Tuesday

To clarify something I said yesterday:* I didn't know my classes were going to be like this. It's a surface, seven-week "fast" course, which I imagined would be less comprehensive than Sunshine's full-tilt fluency track. And it is; but mine are still full-day classes, seemingly more sped-up than truncated. I imagined a couple hours of class each afternoon like a college semester. I thought I'd get acquainted with Vietnamese, not sacrifice two-thirds of the rest of my time here to the intellectual labor of struggling through seven-hour Vietnamese workdays, while relegating all other life considerations to the back burner. Since I started taking classes I've managed nothing else: my interests have been abandoned to the labor of achieving whatever goal is attainable after two months of brand-new language study. I was panicky on the drive to school this morning: I didn't know less than I knew yesterday, but I was certain I'd be expected to know more. This second day of class, without any orientation nonsense, followed what will become my regular schedule: two morning classes beginning at ten thirty, followed by lunch, an hour of self-study followed by lab, then two more hours of classroom time in the afternoon ending at five-thirty. If I left less panicked than I'd been this morning, even less upset than yesterday, I'm still feeling dread: there's no time for homework tonight either. All my own projects are going another day without being attended to. I imagine Vietnamese will just get harder from here. In other news, this is the happy birthday of this here Update Sidebar blog. I've posted 306 entries, with 59 days lost to travel or lethargy. I'd pledge a higher second year count, but I don't know if that's really feasible on the other side of the world. [Cavin]