I heart IUP teachers

Tomorrow is our midterm, which isn't stressing me out nearly as much as I think it should, as evidenced by the fact that I am surfing the web and updating my blog. But as I was preparing for this midterm, I was struck by how thoughtful and dedicated the teachers are, so I thought it would be worthwhile to give a few examples:

- for tomorrow's midterm, there is a section devoted to chengyu (aka. 4 word Chinese proverbs). my danbanke teacher Song Fang Laoshi composed a very lengthy essay just for me, with fill-in-the-blank chengyu spaces, all because I said I wanted to practice some more!
- my classmates and I somehow started talking about Harry Potter during class one day, so the next day my listening hebanke teacher Yu Yan Laoshi came in with a few pages of the Chinese translation and worked it into our class!
- for this past week, I've been sticking around IUP studying until dinnertime since I'm unbelievably unproductive at home. I've been leaving at around 7, when some teachers are coming back from dinner and going back to work. And they get there before 8 am everyday!

After the exam in the morning, we will have one-on-one chats with each of our teachers to go over the exam (they correct it during lunch!) and discuss our views on the class. Much as I hate tingxie (ie. dictation), I will be asking my danbanke laoshi to start giving me tingxie everyday. I've found that while I can use what I've learned, I'm having a hard time remembering how to write the characters. I will also be talking to my other listening hebanke teacher Zhang Yilin Laoshi about how she could make her class more interesting and less awkward.

And then, at night, we're going out for kaoyu (ie. baked fish) with some of the teachers, and perhaps karaoke!