Western, China and Beyond!
I've made it through day 3 of back to school and work. It was like having a Spring Break after I went home on Wednesday to surprise Ira for his birthday. I had 5 days off and now I'm paying for it. I did almost all of my homework and quizzes ahead of time, but some things I had to wait for. Now that I'm in the swing of the week, all should go well.
Home was good, but it looks like that will be the last time I make that trip before school is out! I'm going to head up to State Solo & Ensemble in the middle of April in Big Rapids, but I won't go all the way home. Only 4 1/2 more weeks! I only have about 30 more classes total and only eight of each of my classes left including the final.
As is now Facebook official, I am going to China for sure this summer. Before I had a "probably, because you are one of eight signed up and we can take 13." Now I have a meeting on Friday to start things off! I also was notified that I got one of the merit based scholarships from Western. It's the Dean's Scholarship and it will cover more than 25% of the total trip. I'm very excited. It's really reassuring to get a scholarship based on my grades. It's nice to know that even without a perfect GPA I'm in good standing with Western. I'm also still eligible for the need based scholarship so I hope that comes through, too.
Our first meeting for China was today. We didn't get much more information, but we did get our tentative itinerary. It is very exciting! We'll be visiting the Summer Palace of the Qing Dynasty, the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, the Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall, The Ming Tombs, Shanghai for the World Expo, Temple of Confucius, Yonghe Temple, Beihai Park, as well as going to a Chinese Opera and acrobatic show.
On top of all the day trips, we study Chinese from 8-10 each morning. We have a culture and a language lesson and have to meet with our language partners for a while each day. We're staying at BLCU in the dorms. The housing actually sounds really nice, not that we'll spend much time there.
The trip hasn't sunk in yet, but my Study Abroad Pre-Departure Orientation Handbook says that I'm still in the honeymoon stage. :D
That's all for now folks!
Love Will Keep us Together, Forever
While I don't have a good reason for not posting in so long, I am still going to make an excuse. I don't have anything to write about!! This school year (as it sums up) has been extremely laid back. I feel like I've gotten a big yellow YIELD sign in my face saying SLOW DOWN SYDNEY! I adore being busy. I adore being a leader. I love being involved, but maybe I needed a transition year. I've accepted that this will finish out to be a good, smooth-ish, transition year. Maybe it's an excuse, but I'm not admitting it a failure.
On a happier note, it's BIRTHDAY SEASON!!! We started out the month with some of my favorite people: Rachel, Holly, (Jubal...favorite? :D) before leading into some family and more friends: Haley, Lucas, Wes, Mr. Salsbury, Kelly Smith, Colleen, Ira, Nancy (my boss), Aaron Handrich is tomorrow. It's crazy the amount of birthdays this month! Plus, the newcomers to this world. I know the Eastman's just had baby Agnes Joy and the Higgins' have Mr. Michael John and coming soon: Sam/Abby Bontrager in Tennessee! Such a blessing to have all these lovely people here. Thank you for being born!!! :D
On account of a birthday, I headed home at about 1:30 Monday morning to get here at about 5:30 surprising Ira with sweatpants and a carry-out sandwich that he fell in love with. It was a very exciting and hard to keep surprise, but oh-so-much fun! This weekend also brings us HONK! I felt very included when Mrs. Esch asked me to do Cenah's hair. It's always a nice feeling to still have home people ask favors of me. I made programs for a basketball game one time when I was home and being able to help pre-performances reminds me of how much I love our little towns.
I'm also celebrating Lucas's birthday again by taking him to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid tomorrow night. I'm currently reading the books and they are quite a laugh. A knee-slapper as fellow Bronco, Katy Devereaux, would say. It's super nice having a five day weekend with the fam. *Side note* I'm not being a huge class skipper. I allowed myself to skip one class of each course from each semester. I did all my homework ahead of time and have already made up what was covered when I was gone. */*
Mom has been exclaiming how quickly this dreaded year has gone and I must concur. I have Easter weekend, a weekend at home, a weekend of Solo& Ensemble, a weekend of studying followed by a week of finals and then I'm home for the summer! It never seemed like the days were going by quickly by the months melted by. I have to admit, I'm kind of sad about leaving White Velvet for the summer. I was promoted in February and now that we see more people, I'm having a lot of fun. My boss and I recently developed a line of smoothies and I feel like a part of the success! It will be waiting when I get back in the fall, but the library job will also be staring me in the face. The director of the Rare Books Room (and my Chinese tongxue (classmate)) talked to me again telling me that he's excited to get me working and that he'll get a hold of me in the fall. Maybe I'll be able to work both jobs, but we'll see how things go.
I've recently shifted into the College of Education at Western. It was another major altering decision. I feel like I've switched my major a lot this year, but that is to be expected. I've also not changed what I want to do for the most part, just how I'm going to get there. I'm going to be a Spanish and Education major with an English Ed./Chinese minor. It's basically just taking on some education (and LITERATURE!!!!!!!!!!) classes so I'll be qualified to teach. I don't have a great desire to teach Spanish at this point, but I would LOVE to teach English as a Second Language. I'm tentatively planning to teach ESL in China the year after I graduate, but we'll see how the study abroad trip goes this summer. The thing that most inspired me to teach was my Chinese professors and the Chinese staff at Western. I really, really, really love Chinese and all the opportunities it opens up for me and I would love to teach my native language. Watching Yang Laoshi teach is so much fun. She likes to tell us about China and tries to explain silly parts in their grammar. I am just really excited about that prospect.
The best thing about all this is that I'll still be able to translate/interpret. Switching gears a little here can only benefit me! There aren't any strictly set boundaries for ESL teachers or translators in the U.S. right now. They just want you to be good at what you do and I plan to be excellent.
The second best thing is LITERATURE!!! I love, love, love lit classes and I miss them dearly.
Thirdly, I don't have to take Deductive Logic or anything of the sort. I only have to take "Excursions in Mathematics" which is like Algebra I!! I think I can handle that one.
I suppose that's all for now. I will try to keep this rolling a little faster. Maybe I'll do a HONK! post with pictures!!
Good night
Buenas noches
Hao wanshang
Guten abend
