Busy Autumn Continues
It’s been over a month since my last post, the busy life of a graduate student in China, because I’ve truly been that busy with lectures, homework and teaching. Today I wanted to take the time to relax and update my blog that has become way too quiet since I started my master’s degree.
Some of my classmates, especially the locals students, stay up until after midnight writing homework or planning events for our department. I’ve been lucky to be able to sleep well, only a few times staying up until 1am. Because of all our courses are done during our first year, its gets very hectic and many of my classmates have complained the department, now the teachers are actually giving us a chance to voice our opinions anonymously.
I’ve been mostly enjoying the busy life since doing nothing for half a year, challenging my self with studies has been great. I’m reading a lot more in Chinese than I ever have, we also have plenty of opportunities to practice our spoken language during class, group discussions and presentations. Once I mentioned during class that I didn’t learn pronunciation properly during my first year of studies in Finland, after that the head of our department always corrects my fourth tone when he gets the chance! I was a bit annoyed first, but now just take it as a chance to improve.
I got excellent thesis supervisors, one energetic and excellent younger teacher with a lot of passion. Another one is bit older and in charge of us graduate students, one of the most important teachers at our department. This first semester is mostly for study and reading tons of research to pave the way for thesis writing next year. One of my supervisors hinted that I could do something related to vocabulary, especially synonyms, but I also have others interests that I would like to pursue.
Me and my husband Alan are staying in Guangzhou for the foreseeable future, but you never know if we at some point find out selves in Finland. I’ve slowly started to understand the current state of Chinese teaching in Finland, connecting with a few great teachers that has been so kind to share their experiences with me. It’s very interesting to see how Chinese teaching and learning continues to grow in Finland, it’s already grown so much since I was studying Chinese at Tampere.
I don’t often do “this is what I’ve been doing” posts, but as you all know, being a student means a lot of time at classrooms, lecture halls, libraries and having my nose buried into books. It’s very interesting, but doesn’t leave much time to explore anything else. Thank you for still being here with me along the journey!
I almost forgot, we booked tickets to Malaysia for our honeymoon in January! First we will be spending a week at Kota Kinabalu and then two nights at Kuala Lumpur. It’s going to be the ultimately best way to end our first year as a married couple, and also my first busy semester as a graduate student.