Chinese Class and Dragon Fruit Juice

As you may have heard, I've recently been working through my Chinese class placement here.  Really, I'm in between two classes.  I spent the first two days in the higher level class, feeling stressed for almost the entire time because I was having a really hard time grasping what was going on.  I've been in the lower level for the past two days, and the material has been easy.  However, I've never really had any work on my tones before, and that is a huge focus of the lower class, so that's part of the reason that the teachers suggested I stay down.  (Mandarin is a tonal language- the same sound can be said with 4 different intonations, and mean 4 different things.  Yep, welcome to my life.)

I've been really impressed with how kind and helpful the staff have been in helping me figure out my best placement and what we can do to help me learn, and listening to my back and forth reasons for wanting to be in either class.  After thinking and praying, I had felt pretty good about staying in the lower level class as of the beginning of the weekend.  However, today in the hour lunch break before class, as I looked over the material for the day, I was strongly attacked and discouraged.  I felt like I was so stupid for having to be in the lower class with how much Chinese I've already taken, like I had just wasted all the time I spent with Chinese at Hope, and like I was never going to able to learn the language anyways.  I'm sitting staring at the pages of my book, with the words "you stupid idiot, how could you mess everything up?"  And I softened the language for you there.  Thankfully, these messages were strong enough that I recognized them for what they were- lies of the enemy meant to destabilize me.  I rebuked them in the name of Jesus and declared His authority over my mind and His perfect plan through whatever class I was in.  

I went to class, still really confused and unsure about everything.  The stuff we went over in class was pretty basic, though I did get to work on my tones, and at least I didn't have the horribly lost feeling of having no idea what was going on like I did before.  I still felt pretty discouraged.  If only I had worked harder on Chinese before, etc. etc.  During the ten minute break that divides our two hour class I popped next door to see my friends in the old class.  Bad idea- "wo xiang nimen...I miss you guys."  The second half of my class was better- there are only three of us in class, and my teacher is really good about making us do things until we get them right.  I then got to meet with my one on one teacher and we discussed the extra material that I'm going to do because I'm above the class level that I'm in, which means I get to pick what I learn based on what I want to know!  And I'm starting with restaurant vocabulary, so I can hopefully one day order without pointing at the menu!  It was disappointing to realize that I wasn't going to be in the higher level class.  I still feel like I've failed, though I know that regret is something that can and will be used against me.  My choice now is to work hard where I am and improve from there.

My friend Alyssa and I decided we need a snack to hold us until dinner, so we went to try a new bubble tea place that didn't actually have any bubble tea.  It was more of a fruit juice thing.  There were no pictures and no English on the menu except for section headings- "milk," "fruit" and a few other things.  Alyssa employed an old "I have no idea how to order anything off this menu trick" and asked the waitress what her favorite drink was.  What she said sounded a lot like mango, so Alyssa decided to go with that.  I decided to go with the more foolish choice of randomly pointing at something on the menu.  I picked from the "fruit" list and chose the 8 kuai option over the 10 kuai option (6 kuai=1 USD).  It turned out to be dragon fruit juice, which was pretty delicious I have to say.  I got to vent to Alyssa some, and she was really encouraging in affirming me in making the right choice.  We talked about all the benefits of me being in the lower level.  I am very thankful for my friends here.  Not my favorite day ever, but my class drama is finally solved, I have friends who encourage me, and hey- the point at the menu trick actually worked