My week: February 7 ed.

My main focus this week was the final test for my German class. This time, I knew that I needed to study the format of letters (both formal and informal) better because that's a major part of the grade. Listening comprehension is also big but it's something that's a bit less focused for studying needs.

I felt as if I had bombed the test; there was one section where I only knew one answer out of ten! It was a miserable section; we had to fill in the blanks with missing words. That is actually quite harder than one would expect, and the test was even worse because it was an article about Olympic sports and I don't know that subject or vocabulary well at all (and to be honest, I have absolutely no interest in it). We had practiced with a similar exercise in class and did much better because it was on a familiar topic, watching movies.

I was in a foul mood after this because I felt like a failure and that I had been feeling too good about my German learning. Every time I start to feel confident, I feel as if I get slapped down somehow. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic or whiny; I just feel that it's a sign that I should feel more guarded about my progress.

I had to shake these feelings off because I was on my way to the Chinese spring celebration at the Uni. I met one of my other classmates there and she said she had a difficult time with the fill-in-the-blanks section too. As we were speaking, my American friend K showed up and a classmate from last term bumped into us too. My mood improved as we caught up.

Everyone had to go; I stayed behind and bought some Chinese food and ran into someone from another language group; we then sat together to watch the cultural program. I've recently met her and enjoyed getting to know her more. I had to stifle some giggles during the very talented performance of a dancer. I kept thinking that the graceful dancer's costume still looked like a wacky waving arm guy. It was no fault of her own; I have a bit of an obsession with them, thanks to my cousins.

Here's a funny clip from a game that seems to be a form of charades mixed with the telephone game. It was hilarious! This guy is about 2 people deep in acting out what was supposed to be "tofu." Obviously no one guessed that correctly.

I also watched a play that was entirely in German. I took my friend, A. The ridiculous thing is that while we understood most of the play, we weren't exactly sure what really happened at the very end because the actors were off stage and yelling their lines. D'oh! See what I mean about not overestimating one's foreign language skills?