I think it's 18 weeks, now. I sorta just counted in my head rather than use a calendar.
Well, we had Monday off for the new year. Usually that would've been exciting and special, but the week before we had had Friday and Monday off for Christmas, so really it was just getting close to tedious. For New Year I did absolutely nothing. Oh, except my darling sister woke up at 8:00 her time to say hi to me at Midnight. Happy 2012, everyone!
Anyway, this week I've been spending a lot of time drawring. I've already filled one sketchbook while being here, and am now several pages into the second. It's been fun. I'm not sure I've really talked about it here, but I've been working on a plotline that will someday be a comic, most likely a webcomic (meaning, a comic that is on the internet for people to see rather than in a printed book form). I optimistically decided last year that I would have it ready to start updating in April, but… isn't that when college starts? Haha. I'll just keep plugging away at it and maybe by this summer I'll be able to start putting up pages somewhere.
Sad news: My Sifu is leaving on January 15th for two weeks to visit his family. As I'm leaving China on January 28th, we'll just miss each other. So this next week will be my last week training under him. Depressing? I think so.
Basically, what's been going on with Mandarin class is that nobody except me has been going recently, so I've been working on memorizing words, and during class Nellie just tests me on the words I memorized since the last lesson (and all the ones before that, unfortunately), and then answers whatever other questions I have. On Tuesday Sifu sat with me after Nellie had to leave and helped me for a little while, but his Chinese accent is such that he can't really teach me Chinese words effectively, so basically we just started talking about different things… mostly about family, really. And, of course, his life in the Shaolin Temple. You know, they have visitors every day at the Shaolin Temple. It must be such a singular experience to grow up in a tourist spot. It's like, people walking through and taking pictures of your home, and of you. Weird.
Most of the week was kind of same-same, monotonous. But Friday contained an interesting experience, because I FINALLY went to the "10-Minute Shop", which, predictably, is only 10 minutes by foot down the road. Way less of a hassle than taking the bus into town and a taxi back. Cheaper, too. I think the change of scene helped break up the feeling that China's getting old. It's a funny little convenience store that really only had the basics. There was no refrigerated section, but at this time of year it was cold enough that the four produce items they had didn't go bad. Amongst the classic carbohydrate snacks there's also some medicine, fireworks, beebee guns, and shoes. I understand now why people at the school are always setting those off. They sit on the shelf so temptingly.
For the free afternoon class on Friday I finally asked Sifu to teach me how to do a backflip. And the answer is, I've got a long way to go. It takes quite a bit of coordination to get enough height so you won't injure yourself when you go backwards, and I'm not quite there yet. So for the second half of class I tried to do a proper cartwheel, and FINALLY started improving at that near the end. The next step is one-handed cartwheel, and then no-handed cartwheel. Apparently the chain whip form has many such aerials. Yay, chain whip...
And then we had Qi Gong Theory again. That was interesting. Apparently if you do Daoist Qi Gong improperly, then you could go insane.
Quickie Mandarin Lesson Time, requested by my sweet Grammy.
"Xin Nian Kuai Le", meaning "Happy New Year". "Xin" means "new", "Nian" is "year", and "Kuai Le" is the two words that you use to wish someone a happy something. (Sheng Dan Kuai Le is Merry Christmas). It's a bit different from "gao xing", which also means "happy", but in an emotional way. "Wo gao xing" (Whoa gow sheeng) is "I'm happy".
Chain whip's going well, and I don't remember if I said anything, but we're learning a Wudan Straight Sword form (when we're not doing Qi Gong Theory, that is), called "White Rainbow". It's quite a bit shorter than the Wudan Straight Sword form I've already learned, "Floating Cloud". Cute names, huh?
And that's about it for this week. Questions and feedback are appreciated. Is it just me, or are these getting shorter?
Love you all! And tune in next time to read more stuff about Kung Fu on
SOMEWHAT SHAOLIN
PS I seem to have partially melted my modem, so if you guys are trying to contact me and I don't reply via internet, you know why.
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