languages

Okay, so every semester is the same, I cannot get away with making my schedule the semester before without changing it the first week of classes. I was originally registered for CHI 111, which is Elementary Chinese for beginners. I am Chinese and I do not know the language, so i thought this class would be fun. However my family speaks a different dialect; we speak Cantonese, and the school teaches Mandarin, which is a growing language today, so it would be beneficial to learn now. Anyway, I went to the first class and we learned numbers 1 - 10. Then after learning it for a couple minutes we went around the room to play a game, the professor points to you and you say the next number without looking at the sheet of paper. I of course kept getting out. It was really hard for me to learn a new language.

Anyway, I saw this was going to be a hard class and I just needed the credits to graduate, and not the required skill this class offered, so I gave up my seat in the class to someone who can continue this course to the second part next semester, when I wouldn't be here anymore.

Now I am in another Business class, which I like so far; Entrepreneurship. The professor is great, he keeps saying "MY POINT", "THE POINT IS", to get him back from all the tangents he runs off on.

I wish they offered languages earlier, when I was younger. It is very hard for me to pick up a foreign language now. I remember when I took French in middle school, when I was 12. I did very well, much better than Chinese. I was actually at a wedding the other day, and I met this girl who is a 3rd grade teacher in Minnesota. She teaches at a charter school, but in Spanish to white Americans. They are native English speakers, who attend school speaking only Spanish; they do the whole 3rd grade curriculum in Spanish. I thought this was very cool, I've never heard of it, but it is such a great idea, I think it is about 7 years old now, the school, but we should have more of these . Being bilingual is a very impressive skill.