Being a Student
It's 5:30. I'm sitting in Cafe Babel, in fremont. I'm here after spending a day sitting in the King County Courthouse waiting for summons to an assigned in jury duty (which never came). I took a bus up from downtown (the 26) and have been here for an hour or so, studying Chinese. I realized 2 things: (1) I'm completely disconnected from reality in my life at work. (2) I really like being a student.
htang and I started Chinese lessons at the Seattle Language Academy on monday. We got slotted significantly above our level (203) due to a lack of offerings on their side, and an unevenness in speaking/listening/writing skills on our side (we can listen more than we can speak, speak much more than we can read and read way way more than we can write).
Our teacher gave us 50-phrases to memorize on monday, but wasn't very specific about when he expected them to be memorized...so I've been cramming since today is the next class. It's not been working really well. For the words I've managed to memorize, I keep getting the pronunciations mixed up with their Cantonese, or sometimes their Japanese, analogues. For the ones I haven't been able to cram into my head...well...let's just say it's very reminiscent of saturday chinese school from when I was a kid.
The combination of the free-form day due to Jury duty, the lack of car, the hopeless cramming, and the cafe environment that's kinda reminiscent of studying in the hub is kinda driving home the facts that I miss student life, I haven't really be challenged in a super-serious-you-just-can't-do-it way in a while, and I really hate regimented schedules.
Someone was talking about corporate cogsman-ship a while back...tech is farther away from that than most industries, but I think it's hard to ever equal the freedom of being an undergrad in college (provided you're not truly starving).
htang and I started Chinese lessons at the Seattle Language Academy on monday. We got slotted significantly above our level (203) due to a lack of offerings on their side, and an unevenness in speaking/listening/writing skills on our side (we can listen more than we can speak, speak much more than we can read and read way way more than we can write).
Our teacher gave us 50-phrases to memorize on monday, but wasn't very specific about when he expected them to be memorized...so I've been cramming since today is the next class. It's not been working really well. For the words I've managed to memorize, I keep getting the pronunciations mixed up with their Cantonese, or sometimes their Japanese, analogues. For the ones I haven't been able to cram into my head...well...let's just say it's very reminiscent of saturday chinese school from when I was a kid.
The combination of the free-form day due to Jury duty, the lack of car, the hopeless cramming, and the cafe environment that's kinda reminiscent of studying in the hub is kinda driving home the facts that I miss student life, I haven't really be challenged in a super-serious-you-just-can't-do-it way in a while, and I really hate regimented schedules.
Someone was talking about corporate cogsman-ship a while back...tech is farther away from that than most industries, but I think it's hard to ever equal the freedom of being an undergrad in college (provided you're not truly starving).