Week 1

My first week of lessons is over and I am so f***ing tired it's unbelievable. My timetable looks something like 8 o'clock starts everyday, with lessons till 12 except on a Wednesday when I have lessons till 3. That essentially means waking up everyday at the non-time 6-something-o'clock and sleeping in between classes. There's something refreshing about being around so early in the morning, not to mention the fact that it's quite convenient having your entire afternoon free. But I can imagine winter mornings crammed onto a single-decker bus with all the people who live in Dalian is going to be less than appealing. I may have to walk to lessons instead.


I say lessons, because University here is very much like being back at school again. We have a timetable that tells you exactly what you're going to study in each class, detailing breaks during and in-between classes and list of the names of all your classmates. They're also very strict on attendance -each teacher gives you their phone number so you can call them in advance if you're not going to be able to make it to class, or if you get assaulted by a suspicious Chinese man on a night out. They warn you to be cautious - especially the western girls who like to go out drinking. Make sure you always know where your friends are! And the classrooms are just that - no wandering in late, hungover and sagging into a chair at the back of the class to not listen [if not nap] for 45 minutes. We all but have assigned seats, and the teacher keeps us on our toes by picking on people to read out the answer to their homework, or the texts in the book. Constant concentration is the key to survival.


It's definitely a work hard play hard situation, as Holly would say. Every class has homework, and the homework's usually due in for the next day. So that essentially means you move between your house and the university [and back again] 5 days a week. Lunch times are a nice break - they're almost 2 hours long, so it means a lot of time eating cheap Chinese dishes with your friends. I've made better friends with the people in Holly and Serrena's classes [中一 and 二 respectively ] than in my own class [初二]. And the weekends have become some sort of sacred time, where you must leave the house on a Friday night, or risk going insane - you can't study all the time after all.


But when you're not studying, you're probably doing some sort of revision. As I write this post Holly [on Saturday] is lying next to me doing a vocabulary review, and of course I can't help but over-hear. Putting characters in this post also counts as revision [in my book] and even when we go out with our English-speaking Chinese friends, we demand vocabulary from them. Everything is learning - which I suppose is the point in spending time in China in the first place.
But it's seriously tiring. It's nice to be able  to go home and escape China for a while - I would have hated to be in a home-stay or dorms. It doesn't help that we were all ill this week from our sh*t dribble...y shower.

The round-off to my first week back at school was my 换班考试 [the exam you take if you want to move classes]. I had somehow got it into my head that my class was too easy for me - in my defence we had spent three lessons studying grammar points that I had already studied in Edinburgh, not to mention I already knew half of the 'new' vocabulary we were learning. The start of the test was ok - my Edinburgh classmate Anitra, who took the test with me agrees - but it got hard to the point I didn't understand what the questions were about. I don't think I would have changed class - but only Monday will reveal all!

Serrena is upset that she hasn't had a shout out in this particular post, but I'm sure the next post about Vibes [the post I've been promising about meeting people in Dalian] will have more than enough information about how she spends her time.

Questions & Comments   :S        xxx