east of omaha

monday 9:10-12 Intensive Chinese
monday 13:10-15 籃球 Basketball
tuesday 9:10-12 Intensive Chinese
tuesday 13:10-16實用華語三 Practical Chinese 3
wednesday 10:10-12 游泳 Swimming
wednesday 15:10-17 展演臺灣：劇場與電影中的臺灣意象 Taiwan Performance: Theater and Taiwanese Imagery
thursday 9:10-12 Intensive Chinese
thursday15:10-17 幫派電影與暴力美學 Gangster Movie and Violence Aesthetics
friday 9:10-12 Intensive Chinese
friday 6:20-9 德文二 German II

Finally, I have a schedule for this semester. It is halfway through March yes and nobody even knows if the night school thing is happening. I suspect no. Intensive Chinese gets an underline because it is important, I have to pay extra for it, and also because it appears it will be terrifying, since the lady taking my forms arbitrarily decided to put me in the second highest level because I don't know why I told her not to. Also, by the way, knowing that my German class was second year German, not second semester German, might've made a difference, but I guess I'm caught up now!

I know about what I'm taking next semester back in Arizona, if not precisely what time I'm taking them. Basically I am going to try to get LING 300: Syntax, LING 315: Phonology, LING 421: Language Maintenance, Preservation, and Revitalization, SPAN 330: Conversation, SPAN 352: Politics and Culture in the Hispanic World, and CHIN 300+: Some Arbitrary Upper Division Mandarin Class.

Plus possibly something else, I don't know, nobody at my school feels I need to know if there's a senior capstone requirement or something like it. For most of my college career my graduation requirements have been left for me to divine alone, by magic or Google or some other arcane tool, apparently, and if I've missed something then man, I don't even know. Just give me my useless degree and let me fucking leave already. Look at the courses I take. Do you think I'm ever getting a job, degree or no degree? Come on, you know I'm not.

My ever evolving schedule.

monday 20:10-21:55 外文習得 Second Language Acquisition (Primarily in English; some lectures in Mandarin)
tuesday 18:20-20:05 Chinese Night School
wednesday 15:10-17:00 台灣現代劇場文化史 A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Theater (Entirely in English)
thursday 10:10-12 書法 Calligraphy (Entirely in Mandarin)
thursday 13:10-16 實用華語二 Practical Chinese II (Primarily in Mandarin; explanations in English when we need them)
thursday 18:20-20:05 Chinese Night School
friday 9:10-12 英詩導讀 Introduction to Poetry (Lectures in Mandarin; assignments and readings in English)
friday 19:15-21-55 德文二 German II (... idk yet, probably in English, German, and Mandarin)

Now that looks a bit harder, doesn't it? oh god This is still subject to change, and very likely will change, until I actually for real register next Friday.

My new Chinese teacher was super impressed at all the characters I know for only having studied Chinese for a year and a half, which supports my theory that my Chinese teachers in Arizona were insanely demanding, sinister and sadistic people. She was also impressed by what I can say but I'm a bit more skeptical at that praise; she might've just being nice on that one, it was hard to tell. My Chinese sucks, anyway. I better get better at listening, though, and fast, because of the freaking poetry class. It's all in Chinese, but luckily they're describing poems in English so I ... sort of know what they're taking about. But basically I need a tape recorder and an electronic dictionary like yesterday.

I told you guys, lawnmower strapped to a cart. My dad said they used to have these back in the States, before they came to their senses.

Every morning I wake up to the garbage truck, which sings like an ice-cream truck except with fewer notes and it parks outside my building. For half an hour at a time. The first time it shows I'm usually too dead to notice, since that's around the six am mark, but around eight when it shows up again, jesus. I rolled over and tried to cover my face with the pillow but since it's like eighty-five degrees in my room on most mornings sleep is precarious anyway and yeah, the pillow isn't cutting it. So I start most mornings out with hate in my soul.

Follow that up with my failure this morning to realize that the water fountain display said "100" because it was dispensing water that was in fact 100º Celsius, and even as an idiot American I really should've figured that out, y'know? "Is that steam? Really? Ohcrap." This is an excellent way to start my first day of school—which technically doesn't start until eight tonight, but, you know, whatever. Whateveeeeeeeer.

My friend K. is taking courses in Chinese, which I think is completely nuts even though I plan on doing exactly the same thing next semester. Looking at her course material though, looks like I'm going to have to fucking study man. Because, well, shit. The reading alone looks like enough to make me weep. Weep, because in five months that's me.