Back To School

Blah, I've been back less than a week and I've already taken today off ... well it was just reading class, and I suppose I can do the catchup at home; I've moved myself permanently into Intermediate Group 1, which is still (I think) slightly larger than IG2, but (I'm guessing) more productive! The listening work is pretty simple (I think not only has my listening improved, not only is the audio quality a LOT better, but the stuff we are listening to is just EASIER) - I wonder how long this will last, the rest of the class isn't complaining just yet, but their Chinese is better than mine and they must surely be as bored with it as I am (last semester I was bored because I didn't understand enough despite three attempts at listening, now I am bored because I understand 95% of the tapes first time round), plus the teacher takes the lessons really slowly, she doesn't seem to grasp that the material is simple and our Chinese is actually alright by now. *SIGH* ... she also asked a very dunce question of me:

(going round checking people had been noting down words' meanings in their own languages)

her: oh good, good, you looked it up, good. oh, harry, did you look this stuff up? (there is no writing in my book you see)
me: er, sorry? (I didn't understand the word for looking things up, maybe I had forgotten it)
her: did you look these up?
me: "look up"? I don't understand (obviously this was in Chinese)

(she goes to explain it. someone shouts out "did you use a dictionary")

me: *perplexed and a little annoyed that the teacher can be so dense* but the words are given in ENGLISH! i AM English!
her: oh so you understand them all, ah yes i see.

GRAH! WHAT THE HELL?

Apart from that, classes seem to be okay. Chinese people this week have suddenly decided they must ask me "Are you American?", instead of asking where I come from. This invariably results in me telling them exactly where they can go. It's not so much that I mind being called American, it's more that they have the gall to just assume; I don't go around asking if they are Tajiks or Uzbeks for heaven's sake. Another thing that will not score you points is going "WHISSS WHISS" at me in an attempt to get my attention - I am not you dog, you backwards bastards. [The latter happens mainly in markets, not school, though I wouldn't be surprised if next week they all decided that was a decent way to act.]

Oh and in happy-making news, I got my exam results for last semester:

Grammar - 77
Listening and Speaking - 78
Reading - 84

I'm not sure how I pulled off the listening and speaking mark either! Those are all percentages, so they need to be multiplied by 0.85 for conversion to Newcastle's scale, which gives me 65.45, 66.3, and 71.4, a combined conversion of 67.7, not bad considering I swapped to IG1 briefly before the exams but took IG2's exam because I didn't think I would be able to pass IG1 at that time, and didn't revise very well for the IG2 exam anyway :) Makes me think with a bit of effort this semester I might be able to achieve something!

So there you go, I'm back into uni, life continues, oh and it's just 137 days until I leave China. Woop!