Getting ready for a new semester at the Sun Yat-Sen University

September 10, 2012 /

Registration

Registration to the Sun Yat-Sen University is not Hell’s Kitchen, but Hell’s Registration! It’s badly organized and people don’t know how to line up. When I got to the office at 7.30AM there were already 20+ students waiting. Door opened at 8.30AM and I was ready at noon, right before the staff’s lunch break. Of course I still have to go to the Entry and Exit Administration Division of Guangzhou PSB to apply for a year’s residence permit, but luckily that’s the same procedure every time.

So now I have gotten rid of my money, paid the tuition fees for the year, it’s time to wait for next week in order to buy textbooks on Wednesday and start class on Thursday.

Grades from last semester

During the registration I also finally got the rest of my grades from last semester! I was feeling really down in June when I got the first grades, but luckily the situation wasn’t as bad as I had thought. I even got a tiny recognition as having the best attendance record of my class! (Remember, my class has only three students.)

And my grades? 100 being the perfect score I got:

  • 高级汉语综合（上）Advanced Comprehensive I 84
  • 现代汉语（上）Modern Chinese Language I 84
  • 汉语写作（上）Advanced Chinese Writing I 81
  • 汉语语言技能教学 Introduction to Teaching Chinese language (Teaching different courses) 79
  • 高级汉语口语（上）Advanced Spoken Chinese 87
  • 对外汉语教学引论 Introduction to Education of TCSL 88
  • 语言学概论 Introduction to Linguistics 98

These were the compulsory courses. The least happy I was with 84 from 现代汉语 because my class mates got much higher scores (90 and 89) and also with 79 from 汉语语言技能教学 because I really don’t want anything less than 80 from compulsory courses.

New semester

We will get our schedules for the new semester next Wednesday, but we should have the following courses:

  • 高级汉语综合课（中）Advanced Comprehensive II
  • 高级汉语写作 （下） Advanced Chinese Writing II
  • 现代汉语 （下）Modern Chinese Language II
  • 汉语语言要素教学 Introduction to Teaching Chinese (Pronunciation, Vocab, Grammar, Characters)
  • 高级汉语口语 （下）Advanced Spoken Chinese II
  • 中文报刊阅读 Chinese newspaper reading
  • 汉语课堂活动设计 Activity Designing in Chinese Language Class

Besides these I have to see if I can finally attend taiji and/or taiji with a sword, because those are compulsory courses as well. We also have selective courses, but I try not to take those (or too many) in order to have time to work.

Conclusion

After all I might not suck in learning Chinese and I’m excited about the new semester beginning next week!

I hope posts like this one are interesting to at least some of you.