Kudos to you, non-native speaker!

I've been meaning to talk more about the chinese language and what I've learned so far... The only thing I can say is that now that I know how the chinese language works, I'm utterly amazed that people can learn English. Chinese is so simple compared to our language. Now, whenever I hear someone who can speak semi-fluent English, my jaw feels like dropping with awe.

The most difficult thing about chinese for us non-native speakers is the grammar. The rest is just memorizing tones and words. You see, the order of words can make a huge difference in what a sentence means. For example, one evening, I asked Peggy (in Chinese) "Want to eat dinner with me?" but I accidentally mixed up the order of the words and it came out as, "Want to eat dinner and me?" Very amusing.

Another problem with the order of words in Chinese is the use of time words. It's difficult to get into the habit of the chinese way - you have to put the time word at the BEGINNING of the sentence. So a direct translation of a sentence would be "1:30 I have class." It's both amusing and frustrating to tell someone something in Chinese, only to get to the end of your sentence and realize that you forgot the timeword, thus making the entire sentence intelligible.

One of the best things about Chinese are the verbs. There is no conjugation of verbs at all. It's fantastic. Therefore there's no memorization of different forms of the same verb. Wanna make something past tense? Easy, just toss the word "le" on the end of the verb and bada-bing-bang-boom, you're done.

I think I'm done on that topic.

I haven't done much in the past few days - I've been trying to get on top of my readings, but I think I'm just gonna have to surrender, admit defeat, and start reading the current ones. I'm okay reading while I'm exercising, but in my room or anywhere else, I just wanna fall asleep. As a bonus though, I have learned more this term than I did last term - that's a definite plus - so rest assured that I'm actually enjoying this school term.

Now, although I haven't done much in the last few days, the next few should be different. I have a short presentation in a tutorial tomorrow, then on Friday, there's a Chinese Language Centre Party thingie, and finally, on Saturday, I'm headed into China for a Teaching in China programme.

I'm both excited and nervous about this Teaching programme - it's just an overnight trip with maybe a max of 6 hours of teaching, but it's still kinda intimidating to be thrust in front of a class of approximately 40-60 kids (little kids) and be asked to teach them English games/songs. (This is an amusing admission considering how long I've been thinking about going to Asia and teaching English.) So does anyone have any ideas about songs/games I can teach? They've suggested "Yanky Doodle," and I was thinking about singing "Head and shoulders, knees and toes." Send ideas!

Anyways, I shall leave off with this final message. SUCKERS! It's a humidex of 29 degrees right now! Mwhahahahahaaa!