The Positives, The Negatives

This is us. The one showing lots of shoulder (in her Chengdu, China Marine Ball ball gown!) is the EFM who writes this blog. The one wearing a tux (James) is the employee who moves her (and their two sons) around all over the world. The red link, below, is how you can get in touch with me...

The time in Chengdu, China

Chengdu: city of fabulous food and beautiful Buddhist monasteries!

In Our Same Boat (with State)

Beyond the Cornfields
Brand-new State Department family in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Love their two little girls (she just recently had a baby while being posted in Dhaka), horticulture, traveling and adventure!
Email From The Embassy
State Department family formerly in Beijing, China, and recently posted to Amman, Jordan. A trailing spouse, she's also a writer, and frequently publishes articles with major news sources. A very experienced State family, this new post is something like overseas post number six or seven for them.
Just US
A beautiful family of seven - they have arrived at their new post: Jerusalem! They just finished off an unaccompanied tour to Iraq and are very much looking forward to sightseeing around the middle east.
Our Life
State Department family on their second post...Tijuana, Mexico. It's their first overseas assignment and they have two little boys. They love Tijuana so far and post pictures frequently! They also get to enjoy the best of both worlds for they can sneak over the border into San Diego when they want to!
The Dinoia Family
State Department family formerly in California, now in DC for a DC tour. Next, the husband will do a one year unaccompanied tour. A very experienced State family (formerly in Iceland and Caracas) with a blog that has been around quite a while and has great archives. Jen has a sweet heart and a lot to give!
The Perlman Update
State Department family formerly in Chennai, India, who then did a year-long unaccompanied tour in Iraq. They are now on a DC tour and after that will do another unaccompanied tour (Afghanistan). She totally tells it like it is and doesn't sugar-coat what life is really like. Witty, snarky, funny and down-to-earth. Look elsewhere if you want fake. Read if you want REAL.
Where in the World Am I?
State Department family formerly in Bujumbura, Burundi and now in Hyderabad, India. They just had their first baby this summer - a beautiful little girl- (there's a separate blog about this) and she also eats gluten-free (with a separate blog, also).

One of the most intriguing things about Chengdu is that it is a seamless blend of ancient and modern... all together, side by side.

Can't Live Without (non-State)

Crass-Pollination: An ER blog
The best ER nurse blog EVER!
Doctor Grumpy in the House
The best doctor blog EVER!
In Which...
My IRL friend, a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mama of seven. Her darling daughters are, goshdarnit, probably too young to be hoped for as my future daughters-in-law.
The Crib Chick
My IRL friend, a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mama of five. Hopefully two (Any two! I'm not picky!) of which are my future daughters-in-law.
the underwear drawer
An anesthesiologist who is possibly the most talented & entertaining writer ever. I've read her blog ever since she started medical school. No, don't know her in real life. Wish I did.
The Bloggess
This blog is both hysterically funny and hilariously irreverent. I actually let my 17 year old son read it (who loves it as much as I do!), but wouldn't even CONSIDER letting my 12 year old son read it. Which is about all the description it needs!

The grounds of Chengdu monasteries can be very, very peaceful...even though they are smack dab in the heart of a city of millions of people.

Specifics

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04/26/2011

The Positives, The Negatives

[First, a big thank you to Sarah at Verdant Voyages for volunteering to host the RoundUp this Friday! Since it will also coincide with the Royal Wedding and all, she is taking everything about Royalty as her theme. Topics can include brushes with royalty, who in your family behaves as though they are royalty, or whatever else vaguely relates. Then hannah at the slow move east is on deck for next week - thank you, ladies!]

I have more homework than should be legal tonight, and I am also nursing a supremely bad attitude, so this will be a quick post. But people often ask me How is Chinese going? and so, here's the answer from today.

On one hand (the positive), I only cried once today.

This is in direct opposition to a normal day, within which I often cry multiple times.

Sometimes even in class.

Last week, I even cried all the way through a fifty-minute class.

Thus, only crying once today is a positive. (Trust me.)

The negatives? Well, those would be all three times today that I was told by various folks in the Chinese Department that I SUCK.

My speeches suck. My ability to recall enormous amounts of new vocabulary words (recently, on one day we literally had something like 140 new vocabulary words) and immediately use them sucks. My skills in listening suck.

And so on.

I don't know if it's language training in general, Chinese language training in particular, or the fact that, you know, I SUCK, but it seems like everywhere I turn there's nothing happy and sunny and everything sad and rainy.

And sucky.

So since I'm such a Debby Downer today, I will end today's blog post here. Tune in next time, when I address a different topic: Hello, EFM - So you're hoping to get into ConGen?! HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Posted on 04/26/2011 at 04:28 PM in FSI, Learning Mandarin Chinese, Training for Chengdu, China (2nd Post) | Permalink

Comments

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Change the word Chinese to French, and you've pretty much described my experience thus far with language training.

Hang in there!!

Posted by: Anne | 04/26/2011 at 05:20 PM

You know I have heard very little positive about language training, I am starting to be very glad that Dave generally doesn't need language training because computers talk computerese pretty much everywhere and Dave is already fluent. Hang in there, and I don't think you suck in the least, in fact I think the FSI language training is the one the really sucks!

Posted by: shannon | 04/26/2011 at 11:22 PM

You already know more Chinese than most Americans...plus, Chinese is hard! Hang in there!

Posted by: James | 04/27/2011 at 07:11 AM

You do NOT suck.

Learning languages with weird alphabets (or no alphabets?) -- that SUCKS.

*huuuuuuuug*

Posted by: TulipGirl | 04/27/2011 at 11:33 AM

so so sorry to hear that someone told you that you sucked ... i'm really hoping you're paraphrasing and not entirely serious.

because then i'd have to go there and kick some tushie.

Posted by: Jill | 05/01/2011 at 01:25 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

James loves me. And our sons. And his job. But not having his picture taken. In 2011 he finished up over a year and half of training, and in the fall of 2011 we got to our first overseas post - Chengdu, China!