Mental gymnastics – My first Chinese class

I was evaluated by a Chinese instructor at Microsoft and put in the B class. Instead of the toddler class which is A. That is because the past 10 months in Redmond I studied some Chinese by myself. So last night I went to the B class for the first time. I was mentally exhausted after 1.5 hours. I could only understand 30% of the things being said. The classes are from 6:30PM-8PM. After a full day of work I am not sure how much my brain will absorb that material. But I have to stick to it and see what happens.

Work is going well. We are making good progress. But after so many years of managing projects it comes pretty naturally to manage risk, resources, schedules, etc. My biggest challenge at the moment is a pretty mundane one. I have a big load of laundry which I am not sure what to do with. The hotel wants to charge me US prices and almost wash each sock separately. So I need to find another reasonable alternative. I am very glad I brought everything from Redmond with me because buying little things are very inconvenient and time consuming. It took a few hours to buy a deodorant. I was looking for something without antiperspirant but since I could not read any of the labels I had to choose one almost randomly.

This reminds me of interesting conversation. As I was scratching my brain looking at the deodorant a Chinese girl started to talk to me to ask me for advice on which one she should buy for her boyfriend. I was pretty impressed. Generally people try to avoid having conversation in English if they can. It was her first time buying a deodorant and she was not sure which one to choose. I tried to explain the concept of antiperspirant but I am not sure she fully got it. Eventually she just picked the one that I chose at random. J

For the next class I need to memorize these. Both the Pingying (Romanized characters) and the Chinese characters. It is pretty hopeless at this point. Hopefully it will get better soon.

Morning	Zaoshang3	早上
First	Xian1	先
Brush teeth	Shua1 ya2	刷牙
Then, afterward	Ran2hou4	然后
Take a shower	Xi3 zao3	洗澡
Wear, put on	Chuan1	穿
Clothing	Yi1	衣服
Slice	Pian4	片
bread	mian4bao2	面包
Drink	He1	喝
Cup, glass	Bei1	杯
Coffee	Ka1fei1	咖啡
Classroom	Jiao4shi4	教室
Sometimes	You3 shi2hou	有时候
Noon	Zhong1wu3	中午
Dining hall, canteen	Can1ting1	餐厅
Lunch	Wu3fan4	午饭
Participate	Can2jia1	参加
About	Zuo3you4	左右
Write	Xie3	写
Homework	Huo4zhe3	或者
Surf internet	Shang4 wang3	上网
go to bed	Shang4 chuang2	上床
Sleep	Shui4jiao4	睡觉