Learning a Language

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I was thinking to myself this morning that learning a language is like climbing up a really steep mountain. It takes you a long time to get to the top and every now and then you feel like you aren't climbing at all. Sometimes there are cliffs or points when you feel like you're going down the mountain instead of up and other times you feel like you're climbing really fast when in fact you're going no where. I've never really climbed a super steep mountain so I'm not sure how well that analogy works but that's what I feel like it is in my head. We had our usual "work your arse off" weekend. Saturday night I went out to dinner with Cat, Craig, Tony and his little sister. We went out for hot pot which in this particular case meant there was a hole carved out of the middle of the table and a gas fire in the hole. They came and put a big pot on the hole that looked like a yin-yang (with the two sides only the outside wasn't a circle but eight sides to represent the eight elements - fire, water, earth, etc.). We ordered some fish, tofu, meats, and vegetables to put in the two sides to sit and cook until we took them out to eat. It was a really great hot pot, different from all the rest that are normally just water with spices in them. This one had hot chilli peppers in one side and some sort of cream broth on the other side. Anyways, we just sat and Tony primarily talked with his sister and the three of us talked. I was thinking about all the different ways that people talk to foreigners (or just people who don't understand their language). Tony's sister's reaction was to talk really slow (which actually made it harder for me to understand her, although it wasn't as hard for me to understand her as it was for me to understand Eason's friend). Anyways, she's a really great girl about 20 years old.

We had a good time together at the restaurant and then Tony, Cat, Craig and I went over to Noah's afterwards. We sat for a little while and chatted. Tony wasn't in that great of a mood. He said that the rain was getting him down. After a little while Camillo arrived and he sat on my right while Tony sat on my left, the other two were across from us. Camillo and Tony were talking primarily to each other so at one time I offered to switch places with Camillo so he could talk to Tony and he said that I should just sit there (because he wanted to include me even though I couldn't understand everything that was going on). Cat and Craig were trying to talk to me in English while Tony and Camillo were talking in Chinese (which I wanted to include myself in). Then Russell and Shina came (the newly formed couple) and Tony left. I told Camillo that I could try my best to translate for him but the Chinese level that I am at right now makes it really hard for me to translate. We were playing a game of dice and at one point Craig tried to tell Camillo how he wanted to play it differently next time. I tried to translate but Craig didn't trust my Chinese and asked Shina to translate instead. It was probably a good thing in the end but all of the pressure of translating and wanting to understand everyone was really getting to me. I excused myself and ended up in the other room with them playing hispanic music (which just made me a bit homesick to top it all off). When I returned Camillo got up to use the bathroom and everyone else told me they were leaving. Camillo came back confused. We said good-bye to everyone and he asked me if I had asked them to leave. I said that I had asked them to leave, unfortunately I didn't realize what I was saying until after I said it so I immediately told him that I was wrong. I told him that "my heart is hurting from not being able to understand" and he said that he felt the same way. We decided to go over to his place and study for an hour. In the end it was really great to know that we were both coming from the same direction and both wanted to solve it the same way (by studying more). He also asked me if we were boyfriend and girlfriend to which I didn't really reply and he said at this point it's not a good idea. But truthfully we're growing a lot closer together every time we see each other and both of our languages are getting better every time we are together so I think it's all for the best.

Last night Cat, Craig and I went over to Sunny and Liuxiu's (two Chinese people who Craig met on-line before coming here who we get to see every now and again - they're really great people) and then out to dinner. They essentially got married two years ago but are going to get remarried very soon so we got to see a bunch of pre-wedding photos they'd taken. Anyways, we went out to dinner at a fairly fancy place. Had a bunch of cakes that were like Indian naan (basically bread) which in this case you can open up and put things like meat and onion inside of with a sauce. They taste really great. We also ordered a plate of corn mixed with some other veggies, some hot fried chicken, some fried pork and a crab soup. We had a really great night. Unfortunately I'd gotten about five hours of sleep on Friday and Saturday night so I was completely exhausted but I still had fun anyways.

This morning I let my body get as much sleep as it needed and stayed in bed resting. Then I got up and went over to Craig's to meet Julia, Lucy and Helen for their first ever lunch of pasta (which Craig had mixed with a tomato and tuna sauce). It was pretty good. We only get to have true pasta here every now and again so it was really nice. That's about all I've got to report for now.

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