Could you repeat that?

Classes have started at the International School of BUCM and have made me quite a busy little girl. I've been quite out of touch with blogging and emailing, but this is simply because if I took time to get on the computer, it would take away from the ridiculously small number of hours of "free time" I have outside of class, self-studying, sleep, and desperate housewives watching.

In an attempt to become truly fluent in Chinese, I have registered only for classes taught in Chinese - this includes lectures, books, study materials, homework, and tests. I'm finishing up with my third week of class here and I can honestly say that I have just recently figured out exactly what class I'm taking at the moment. Here's how bad it is: when I bought my books for this semester, I couldn't read the titles of half of them. That, my friend, is a bad sign.

After three years of Chinese, you would think that I would be able to understand an intro lecture on Chinese Medicine. However, during the first week, I was struggling at around a 70% comprehension level. This might sound do-able to you, but here's an example of what I hear in class (chingchongcheng has been inserted for the 30% of words or phrases that I do not understand):

".....Now, we know that the most important advancement in the chingchongcheng time period is chingchongchengchingchongcheng. This technique involves using a chingchong to chengchung whenever physicians encounter changchingchong. The first major work from this era is the chingchong, written by chengchong. This work is extremely important because it is the first chingchongchengching. Mr. chengchong spent many years compiling these chengchong records, and his work is still used today by chungchong physicians for changcheng. We won't be reading the entire chingchong in our class due to time restraints, so all you need to remember about it is that chingchangchongchungchengchangchong."

Right, that 30% is pretty important. Don't worry, I can understand any of the conjunctions or grammar paterns they want to throw at me, but it seems that I'm missing a very important set of vocabulary words. My listening and reading abilities are slowly improving, but I've still got a long way to go. My review time after each class has decreased from four to two hours, and I've even started making time for lunch these days. My life is Beijing is shaping up nicely, and as soon as I can understand what changchengchungchong means, I'll be golden.

What I think they're saying....

Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. It's a proper medical school in the middle of Beijing with a compact campus where the sidewalks are crowded with bicycles and the benches outside the classrooms are actually small red chinese pavillions (very charming).

And then there's me - that girl - that international student who runs around campus and looks quite out of place. Hordes of student walk past me every day, and if I could listen in and actually understand their Chinese, here's what I think they might be saying.....

Girl A: "Oh, there she is - that poor international girl. She must be having a hard time adjusting."

Girl B: "I know. Have you seen the clothes she's been wearing? They're all so plain - no buttons, sequins, bells, or bows!"

Girls A: "We should be nice to her, maybe she doesn't have much money and just can't afford to have bright purple sequins around her neckline or in large butterly patterns."

Girl B: "That must be it. If she had money she would surely buy shirts with sayings on them like "grandma's little helper" or "you preserve to harv more, much zhyang." Or maybe it's that she can't find clothes to fit her. She's pretty fat, like most Americans. I bet even XL's would be a tight squeeze for her."

Girl A: "And what about her shoes? They're like something out of the jungle (my chacos) - they look like tire treads tied to her feet. She doesn't even wear pantyhose socks with them!"

Girl B: "Yeah, but she'll learn. Look, she already has a pink tea mug like the rest of us instead of that nalgene water bottle she carried around at first. Give her a few months and her whole wardrobe will be hello kitty."