My parents sent me an all-American-childhood care package for my
birthday, complete with mini-Ritz peanut butter sandwich crackers,
peanut m&ms, goldfish crackers, animal cookies, and granola bars. I
did manage to not eat all of it at once, though I must say the animal
cookies and peanut butter easter m&m’s did disappear quite quickly.
The easter m&m’s really made me happy, I had forgotten that it was
getting near easter time there. It’s funny how far away all of that
feels, m&ms and easter and high-fiber granola bars. When in truth, I
could just hop on a plane and be there in like a day. Long distances
don’t mean so much anymore i guess, but actually, maybe they still do,
it’s hard to say. I guess physical distance is only one kind of
distance. Cultural distance can’t be crossed with a 12-hour flight.

My classes this semester really are hard. They feel like real
university classes, with reports and presentations and essays to read
that actually have important and useful content. I’m learning a lot
about China, especially in my newspaper reading class. Each week we
cover one topic. We learn related vocabulary and then read several
newspaper or periodical articles on said topic. So far we have covered
holidays, public transportation, and natural disasters (mudslide,
anybody?). My business Chinese class is also really good, but very
difficult. It’s my most difficult class. At the beginning of the
semester we had another placement test, just for business chinese, and
somehow magically I placed into the higher level of business chinese.
So, of the four levels of Business Chinese that all carry the
description “advanced,” I am in the highest. I have no idea how that
happened, lol. I was extremely surprised when I got the results. I am
the only white person in the class, everyone else is either Korean,
Japanese, or overseas Chinese. It is also the only class where I don’t
understand everything the teacher says. Which, although sometimes
makes me feel a little bewildered, is also a really good thing,
because that means that I have a lot of opportunity to improve my
listening ability. The teacher (a 60-yr old Chinese woman who has
chosen “Amy” as her English name -  ??? ) speaks quickly and uses lots
of difficult vocabulary. The vocabulary we are learning has so far
proven to be the most useful of any of my classes, at least thus far.
Even though at first glance a lot of the words seemed rather
technical, such as “labor cost,” “marginal,” “depreciate,” “crude oil”
etc, I’ve found that these words are actually used everywhere, and
knowing them has already really improved my ability to understand
newspapers, ads, and other things I see around me all the time.

I’ve been feeling a little down the past week, though. I remember last
semester about this time I was feeling the same way, like a snail
climbing Mt. Everest. I’m a very dedicated snail, I climb with all my
gooey might and make progress every day - but really, does it matter?
Because there’s no way a snail can climb to the top, or even get to
base camp. That’s how I’ve been feeling. Last semester I felt more
down than I do now, because now I know that this is only a temporary
sensation. Here in a couple weeks, I’ll wake up one morning, and
everything I’ve been cramming into my head for 2 months will finally
click, and I’ll make one of those lightning-speed jumps in progress.
But - until then - I’m just going to keep on daily bashing my head
against the same damn wall, feeling like a complete retard. Such is
the life of a full-time language student.

~Bethany Allen