. The goal is to get better and this is how it happens.

The homework is diving into my evenings deeper than I imagined though. I haven’t been able to find time enough to edit photos or write at length much since I’ve been here. Still living a little though.

My girlfriend is making sure that I get out now and then, and that my handwriting is as precise as it can be, so she’s a real help there.

Now that I’ve got my apartment scraped, sanded, spackled and painted; set up with enough bookshelves and the temperature has gone down a little (or maybe I’m more used to it now), I feel like I’ll have more time to work with in the near future. I’ve even started folding a bit of exercise in again. And, this page is a peek out of the busyness at you so that I can share a bit of proof-of-life as well as a bit of the experience of what it is to be living in central Guangzhou this year.

I had some students over for tea, melon and games before we went out for what amounted to the first Chinese style barbecue that a fair stash of them had been to. Of the seven of us, it was a first for four of them. So, that was pretty awesome.

In case you’ve never been out for a full blown barbecue Chinese-styled, it has a fair shake of interesting elements that don’t happen in mind right off, maybe. For example starting tame, the chicken goes on sticks, skewers. The wings are whole and the legs are flayed and … I’ll include photographs~

Imagining writing about that dinner amounted to walking away from the keyboard for a few days. I’m now finishing that same fourth week, and remember that there are photos that a friend took, which I can include.

Since then, I’ve written my first few paragraphs in Chinese, and am looking forward to a vacation that starts next Tuesday. I’ll likely be able to chill well enough in the SIX WEEK VACATION that happens in January, so I can binge-edit, and craft some good work from that. I am surprised as hell at how much homework there is. So, for all of you who were hoping for regular posts, you have my apologies. Credit for hard work in academics?