Big News and End-of-Summer Update

I've been neglecting my blog lately.  I'm sorry.  I can't even say that it's been too busy, because the truth is that we had a slow summer.  Honestly, there were a few Top Ten Tuesday topics that left me flat, and otherwise I've been feeling pretty blah about life in general... BUT I'm back now and want to give a few life updates.

Firstly, some BIG NEWS:  No, I'm not pregnant, but instead I'm going back to school!  The idea of being a student again has been in the back of my mind for over a year, but I finally bit the proverbial bullet and applied.  My classes start this week and I will be studying Information Science to one day be a librarian!  Everyone around here must know how much I like reading, so this seems like a perfect fit for me.  I'm a bit intimidated, since it's been close to a decade since I was in school, but from the orientation last week, I think I'm going to like it.

Fertility update (seeing as I've posted on this earlier in the year):  Nothing to say here.  As you may have gathered from some of my posts in the spring, this year has been very difficult for me, and I have no cheery news to share now.  To be brutally honest, I have never before felt so isolated and hopeless as I did these past few months, which is probably why I've had no real desire to plaster my thoughts up on the Internet.

Family update:  I have a new niece!  Eve Audrey was born last week, a little sister for Ezra.  Our family is growing a lot, seeing as my step-brother and his wife had baby Luke last March.

Husband update:  Gil is fine.  We had a quiet summer and mostly stuck close to home. Even though this year has been trying, I'm still loving life with my husband, and I couldn't have made it through the last few months without Gil (and also the World cup, but mostly Gil, haha).

Mandarin update:  Stunted.  Like I said, this summer has been sad and emotionally draining, and eventually I decided I just needed to cut things out of my life that were stressing me out.  I hope one day to resume my classes, but for now I will be busy enough with school.

Cat update:  Still cute!  Thank goodness for adorable fur babies when the going gets tough.

See, she's pretty cute!

Random Updates and Fun Stuff

As I mentioned before, I've been a lazy blogger lately.  It just felt like I'd run out of things to say.  I'm trying to remember that I don't have to write something deep and meaningful every time, so this post will just be a bunch of random thoughts and updates from our life.

Is anyone else tired of winter already?  I'm usually a winter person, but this year's ice storm, frigid temperatures (-30 wind chill??), and frequent snowfall has left me longing for spring.  We are off to a conference next week in Collingwood, and I'm looking forward to snowshoeing, skating, and getting my winter groove back.

I've been making a push to get more organized this year, especially in how I spend my time.  I've realized how many hours drift away while I'm online or reading, and then I get to the end of the week wondering why I never studied Chinese or cleaned the kitchen.  I've written down all the things I want to accomplish in the week (e.g., 30 minutes of Chinese, go to the gym three times) and have tried to allot it into a time slot.  Of course, it's anyone's guess how this works out in the weeks to come.

Speaking of Chinese, I've gotten so lazy about studying.  After failing my exam last year, I took on more hours at work and keeping up with study has slid onto the back burner.  I've gotten to a level where I'm past just reading textbooks, but not good enough to practice on newspapers, for example.  This month, I've been trying to read the first Harry Potter novel, borrowed from a friend, in simplified Chinese.  It's slow going so far (like a page a day), but at least I'm reading something familiar and dear to me!

Do you like reading and cats?  Please enjoy this post from Buzzfeed.  I seriously smile at it several times a day.

I love cheesy puns.  A few weeks ago, my siblings and I were emailing back and forth about who was bringing what food to a family brunch.  Since we needed someone to get the lox, this spun into a series of silly song references such as:
--What does the lox say?
--Who let the lox out?
--Loxxxxxxxannne.
Conclusion:  We are all big dorks.

Thoughts on a (Probably) Failed Exam

In high school, I dated a guy who had an amusing quirk.  If he wrote an exam and found it not very difficult, he would say, "It was so easy, I felt sorry for the test."  Remember that huge Mandarin exam I was studying for?  I did not feel sorry for it.  If the exam had emotions, I think it would feel sorry for me.  In fact, I'm fairly sure that I failed.

You may hate me for this, but I have never failed an exam before.  I was that person who felt like any grade less than an A was a failure.  I might have failed a quiz once, but that's about it, so staring at an exam paper and knowing it's not going well is a new experience for me.  That said, it's a pretty huge blessing to know that my first failed exam is one taken voluntarily which has no bearing on my future.  I can study and take it again in the fall, when my Mandarin levels should be higher.

I took some time yesterday to think over what I could have done differently, and besides studying hours and hours more each day for a few months, I don't know.   I have to work and my marriage is important to me, so I'm not willing to structure my entire life around language learning.  My main issue is reading speed, so if I'd spent more time reading and less time cramming vocabulary, perhaps that could have helped, but even then I may have been out of my league.  I'm trying to remember that my recent intensive studying was not in vain:  I learned so much new vocabulary over the past few months which will help me in my Mandarin progression, and now if I choose to take the exam again, I already have the flashcards and practice exams so I can jump right in.  加油！

Readers, how do you react when you fail?  Have you had the experience of cramming for something important and then seeing your efforts fall flat?  How do you keep from feeling disheartened when you don't make the grade?

Today because my studying is OVER(!!), I treated myself to a sorely-needed haircut and a visit to my favourite local library today.

New-ish hair.  It looks a lot like my old hairstyle, just shorter.

Life Lately

This photo pretty much summarizes my life this weekend:

I am at T-2 weeks before my next major Mandarin exam (HSK Level V) so my days are a blur of working and reviewing vocabulary.  My husband says I can't complain as I chose to sign up for this... and truly I am not complaining.  I am do enjoy studying, but I am getting a bit tired of it.  Yesterday the weather was so lovely that I took some time to sit on my porch reading a book on the porch, which was lovely.

The Chinese is helping to distract me as I've been a bit sad lately.  After a year and a half in Toronto, I'm pretty much feeling at home in this life, but still have moments when I miss all my friends in Ottawa.  I found out a few weeks ago that my best friend is pregnant.  She and I lived down the street from one another for a few years; it's just hitting home that I am missing being a part of her life during this important period, and I won't be around to run to the store for her or stop in to watch the baby for a 10 minutes while she takes a shower, etc.  I won't be a part of the baby's life the way I would love to be.  I'm excited for her, but just feeling the loss of my former life a little more deeply this week.

Otherwise, Gil is back from Newfoundland and life is back to its normal pattern, except that I'm working a lot more.  We are still short-staffed since I took my boss's position which leaves my old one empty.  I will get to take part in interviewing potential staff, which will be a totally new experience for me.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!


P.S. For the curious, the flashcards app that I use is called gFlashcards, and the card shown is 预订 (yù dìng), which means "to place an order, book ahead, reserve".

Alone This Week and New Beginnings

Sorry if this title is confusing.  I'm trying to convey two things at once.

My husband is out of town until Thursday doing medical work in rural Newfoundland.  For any new readers, this is something does 3-4 times a year.  Several years back, he had a job working at a rural hospital and fell in love with the people.  There is a serious doctor shortage in many rural communities, so people in his town have to travel hours and hours to see a specialist.  Gilbert travels back periodically to save them the trouble, and to see his buddies.  I'm proud of him for continuing this good work, but a little lonely as well!  Happily, I'll be able to accompany him on his next trip, but for this time, I'm spending his absence cramming like mad for my Chinese exam coming up in three weeks.

In other news, I was offered a new job today!  I'll be taking on the supervisory role at my current job.  So basically, before I was a part-time receptionist, now I'm the boss of all the part-time receptionists.  So far, that makes me the boss of one other person, but we'll be hiring someone new soon too.  I was really unsure of whether to apply, but I spent a lot of time seeking God's will and was encouraged by many co-workers that they'd love to see me in this role.  It's a bit daunting - I have never sought a role in any kind of management - but I'm excited to challenge myself.  Here's to new adventures!

In honour of new beginnings, here's some new visitors to our home.  I love spring!

This guy was right behind our kitchen window.

These birds were in the playground next door.

An Update on My Chinese Studies

I've mentioned it a few times on my blog, but in case you missed it, I have been taking Mandarin Chinese classes for the past year.  When I catch up with people in real life they often ask me how the classes are going, so I decided to post an update.

People ask me why on earth I would start learning Mandarin.  Isn't it hard?  Don't you have to learn characters?  My opinion is that of course it's not easy, but that's part of the fun!  I have always loved languages.  It's rare that I travel to a foreign country without buying at least a basic phrasebook and trying to use it.  I like the way we have so many ways to convey universal emotions and ideas.  I enjoy pondering the ways that distinctions in languages reflect the ways that different cultures perceive concepts.  I love meeting Christians from all over the world and knowing that even though God's Word sounds different to them than it does to me, it is the same Truth.

I first got interested in Mandarin when I lived with my friend C.  We were both language nerds, and would talk often about points of grammar and the similarity or dissimilarity of a word in different languages.  She spoke Mandarin, so she would teach me some terms, and I in turn taught her a little Russian.  From C, I learned to count to 10 in Mandarin, and my all time favourite Mandarin expression:  麻烦, (máfan) which means annoying, inconvenient, or troublesome. 

All of C's and my language-learning books and resources

When Gil and I started getting serious, I decided I would have to learn Mandarin.  His dad was a Mandarin teacher, and our niece and nephew in Asia speak Mandarin at home, so it makes sense for me to learn the language.  In addition, while I know I won't be able to bring our kids up bilingual Mandarin-English (or trilingual with German, which is my secret nerdy dream!), I'd like to be able to help them have some basic Mandarin skills.

Shortly after moving to Toronto, I decided to start Mandarin classes.  After all, I wasn't working, so why not fill the days with something useful.  My school specializes in small classes (usually with two or three students), so we get individual attention.  They also try to encourage us to use our skills by hosting Mandarin conversation time (which I rarely attend), and parties such as a Chinese New Year dumpling-making soiree, and a summer BBQ.  I love it!  There are students are literally from all around the world who have come to live here in Toronto:  I've met people from Germany, Russia, Korea, Hungary, Hong Kong, and Burundi.  I'm actually one of the very few native-born Canadians at the school.  It's a travel- and language-lovers dream.

Making dumplings (饺子) for Chinese New Year

Oh wait, I was supposed to update you on my progress...  :-P  I've been progressing pretty quickly.  When I started in late 2011, I knew a little conversational Mandarin from past studies, and could recognize a couple of characters.  I did about three months of strictly oral classes (using pinyin to write down vocabulary), and then last winter started learning to read and write characters.  In the spring, my teacher encouraged me to take a standardized test, and I thought she was crazy, but signed up anyway.  (I'm a glutton for punishment.)  It took a LOT of studying, but I passed the HSK Level 3 test last May and Level 4 in October.  I'm hoping to write Level 5 in the spring, along with an oral test, and have already started studying, as there is so much new vocabulary.

A lot of people have been surprised at how fast I've learned and have taken to writing Chinese characters.  While I do have a God-given knack for languages, I also want to stress that it's not easy.  I study a lot.  I have devoted hours and hours to writing out vocabulary and going through flashcards.  It's a lot of work... but I like it.  I can't wait to finally meet my niece and nephew and be able to talk to them in their mother tongue.  And if you're in the same boat as me, studying Mandarin or another language, I just want to encourage you to keep on persevering.  加油！

Some Things I'm Excited About

Since my last post was a little negative, I thought I would brighten things up today.  That is especially needed since it's COLD!  We were mega-spoiled by 20+ degree weather earlier this month, so now anything close to zero seems unbearable.  (It doesn't help that our building cranked up the fans during the warm weather, and has not bothered turning them off.) 

I am a book hoarder, and any efforts to counter this seem to be in vain.  This past summer, I tried to make a serious attempt to get rid of books that I was unlikely to ever read again.  I forced myself to actually read the books I had bought on sale ages ago, so that I could decide whether I really wanted them.  Shortly thereafter, my best friends threw me a bridal shower and instructed all my guests to give me a book!  So, I guess all that purging was to make room for the new books, right?  Anyway, here are some more new books that I am really excited about, and why:

1)  I am excited for my new kitchen  It actually allows for more than one person to stand in it.  It has more than one cupboard, and space in the drawers for our cutlery.  I really looking forward to baking there, so I bought the Joy the Baker Cookbook.  If you don't know about Joy, you should.  This is her blog.  Every recipe that I've tried has been fantastic.

2)  I am excited for summer vacation!  We are just in the process of finalizing details to go to Gdansk, Poland this summer.  I have a lifelong interest in Central and Eastern European culture and history, so I am so looking forward to this trip.  I also thought I could use some basic Polish skills, so I bought this book.  Now to tackle the pronunciation of words like "wszystko" (everything) and "przepraszam" (excuse me).  Really, this is just feeding into the obsessions with a) books; and b) language learning aids.

3)  I am excited about my Chinese lessons!  For the first couple of months, we were focused on pronunciation and vocabulary, but now I've started learning to read and write.  It's hard... but it's worth it.  Last week at Bible study, I noticed one woman had a dual-language English-Chinese Bible, so I asked her where she bought it.  This week, she brought a new Bible for me!  She said she had some extras at home and was happy to hear I was learning Chinese.  I find it easiest to practice reading when I'm already familiar with the text.

4)  I am excited to spend some time with Gil this weekend!  After the craziness of the last few weeks, I told him that we have to go out and have some fun this weekend.  We are not sure yet what we'll do, but we really need some time to build into our marriage.

5)  I am excited for road tripping with a good friend next week!  But more on that later.  :-)

So now it's your turn:  What are you excited about??