Language Proficiency Test

In order to understand at what level our Chinese is at, the IES program has given each student a written and oral test. I'm done with the written part (with a bit of help with Laverne, my mom, and my cousin... even though the instructions said not to ask for help =P), and I'm doing the oral portion of the test right now. There are 15 questions total, and I stopped at 12 for today.

The way it works is you have to download the questions (they're mp3's) and listen to them. Then, you have to record your answer as an mp3 and upload it for the school. The first couple of questions were pretty straightfoward and plain, but the questions started getting harder and weirder as I moved on. After I stopped at 12, I previewed question 13, and it was the most incoherent question I've heard yet. "What are the advantages for a country hosting the Olympics? In China, testing to get into high school is perhaps the most important task for a student. How is that different in America? What are the pros and cons about America's education system?"

They managed to cram Olympics and the education system into one question. Wow. Haha, The test is taking me a bit of time because I'm writing all the questions down and then all my answers down so I can read from my paper. It doesn't really sound natural, like I'm having a conversation with someone, but I think I'm doing pretty well so far. In one question, they asked about Chinese poetry. I only remember two famous Chinese poets and even recited a poem in my recording. Haha, I thought that was corny, but I hope they're impressed by my answers!!!!!!

Well, I should head to bed. I have work tomorrow. I'm still trying to think of when and how to tell them I'm going abroad... I should probably do that soon!

Sweet, sweet summer

Finally! Summer is here! I'm done with finals, and I get to relax for a bit before summer school starts. It's weird though, because I'm actually going to be doing a lot of things this summer before I leave for China. On Tuesday, I'm going to Michigan for a week to visit my cousin who's studying to get his phD there, and when I come back, I'm going camping with a bunch of friends for the weekend. I guess I'll get about a three week break from all the going out until my good friend, Steph, and her family comes to visit us in California before summer school starts. Then, summer school starts on July 28th. Then, on the first weekend in August, my parents and I are going to Vegas to celebrate my mom's XX's birthday (I don't think she'd appreciate me disclosing her age on the internet, haha).

After I come back from Vegas, it's more school, and more work... and then leaving for China on August 29th. Crazy!!!!! It's all coming together really quickly, and I'm getting really anxious. I keep getting scared that I'm going to get super homesick after my first week there, and cry because I'll be missing American food, or there're massive cockroaches and mosquitos in my dorm or something... haha. But, I know in the end, it'll all work out because I'm not a big, spoiled brat. I'll live, no worries :)

I'm going to head off to bed to have sweet dreams about big cockroaches in China :) goodnight!

Post-physical

Let's just say my physical was not fun. I'd donated blood for Stanford Medical Center at school the day earlier, and had a hole in my left arm already. The morning of the physical, I had to go in for bloodwork, and the nurse left a bruise on my right arm. In addition, I had to get another shot, and that one made my left shoulder sore. Worst physical I've ever had! Oh well, at least it's all out of the way now.

Almost all of my forms have been turned in to the IES program. I just need to do the language test and submit that online. That's not due until July, so I have some time... I'll worry about it after finals week.

I wonder if I got any scholarship money from IES. I applied to three scholarships, but I haven't heard back from them yet. It just hit me how expensive the whole thing is going to be. Not only did SCU jack up tuition this year (again... up to $11,650), but I don't know how much I'm going to get for financial aid from the school, the state and the federal government. On top of that, I just paid $2,500 for summer tuition ($250/unit, can you believe that?). Private schools leech too much money off of us!

In other news, completely irrelevant to studying abroad....

Steven departed this morning from San Francisco with the AIDS/Lifecycle bunch in their journey to bicycle to Los Angeles. We had to wake up super early to go to the opening ceremony, but it was totally worth it. I'm really excited for him and really proud that he decided to take on this challenge. If you'd like to send messages of support to him, go to http://experience.aidslifecycle.org/2008/support/ and type a message. His ID number is 1926.

Well, I should get going and start studying for some finals coming up!