Settling In

Well, I now have almost one month under my belt of Chinese classes. While the vocabulary words are still mostly review, my knowledge of recognizing and writing characters has grown exponentially. I think that I know how to write and read over 100 characters. I am well on my way to basic (Chinese) literacy! In both my Hanyu (grammar) and Tingshuo (speaking) class, the teachers speak almost entirely in Chinese and even explanations will be in Chinese. I feel that I am getting into a routine of how and what I need to study. Really, the thing that I spend the most time on is writing characters. We usually have around 20 new characters that we need to know (which means that we need to be able to write not just recognize) every 2 or 3 days. I spend HOURS practicing writing. Just to show what I am doing, I scanned a page out of one of my practice books. Doesn't this look like fun? ;-)

Great grilling saga

If you remember, the grill that we inherited had rusted through. Two of the legs had fallen off and the bottom was getting a little shaky. Now, that didn't stop us from using it several times and prompted some red-neck grillin'. Before we left for the summer, we had priced out grills and they were crazy-expensive! It was over $100 for just a basic Weber charcoal grill. Yikes. So Andy took the grill into work and had someone from maintenance fix it. 

Before:

After:

They ended up slicing off the bottom and fixing a new bottom and legs. I think that they did a great job! Probably better quality than the original. ;-)

My baby is 4!

Last week Tori turned 4. So sad, I no longer have a baby anymore! :-(  But at the same time, we are enjoying the added freedoms and ability to travel even more as our kids are getting just a bit older. Tori is really enjoying school. I am amazed at the difference in her Chinese in just one month. The other day she came home from school and was telling me all about a story that her teacher had read to the class. Her descriptions were so vivid that I stopped her and asked if the teacher had read it in English. She gave me a look as to say, "Mom, that is silly" and responded with,  "No, Mom, it was in Chinese." All I can say is that I am envious as I spend a couple hours studying each day and she just absorbs it like a sponge. She is such a character and we are so blessed to have her as part of our family. Just today she asked me, "when does our story end? does it end when we die or does it keep going?" Such deep thoughts. I love the combination of silliness, independence and deep thinking (with a whole lot of feistiness thrown in) that makes up who Tori is. Happy Birthday, 小 T ("xiao" T, which means "little")!

Tori's favorite animals are pigs. So instead of a cake, I made these pig cupcakes. Funny thing.... we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Suzhou with some friends to celebrate (which happens to be a Muslim restaurant). So yes indeed, I did the unthinkable and brought pork (these cute little pigs) into a Muslim restaurant!

Pizza Art

Sometimes you just have to play with your food.

Though the girls decided that next time they would put the pepperonis on top of the cheese.

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! :-)

Back to College

It is official.... I am now a college student once again. Today I registered for classes at Soochow Suzhou Daxue (known to locals as SuDa, "daxue" = university). The whole registration process was a little crazy. First, you fill out the application, get your student ID, pay, take a test and buy your books. While credit cards are used some in China, for the most part it is a cash society. So I showed up and paid for my classes IN CASH. After paying, I was all set to buy my books, but was told that I first needed to take the placement test. With much trepidation, I went into the room for the written test. Ohmigosh. For the first part, I was supposed to translate from English into characters, the second part you had to choose from several sentences (that were of course written in characters) which was grammatically correct, and finally you had to translate a section from characters into English. Yikes! It was stinkin' hard. I think that I recognized about 20 characters on the ENTIRE PAGE. After staring at the page for several minutes, I finally told the teacher that I didn't know enough to complete the test. Yes, indeed Chinese keeps me humble. From there, it was on to the oral exam. I did much better on the oral portion and was able to have a conversation with the teacher about: where I was from, why I was here, how many children I have, their names and ages, where I lived, and how I would travel to the university every day. After talking with the teacher, she thought that I could go either way maybe a level 1 maybe a level 2 (level 1 is the beginners). I told her that I preferred to do level 1 due to the amount of characters that I don't know. She suggested doing what is called "level 1 - fast class." I bought the appropriate books and classes start Monday. Watch out Chinese, you have bested me so far, but I may just conquer you after all. Of course, only after several years of serious studying..... I will keep you posted on my progress!

1st Day of School

Yesterday was the first day back to school for Becca and Josh. Becca is in 3rd grade and Josh is in 1st grade. This is Josh's first year at EtonHouse. Andy and I wondered how his first couple of days would go because he can be really shy. But he had a great first day! Several of the students from his kindergarten are in his class as well as some other kids from our neighborhood. Even though the transition went well, this morning he asked if he had to go to school or if it was the weekend yet. Definitely my homebody! His ideal day would be staying at home in his pj's for most of the day and just playing. Becca, of course, jumped right in. She has been counting down the days and was so excited to start. Becca had informed Josh that she would sit with him on the bus to and from school so he wasn't worried. She told us and I melted with how sweet my girl is. But then when Becca and Josh got off the bus yesterday afternoon, Josh informed me that Becca had told him she wouldn't sit with him anymore because she wanted to sit with her friends. How short the feelings of sisterly affection last! 

Today Tori started at a local Chinese preschool. The school is taught only in Mandarin (Chinese) and we hope that after this year she will be fluent. We are the only foreign family at the school, but before too long Tori will stop being a "laowi" (foreigner) and just be one of the kids. Because after all no matter the language and culture, kids are kids. I had a funny experience yesterday at Tori's school. All the information that was given to us by the school said that the first day of classes would be August 31st (yesterday). So yesterday we went to the school and the guard informed us that the day was changed and the first day would actually be September 1st. I am sure that this will not be the only time I misunderstand something. I am convinced that life in China is trying to keep me humble. :-)

Tori with one of her teachers. Instead of giving the peace sign (which is how many Chinese pose for pictures), Tori is using her "peace signs" to make antlers. I love this crazy, silly girl!