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I have many essays to submit before Friday; overdue essays which have accumulated over the past few weeks. I can’t believe that I’m so late in submitting homework. It’s not that I didn’t do any of the essays. I did some of them, those with topics I find interesting. It’s only those with the topics I find boring which I haven’t done. For some of the essays, I’ve written a few sentences before casting the sheets of paper aside. I must write the essays, however boring I find the topics. *determined*
My teacher is a very understanding person and she probably won’t mind me submitting my essays so late but still, I feel very bad about it.
Today, I’m going to write at least 4 essays and I won’t sleep before I finish my 4th one.
My exams are next week and then it’s the one-week May holiday!

The other day, we had our ‘Listen and Talk’ class. For each class, after doing the Listening exercises on the book, one of the students has to go in front of the whole class to talk. We are allowed to talk about any topic that we want.
It was one of my Bulgarian friends’ turn the other day and she choose to talk about ‘Relationships between people of different countries’ . It was a very interesting topic. When we were nearing the end of the class, she mentioned the word ‘性交’ . Whatever she wanted to say about it, we never got to hear. Our teacher said “No, no” and told us that we shouldn’t say that. She explained further and told us that Chinese people use phrases like ‘发生关系’ or ‘肉体关系’ but that they don’t say ‘性交’. She also explained that Chinese people born before the 1980’s don’t talk about sex. They feel embarrassed. It’s kind of a taboo subject for them. That reminds me of another teacher with whom we had Oral Chinese Language class last year. During one of our discussion classes, one of the students had said that in a relationship, sex is important too. (I guess we were having a discussion about what was important in a relationship. ) The teacher had looked very embarrassed and we were amused by that. Still, we understood why she reacted like that. We all know very well that many Chinese people are not very open when it comes to talking about sex. However, I know some Chinese people (the younger generation ) who like to exchange point of views about sex, especially with foreigners. They like to know what people from other countries think.
—
Definition of ‘ 性交’:
According to my pocket Chinese- English dictionary : ’sexual intercourse’.
According to my big Chinese dictionary 现代汉语词典 : ‘两性之间发生性行为’
—
I’m late for class already and won’t have time to read this :
Sex and the Contemporary Chinese Woman. I’ll do it when I finish class. I’ve skimmed over the article and it seems quite interesting.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to the end of the winter holidays. I was getting very bored. My classes resumed on Monday, which explains the lack of updates. (also because my darl is back!)

I have many classes now, compared to the first semester of my first year at Tongji. (I had only 8 classes a week back then. ) I already got my results for the first semester of my second year and they are good. The second semester is going to be a challenge. I’m not complaining. I know that the third-year students have even more classes. However, the fourth-year students have only around 4 classes a week.

My time-table for this 2^nd semester is as follows:

Monday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 - 09:40
Listening and Speaking 10:00 - 11:40
Computer Studies (Basic) (in Chinese) 13:30 - 15:10

Tuesday
Listening and Speaking 08:00 - 09:40
Newspaper Reading ( and understanding) 10:00 - 11:40

Wednesday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 - 09:40
Extensive Chinese (mostly Reading comprehension + Answering Questions)
10:00 - 11:40
HSK Guidance 13:30 - 15:10

Thursday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 - 09:40
Survey of China 10:00 - 11:40
Newspaper Reading 13:30 - 15:10

Friday
Writing (essays,letters,etc) 08:00 - 09:40
News listening 10:00 - 11:40
Intensive Chinese 13:30 - 15:10

hmm.. two new classes for this semester.
However, I still want one more class, ‘Learning Shanghai hua’ (Learning Shanghainese, the Shanghai dialect.).
That class is only for the third-year students who are in their 2nd semester. I don’t feel like waiting one more year to learn some Shanghainese. I want to attend that class. I’ll go find the teacher before next Wednesday (first day of that class) and ask her if I can just sit at the back in the class and listen. I hope that she’ll let me. If she gives me the go-ahead, then I”ll have Shanghainese classes on Wednesdays from 15:20 to 17:00 .
Total number of hours of classes would then be 25 hours.
Yes, I must really be crazy for wanting that. The only bad thing is the amount of homework. ah well….
Better look on the bright side instead:
Less time to think, less time to torture myself with those doubts I’m having,
my written and spoken Chinese will be better,
Less time to go out and spend money,
I might get to learn Shanghainese (if the teacher lets me join the class) which will be useful (after all, I’ll be here until August 2008) ,
Less time to pig out (*pokes stomach*).

I’m most likely not going to study once out of class. I’ll be doing my homework, going to all my classes regularly but that’s it. Last semester, that was enough for me to get 90+ on each exam paper. I hope that it’s going to work that way this semester too. My spare time will be spent with my loved ones and my (*cough*) beloved computer instead. Oh… and some time outside on the track field to get fit.

This is old news(two weeks maybe) by now… but the HSC results were out in Mauritius and as usual, QEC (Queen Elizabeth College ,the middle + high school(all girls) i had attended) got the most laureates (again!It’s the same every year. Go girls!). All laureates will benefit from a full scholarship to study abroad. (as far as i know, there are around 30 laureates (girls and boys) every year and they all go to study in UK)
More info about the laureates there. (it’s in French)
Ever since the educational reform a few years back, I don’t follow the news when it comes to education in Mauritius . I’ve heard of a new reform not long ago but frankly, I’m not interested in knowing more about it because I think our present educational system is all messed up. I consider myself lucky not to have gone through that. I was perfectly happy with the old ranking system. I think that competition is needed to bring out the best in everyone. Bah. I don’t want to talk about education in Mauritius or about the government. I only want to post these pics, simply because I miss high school.
I saw the photos on an online community for Mauritians (where everyone can have their own personal pages) and asked Kendy (the girl who posted the pics) for permission to use the photos on my blog. She kindly agreed and emailed me the photos.
Here they are:
QEC girls,happy & excited upon hearing about the number of QEC laureates. I was once like them too, celebrating with my friends.

I like this pic. Number of fingers equals to number of QEC laureates. Twelve!
From left to right: Nadya, Kirsty,Kendy and Terry.

I miss my QEC days. Time really flies. It seems like not long ago that I attended my last Prize Giving Day at QEC.
ah yes, the QEC school uniform is like that. The length varies from person to person. Usually it’s knee-length or ( *gasp* ) way below the knee during the first year and gets shorter and shorter (above the knee) but still, at a decent length (for most girls anyway) when we reach our final year. For other girls’ colleges, the colors are different but it’s the same thing when it comes to the length of the uniform. The QEC Winter uniform (optional) consisted of green trousers (or jeans) and a white blouse. When I had first started attending QEC, it was even green trousers ,white blouse, black blazer and black tie(influenced by the formal British-style school uniforms) for the Winter uniform. I never got to wear that. They stopped wearing the tie and blazer when I was in my 2nd year. I don’t like green but I grew fond of my old school uniform over the years. I have a few photos of me wearing my school uniform somewhere on a CD. Need to look for them.

(Note: I said that I was happy with the old ranking system . If you (esp Mauritians) disagree with me or want to tell me why the new reforms are better, well no need to tell me about it. I don’t want to have a debate here. Everyone is entitled to his/her own preference. Comments will be moderated and deleted if necessary. )