Wandering with the Wind...

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Why yes, now that my mom has very kindly insisted (like a bitch) on "taking care" of my Chinese studies, in preparation for the upcoming Os, I'm finding the freedom I've regained for a short period of time after my Jap Os being extremely short-lived. The short period of time being one day. One day being a whole bunch of hours wasted because my parents dragged me out to some stupid park and some stupid Chinese civilization exhibition, while I was sick from the jeebs I got from the panic attack thanks to Jap Listening Compre the previous day.

And today was horrible, because I was frikkin' trying to focus on my Bio group presentation and my mom kept hollering at me about the Chinese O-level past-year papers she made me do during the June hols while she was freezing off her lazy ass in Russia. So I went to print all the docs out, and then she yelled at me for not having written them out instead because who knows what shit I might've done on the com. Well what the shit indeed. I was saving time, goddamnit, because there's not a lot of time to talk about when you have a damned SAP Coursework and long-assed Chinese papers to rush through every single day. And then the most outrageous thing was that the goddamn bitch actually thought I'd copied all the answers from the answer booklet. What the fuck? We didn't even receive the answer booklet until a good one month after the June hols! She wouldn't believe me! Well guess not, but still!

The only amusing thing was that she made me redo the first cloze passage to check if my current answers are the same as the ones I wrote in June, but turns out they were not only the same, I actually scored full marks whereas I got one wrong for the June set. That was kind of funny. In her face, man, I wish there were more in-her-face moments. They make me feel just a tad better, and that's enough.

Now, in most cases I would have appreciated help, but my mom is an absolute no-no. Sure, she's a Chinese teacher and I must admit that she's pretty darn good in the subject, but the ways in which she's trying to get me to improve are all WRONG. You don't try to get people to improve by making them do mindless penmanship. That shit is for kids - you know, kindergarteners who can't write their shit properly with a pencil in one hand, or even two? You also don't get people to improve by making them read the passages in textbooks which aren't even used.

I know my own problems, okay? If I had my way, I'll just be spending hours per day reading Chinese books. Well that's the way I always study for Japanese. Basically what I did was know the grammar structures through the years, which wasn't that difficult since I'd make it a point to remember during the lessons themselves, revise some kanji, and then the rest was just reading random books and articles to get the feel of the language, and watching anime to improve my listening as well as oral capabilities. And this way has gotten me pretty far, or as far as a 4.0. I know how I learn languages, I know how I should be learning languages. It's just a hell lot of reading...a hell lot of reading, to get the feel of things because the way I do things is by feeling. Simple as that.

Well, the only thing I agree with her albeit reluctantly is the practice part...shit's gonna get real, man, and it's gonna hit the fan as well. I can just sense all the diabolic plans going on in her head to make me relive those hellish PSLE days in the coming month.

Ugh. GEP, then P4 Streaming, then PSLE, then Os, then SAT, then As, then college exams, then this humongous shit called work where you may very well return home one day to find the dining table missing. Exams, exams, and more exams! We're never gonna be free, are we?

Okay, end of rant. Now I shall start thinking about African kids and demented China students and remind myself of just how good a fucking life I'm living.

Aurinya blogged at 8:48 PM

Roaming the Winds