Laugh of the Day

Since yesterday morning, my CPU has been emitting a high-pitched adenoidal whine. At times, it becomes so shrill and loud that I grit my teeth, but mostly I can ignore it if I'm involved in something sufficiently distracted. Nothing I do has any effect and the local "experts" are powerless to help me.

It's remarkably like having a new co-worker.

In any case, I needed a good solid laugh today and, thanks to bunj, I got it. In fact, it brought tears to my eyes.

今天是星期一!

Actually, it's 星期二. But, when I learned to say that, it was accurate. Yesterday (昨天!) was my first Mandarin class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association. I hadn't been planning on it, but I was drawn in by a sign advertising adult Chinese classes for a mere $20 registration fee. It struck me as a perfect opportunity to get better acquainted with my local community. Two hours a week isn't enough time to build any serious conversational skills, but if I could just improve my pronunciation a bit, I'd be happy.

I know hundreds of characters, but I have the damnedest time remembering the tones. Last night, I left with the proper pronunciation of the numbers 1 through 10,000 firmly in my head. (We went around the room counting until we all got them right--I pity the poor man who got stuck with "44".) The teacher is covering both writing and speaking simultaneously and I'm not sure how the rank beginners are going to keep up: After I got home, I went through my flash cards, pulling all those for characters we covered in class; I ended up with more than 40.

The class is an interesting mix: Two twenty-somethings, one of whom has studied Chinese previously. A Chinese-American who's monolingual in English. Three guys older than me--a Caucausian who volunteers at the Association, a middle-aged Vietnamese businessman-type, and a Spanish-speaking mestizo. I was hoping some of them might stick around for dinner afterwards, but they dispersed rapidly. The teacher says that there are three other women enrolled who couldn't make it that evening for one reason or another. It's going to be a tight fit in that room if everyone shows up at once.

The teacher (who's name, I'm embarrassed to say, I never learned) gave Chinese names to everyone who didn't already have one, which was amusing. She used the same pronunciation for the given names of both Thomases, but varied the spelling. Learning the days of the week got bogged down in a discussion of religion, but I was favourably impressed how much we had managed to cover. Part of me can't wait for it to be 星期一 again!