First off, sorry for not updating for such a long time. NTPU has been packing our schedule everyday pretty tight, and we just had to move dorms this weekend. Of course, this included extensive cleaning and organizing. I will inform you all in my next post about last week's fun-filled week.
Today, we had our very first test in Chinese class. All of us stayed up until at least 2 AM studying for it. We had around 80 characters to memorize, along with idioms and grammar patterns. Even with all the studying we did, our class's test was really difficult. It consisted of a speaking section in which we had to give a 3 minute presentation on a street food we tried at Shilin night market (more on that in another post), a listening section where the teacher spoke and we wrote down her sentence, and free answer section, and a fill-in-the blank section. That test had me for breakfast. I feel like I royally screwed up, but we will see tomorrow, I guess. Though, it's never a good sign when the teacher looks through the completed tests and then tells us maybe she should make it easier next time. Sigh...
The up-side of all this is that the fast pace we are going at forces me to learn quickly. My reading and writing have improved a little in the time that we have been going to class. I feel more in the loop during class meetings now. Also, just being here in Taiwan and interacting with the people has definitely improved my speaking skills. I feel more confident in my speech and my vocabulary has expanded greatly. It feels so great to go places and be able to communicate with people without stumbling through a sentence. Right now, I can hold a decent conversation with someone about mundane topics, but there are still blips when I fail to find the words to say what I want. Hopefully, I will be fluent by the end of this trip. All I have to do is listen and speak more! Keep an eye out for an upcoming blog post about our adventures this past week! For now, I bid you all good night.
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