What what what??!!

Yeah that's how I feel most of the time during my classes. Almost everyone in my classes have been studying in PKU for more than a semester. Practically every single one of them has a better vocabulary than I do. All of them have that 中文收心 zhong wen shou xin（Chinese frame of mind)- that's one of my new vocab words, which I really don't. I find myself making sentences in my head in English and trying to translate it into Chinese, and that just takes up like 10 minutes of my time. Either that, or for some weirdo reason, I find myself thinking of words in Cantonese instead of Mandarin. It's pretty frustrating. Other than all that, classes are great. haha. I do like my 老师 (teachers) and usually I can understand them pretty well. Chinese classes here are really different than Chinese classes back at Miami. At Miami, when explaining the 生词 (new words), teachers usually explain the meanings of each word in English. But over here, 生词的意思 （meaning new words) are all explained in Chinese. The teachers explain the meanings really well though, and in much simpler Chinese. So understanding the meaning in the end is really not a problem. I really had it easy in Miami... I had only 5-6 听写字 (dictation words) every lesson. Now, I have like 15-20 听写字 almost every lesson! Thinking about my 听写 now, does make me nervous! I still find it difficult trying to convey my questions or my meaning in Chinese.

I guess it just means I have to 耐心一点和努力练习 （be a little patient and practice hard). I think I'll be okay. I mean I just have to put in more effort than others... but who said it was going to be easy, right? I'm only just learning the 课文（passage) of the first chapter, but already my book is filled with writings of pinyin and the English meanings of words. Because I don't know at least 1-2 words in each sentence, or I have absolutely no idea what a sentence means.

I'm just freaking myself out. I'll be fine. I know I will be.

Oh oh oh! It snowed in Beijing today. It actually snowed! 2nd time this Winter it snowed. Not much of it is left on the ground though.