So this past week and the week coming up has been full of tests that people have been studying for. This reminds me of every single week back in Dub-Town where everyone would study and I'd... well try to study. The beauty of being over here as a foreigner and having the teacher know that I have no idea what is going on is that I have an awesome advantage on test day. This past week one of the classes where I understand about 10% of what is said, we had a test. I looked at it and was like... I'm done. So I guessed on the multiple choice and just to fill in the radicals portion. The one part of the test (which was 50% of it) was fill in the blank. I sat there with a blank stare trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I said F-it and rose my hand to ask the teacher what I was supposed to do. I didn't expect any help... but couldn't hurt to ask right? She smiled and just pretty much told me what I had to write in each blank. It was awesome. I still wasn't able to fill in all the blanks because I have no idea how to write every single character. I can speak more than I can write.. but I doubt she would have accepted pinyin without the correct tones. (Pinyin, is how most of the outside world learns how to pronounce Chinese characters.) After totally getting owned by that test (hopefully, I walk away with a passing grade...), something hit me. I think I need to focus on one part of Chinese. Speaking and Listening or Reading and Writing. I've been trying to do both at the same time which gives me a pretty nice base for both but at the same time... I'm still pretty awful (especially for how long I've studied Chinese...)
So now here's the hard part. Choosing either to put more effort in Speaking and Listening or Reading and Writing. I've been doing more Speaking and Listening since I've been here but that's only because I get to use it everywhere I go. I guess I've already picked speaking and listening... well since I just found a tutor to help me out every week and plus one of my friends in the dorm is willing to sit and have a conversation totally in Chinese with me. I've also had the chance to have to speak Chinese with my roommate. He only knows Japanese and he's in the same Chinese class as me. He speaks very little English, so we pretty much have to use Chinese or once and a while I bust out Google Translator. Which is awesome because now I have learned a little Japanese and I have taught him some English plus some American Slang. That's probably the best part, teaching people American Slang.
Besides from spending my time practicing my Chinese I've have been playing a lot of basketball around campus. I've ran into some very talented players while I've also ran into a lot of people that have a huge basketball ego and get mad when I shut them down. I'm lucky that I have two friends from the dorm that are very good at basketball. They are way better than I am and we pretty much make an in stoppable team. The only let down is that we are relatively short. Surprisingly with the Asian stereotype of being short... There are a lot of tall people on the basketball court that just dominate... but then again it's not that hard when a lot of people are about my height or shorter.
But this all leads to a job opportunity. If I really wanted to take a huge risk and start a business that I think that would flourish... I'd have to say that I'd come back here and start up a huge basketball school or training center. Create a private school where everyone just focuses on studies and mainly on basketball. Try to just turn out D-III to D-I basketball players and put Asia on the map for talented basketball players. Every time I watch everyone play I see some people that would be great players if they had someone to coach and teach them about the game. So maybe if I can't find anything in the states, I'll come over here change my name and start coaching. At the same time, this place is awesome but I miss a lot of American things. So it would be a hard decision.
Well I should get back to studying instead of finding ways to let procrastination take over.
Alastar Swift
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