The ongoing adventures of the Thomas family at Chenoweth Farm
Dear Friends and Family,
My second to last week went very well. We changed text books so there was a little bit of study adjustment that went on, but once I knew what to expect things smoothed out. We also started translating and narrating the Chinese movie I mentioned before, “Strange Friends.” It is actually a very good movie, from what I’ve seen so far. Narrating it feels like Continue reading “Second to last week”
Dear Family and Friends
Some interesting things happened this week. I had an “interview” in Chinese, went to an East Asian language department reception, went to the zoo, toured the Ohio capital State House, and pulled up kudzu for the first time in my life. Interested yet?
My “interview” was on Wednesday. It was the closest we would get to having an exam in intensive chinese. To grind it down to the basics, I had to Continue reading “A week for exciting events”
Dear Friends and Family,
Well, I woke up this morning to the sound of….can you guess what?…..An ice cream truck. Arrgghh!!, I hate ice cream trucks. The music drives me nuts! I actually talked to an ice cream truck driver who said Continue reading “I’m getting really tired of trying to think up interesting subject lines for these posts. Does anyone mind if I just say Lydia: update?”
Dear Family and Friends,
Whew, what a week! I am definitely glad that I am more than halfway done. I have loved it and hated it. I really love learning, I really really do. But I also love doing other things: reading, karate, hiking, playing games. I hate the fact that while I’m doing this Chinese, I can do nothing else. Learning has its price. So, I am glad I’m learning, and I’m glad I’ll be done in four weeks. Then I’ll have four weeks to catch up on all the other things I love, and then back to studying my rear off. And it will go on like that for four years (yikes!). Anyway, I really don’t even mind studying for hours and hours, its just I can’t do anything else, and I really miss all the anything-elses.
We are getting Continue reading “Update from the Chinese Front”
Ok, this is going to be hard, but you all have to hear it. For all you wonderful people who are reading our post PLEASE COMMENT!!!! I keep hearing that this person and that person is following my updates, but no one ever says anything to me. They don’t e-mail me or post comments on our blog. I can’t stand in front of you all and carry out a wonderful conversation on how my life is going, I can only do one side of the story, so I need you all to comment and start up the other half.
Some of you have e-mailed me, and believe me, I really apreciate that and love hearing from you. I doesn’t take much to comment, just register, not a complicated process. If you have any trouble, remember my dad is a computer genius.
I am glad that people are reading posts on our blog, but I’ll be gladder when people start commenting.
Love you all, can’t wait to hear from you.
Lydia
Well, I’m two and a half days away from being halfway done with the college quarter. It definitely seems weird. It is cliche to say “how the time has flown by”, or “it seems just like yesterday” so I’ll just say that each day has seemed to last forever, but when stacked in the past, makes but a small pile of time gone by. I believe that Continue reading “Halfway done”
I met a man sitting on a bus stop bench on the street this past Thursday. His name was Mike and he was begging for money. I stopped and talked to him. He claimed that he had mental problems and couldn’t work, and got social security every month but it wasn’t enough. I tried to talk to him and encourage him. I shared Jesus with him. He claimed to know Jesus, not as one of his children, but he believed he existed. I tried to encourage him to pray and rely on the Lord for salvation. But Mike said he was afraid to pray, because he believed that every time he prayed, God punished him. In the end, Continue reading “Week Three”
Here’s my room. A bit messy, but I wanted to show you how it really is. At the moment, with all I have to do, keeping my room clean is at the absolute bottom of my priority list. Though I do more or less pick up every evening so I’m not tripping over stuff, my room is by no means a model of cleanliness. Don’t feel bad about me only having a mattress and box-springs for a bed. I actually like it much better than a bed, and it is very comfortable. I like being near the floor. Well, enjoy.
Here is my assigned Chinese name in Chinese characters. It is To2ng Le3i. Those numbers right after the “o” and the “e” indicate a tone mark. Since you probably have no idea what those are, don’t worry about it. Tong Lei is Pinyin, the romanization of the pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Tong is just a family surname, no meaning. Lei means high as in social status, honor etc, and big as in great person/influential people. Not much correlation to me, but thats ok. Later, I think, after I am well into Chinese and really have a good grip on the language and culture, I can change my name. Many people do that. By the way, I wrote that vertically, but more and more Chinese people write horizontally, from left to write, just like us. Often if something is written vertically it is for traditional, artistic, or literature reasons.
Dear Family and Friends,
Week Two,
Well, I’m still alive, and that’s something. Actually it’s considerably better than that. I am alive and kicking, if a bit tired, and still loving every minute of it. Chinese continues to be hard, and there are definitely fleeting moments when I’d like to chuck it out the window. But those moments are rare and pass quickly. They usually come on after I have been studying for hours and it is late. For the most part it is very interesting, and I am definitely learning Chinese fast. There are now only five of us, and I believe nobody else is going to leave. We have passed the winnowing period and now the only people in class are those who are really serious and have put aside other things so they will have time to do Chinese. Continue reading “Week two (hi y’all!)”