Finding a Rhythm

I'm starting to get into  the steady flow of class, homework, studying, and downtime. So far, I'm waking up between 7:20 and 7:30, getting ready for class, and grabbing a bite during the 15-20 minute walk to class. Trying to get to class is always an adventure. My dorm and my class are on opposite corners of campus, so we (myself and my classmates) are always having to "feel" our way there. Class starts promptly at 8:40 everyday, and begins with a dictation. Basically, the teacher will recite a fairly short sentence that uses the vocabulary and grammar we were supposed to study the night before and we have to copy it down. After the dictation,  we read the passage in the book as a class from the lesson we studied the night before. We then review the new vocabulary and incorporate it into the grammar structures from said lesson. The rest of the morning is spent doing drills incorporating the new words and grammar through communication practice.

We break for lunch at 11:35, and we came back at 1:00 for the "Intensive" component of our chinese class. The teacher writes a bunch of Chinese characters and the corresponding Pinyin (chinese words spelled phonetically using the roman alphabet) on the board while we look at our book which contains said characters and their meanings in english. We then listen to a CD containing 3 short dialogues, all of which utilize the very words we just looked at in our book. After the first listening, the teacher asks us (in chinese) to close our books and say what we understood from the CD. He then recites each sentence of the dialogue and points to the corresponding new words that he had written on the board as each is said. He then asks each of us to repeat that sentence until each of us can recite the them with correct pronunciation. This continues until we go through all 3 dialogues. We then listen to CD again. Once it's finished, the teacher asks us questions that follow the corresponding interrogative structure of statements made in the dialogue, but we have to answer the question according to our own preferences. For example, the teacher will ask each of us (in chinese) , "Do you like to wander around stores in Shanghai?". One student will answer (in chinese) , "I like to wander around shoe stores in Shanghai on Saturday mornings accompanied by my friends," and another student will answer (in chinese), "I like to wander around DVD stores in Shanghai on Friday afternoons accompanied by my dog." This process continues until every student is able to formulate an answer to every question using the vocabulary from the CD. It goes without saying, it's a VERY intense 45 minutes.

After "Intensive" class, every student has a 1-on-1 with one of the professors for 15 minutes. It's basically a session that forces you to think in Chinese, because you have a conversation with the professor for 15 minutes straight. The professors are very good about correcting pronunciation. My strategy for not knowing exactly how to say something is to try to string together a sentence using the words I know. When I do this, the professors understand what I'm trying to say, but then go to the blackboard and write out the correct words and grammatical structure for the idea I'm trying to convey, then make me repeat my corrected sentence so that it becomes part of my thought process when speaking  Chinese.

I haven't had much of a chance to do more things in the city yet. With the amount of homework and studying I have to do, it seems like any more exploration of Shanghai will have to be relegated to the weekends.

As promised, I will start completing parts of my posts in chinese. Here's a passage about myself using the grammar patterns that I have learned in the last few days:

我的名字是（王战士／王占士）。我从孟菲斯来。我喜欢提足球，看足球比赛，跳舞，还喜欢吃好饭，什么的。这不是第一次我中国来。两年以前，我在香港学习。我很喜欢香港，因为我在香港坐地铁可以去任何地方。我也喜欢上海。因为上个星期我上海来了，不可以去在上海所有地方。

More soon.