Day Thirty-One.

Day two of the Intensive Mandarin Program, and I must say it is aptly named. Spending four hours a day, just after waking, speaking and hearing nothing but a strange language that you're still not confident in your ability to communicate in is very stressful. For the first time in my life, I have to study every night; I've never had a class quite so challenging as this before. Studying has always been an option, a choice, but now, here I am up late yet again, peering over an internet dictionary and scribbling in my notebook trying to prepare for tomorrow's class. Today's homework was incredibly challenging: Define 5 words and use them in a sentence. Depending on the concept, this is sometimes challenging to do in my native tongue--doing it in a foreign one is even more challenging, especially when the language isn't as descriptive. For example, in English, to define "to prepare" one may say "to make ready," however the problem here is that those two statements would be said the same way, with the vocabulary word I am trying to avoid using. I asked a friend to define the word, and he said the best way was to use an idiom. Lacking in the culture department, Chinese idioms don't just flow through my brain they way they do in English. Different language, different idioms. I will confess, the define column of this word is still blank and I plan to turn it in this way. With my understanding of the word, "to prepare" is like a single atom, yes, it is made up of things, but it is otherwise in its simplest form; there is no non-complex way to define the word in Chinese. Yes, I'm frustrated. I've never appreciated the range, depth, and variation of vocabulary of English until now...but that only drives me to work even harder.

I'm feeling a little under the weather again today, due to the fluctuation in atmospheric pressure, temperature, and weather in general. I napped today for longer than I slept all night and woke with a low grade fever. I feel like I've been hit by a car, but that's because I "got trucked" by some pretty big guys yesterday during the game after they realized I wasn't kidding about play-hard-or-go-home. Brandon prepared me well--Thanks big bro.

Time to try to sleep more and kick this illness. Hopefully I will be well enough to travel this weekend to the mountains and get some fresh air. I'm Elizabeth Butcher, signing off. You stay classy, Planet Earth.