One Week in.....

I have completed my first week of Chinese classes at SuDa. After the first two days, I wondered if the level 1 class was going to be too easy, but things picked up on Wednesday. Already I have 20+ characters that I need to know how to read and write. I find it fascinating learning to write characters though a bit frustrating at times. Just an overview of characters: each character can represent a word or several characters will combine to form a word. I have heard that for basic literacy (like to be able to read a newspaper) you need to know 2000 characters. I wonder how many I will know by the end of the semester? Or the end of the year? Will I be literate? :-) When writing the characters, there is a certain order and direction for each stroke.  Which really when writing the English alphabet, there is a certain order and direction as well (speaking as one who has taught many children to write), but in writing characters it is much more rigid. Simply because a stroke that is slightly wrong can change what the character says. There are many students from other Asian countries in my class that I am jealous of as we write. Because even though in Korean and Japanese, the characters are different (though they do share many characters) there is a similarity of writing. I feel like I am having to re-train my hand and brain.

Some people have asked what a typical run-down of my day looks like now that I am back in school. Usually I am up early, get ready, eat breakfast, get the kids dressed and am out the door by 7:30 AM. Andy tags in, feeds the kids breakfast and gets them on the bus (Go Super-Dad!). Often I am able to get a ride with a fellow student who lives in a neighborhood behind mine and she drives us to school. But if she is unable to have the car (she shares it with her husband) then I catch the bus and must leave just a little earlier. If we drive, it takes about 25-30 minutes depending on traffic. But this morning when I took the bus, it took me almost an hour. I have 2 classes: a grammar and a speaking class. Class dismisses at 11:50 and I usually take the bus home. Thankfully, the traffic is much less on the way home and it only takes about 35 minutes. I am home between 12:30 and 1. I eat lunch, spend a couple hours studying, do any grocery shopping that needs to be done and then by that time the kids are getting home on the bus. While this does make for busy days, I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn Chinese. What a year this will be! :-)