I need to stop posting about how busy I am

I scheduled my exam to test out of Chinese 102 for next Friday afternoon.  That means I basically have 7 days to finish memorizing about 250 characters and syntax.  I need to stop stressing myself out about it because then I get overwhelmed, but at the same time, there is no room for me to NOT pass that test.

The biggest problem lies in that I am constantly working too.  Usually up at 4:30-5:30 AM and at work until 1:00 PM or so, and occasionally have to go back for another few hours in the evening to sort out swim lesson stuff.  Fortunately this schedule generally affords me the majority of the afternoon to devote to Chinese study.  However, it does not really allow me to be fresh or very awake by the time I really hit the books.  The memorization process is just really time-consuming and daunting in itself.  One step at a time, I suppose.

Among my co-workers, there has been a lot of false speculation circulating that I am not going to school, so that's why I got the Swim Lessons/Scheduling management job.  Uhhh... Hi! I am definitely taking 15 credits in the fall, plus doing all of this self-study, teaching myself an entire course worth of material in just a few short weeks, AND I'm a kick ass manager.  It's true I have listed myself as having more availability than other people, but that's simply because I am willing to sacrifice my personal time in order to do a good job.

Rumors suck, and I don't appreciate them.

Okay, happy stuff.  I have officially dominated Lesson 8 in my textbooks, so only 5 more lessons to tackle.  I'm thinking I'm probably devoting too much time to each text/exercise.  I need to overview everything so that I'm familiar with it, then I can delve into further detail when I take a second swipe at it before the exam.

I am also very excited because I am in the process of applying to CET's Intensive Chinese program in Harbin, China.  Harbin is a unique program, because it is extremely immersive, in that you are fairly isolated from foreigners and are really forced to speak Chinese all the time.  All of my professors have recommended this destination far and away, and WSU offers a full scholarship to go there.  Andrew actually did this same program, and I've repeatedly witnessed Chinese people here in awe at how good his Mandarin is.

This is where Harbin is, shown in red

It's definitely way up in Manchuria/Siberian tundra and gets really frigid during the winters.  But it has a really sweet, famous ice festival that's supposed to be very beautiful.  The other positive of its remote, less-than-desirable location, is that people will take you seriously if you say you want to go there, because it is obviously not for students who are just trying to vacation abroad for a semester (i.e. pretty much everyone who studies abroad in Spain, Italy, Thailand, etc).  Ergo, everyone doing the program is also very serious about learning Chinese.  Should be dope, I'll continue updating about this as things progress.