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  Beijing, Beijing, China
Monday, January 18, 2010

FRIDAY
Today was my lats day of class, ever.  It was really sad to know that this routine and comfort that I've developed here is going to be over soon.  I'm really going to miss my class- we all became good friends, and there is nobody in the class that I don't like.  We don't know each other's real names because we just call each other by our Chinese names, (mine is 爱梅), so it's going to be hard to stay in touch. 
Class today was mostly about revision, because of the exam on Monday.  we were each given a topic and presented a paragraph about it in front of the class, to get us ready for the oral component of the exam. 
After class on Friday,I had lunch with Rebecca's mum as usual, in a Peking Duck restaurant, and we went back home.  I studied before dinner and after Rebecca came home, we all sat on the couch together and chatted.
WEEKEND
This weekend was full of studying for me.  Rebecca had no other plans, and wanted a relaxing weekend, and I wanted to give this exam my best shot.  The exam for a lot of the members of my class counts on their uni grade, because the uni sent them here, but for me it virtually means nothing.  I just wanted to do my best to prove to myself that I had improved from when I came. Rebecca and I went out to dinner on Sunday night to the same Peking Duck place that we went to on Friday.  The food was really good there, and it was within walking distance, so it was perfect.

MONDAY

Exam day! There were nerves a plenty as I stepped into my classroom at 7:30 today, as I was surprisingly not the first one there.  There was some of my classmates having an emergency cramming session, as study was neglected a little of the week end. The teacher came in and asked us to place our bags at the front or back walls of the room.  Though she was strict with that and prohibited dictionaries, she did not require anyone to move seats even if they were sitting next to one another.  I guess she trusts us not to look on the test of the person sitting next to you, though she doesn't trust us with looking up words in the dictionary.  Go figure. The exam went from 8am-9:50, and the time was generous.  It was a quite difficult exam, with grammar the main focus of it.  I finished in time, and was pleased with how I felt I went. 
My oral exam was scheduled to be at 10:50am, so I had an hour to kill in between.  I went for a walk outside, because it was not too cold and it was nice to clear my head. I went back to the classroom at 10:45, ready to do my oral.  The guy before me had not even gone in yet, because they were running late.  What a way to prolong my nerves.  I didn't get to go in until 11, which was when I was supposed to finish.  The teacher first asked me 10 questions, and she spoke extremely quickly, which first caught me off guard, but I was still able to understand every word she said and answered the questions.  The next section was reading, which was easy for me and the last section was a given topic.  My topic was ' My favourite event that has happened so far in Beijing'.  I talked about when my parents came over for Christmas, because it was the first thing that popped into my head and I knew that I could speak about that for  a long time. 
The oral was over in next to no time, and the part that I was most dreading was over.
Rebecca's mum picked me up from the foyer, and we ate lunch in what seemed like the upper class cafeteria.  Plastic trays were replaced with metal, and the disposable chopsticks were replaced with wooden washable ones. It was a big step up, but the food quality was the same as the other cafeteria.
I relaxed at home, with no homework needing to be done. It was great to rest guilt-free.

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