Long night tonight, as I sit here still trying to work my way through my homework. Learning how to write so many characters overnight is a tough ordeal. Started off my 2nd week of classes today with my Reading class and then had my tutoring session directly after. I didnt' have any homework at that time, so there wasn't much to go over. We ended up just reviewing what I've gone over so far in my classes. This learning Chinese in Chinese stuff is pretty difficult. I have a whole new respect for ESL students now. I get really frustrated every time I'm asked to define a Chinese word using Chinese. Way above my skill level so far. My tutor was pretty tough too. She had me read over the conversations in the book to practice reading out loud and then she would ask me to recite the conversation from memory and then I had to summarize the conversation in Chinese (There is no English allowed during tutoring sessions or classes as per the language contract). I got really nervous when she pulled out her computer and started typing all of my responses to review for grammar and eliminating fragments. I'm not as bad as I thought I was, but still need improvement.

After tutoring, I returned home with the intention to start studying my new vocab words for tomorrow's quiz, but I had been feeling tired all morning, despite having 8 hours of sleep the night before, so I ended up sleeping for 3 hours. After my nap, my roommate introduced to a study abroad student from Holland she had met on campus. We had dinner together at one of the restaurants on campus and then I came back home to start my work. Skyped with my Dad for a while and then finally got to start my work. It's going to be a long night tonight.

I also got the syllabus for my Reading class and it's a little intimidating. I have 3- 800 character essays I have to write this term based off of prompts from the text book. I also have a series of 5 questions and at some point during the term, I have to interview 2 chinese people about the questions, record their responses, and compile the responses into a summary passage. After that, I will be paired with a few students from my class and we will have to make a powerpoint to present the answers we gathered from the interviews. On top of that, I also have 3 midterms along with homework assignments and quizzes.....and this is just one class! I'm so spoiled by Drexel's Chinese classes, which have no grades other than the grade you get from the final exam. I'm starting to think I preferred that format a lot more. For my next tutoring session on Wednesday, I have to prepare a powerpoint introducing myself and listing my goals for the term in China. I'm starting to feel like I have a lot of work to do. It's actually more work than I was expecting to have here. Although at least it's not as much work as I would be having if I was studying engineering. And, hopefully at the end of the term my Chinese will be getting pretty good and having to write a paper in Chinese to finish off my minor at Drexel should be a cinch (or so I'm hoping).  Looking forward to the Xi'an trip this weekend! Although I think I have a test the day I get back from the trip!