Zhongwen (Chinese Language)

I literally get the shakes when I have to go up and speak in front of people (note: this does not happen when I play music; only when I speak, for some reason). But in spite of that, my group really delivered our Chinese skit well and the professor thought it was funny (which it was intended to be).

The idea is there is one girl who wants to buy a shirt. The first merchant proudly displays a shirt and says "I have an orange shirt!". The next one takes the shirt from him forcefully and says "I have a pretty orange shirt!" The next takes it from him and says "I have a medium sized, pretty orange shirt!" The last merchant snatches that from him and says "I have a pretty, medium sized cheap orange shirt!"

As the first merchant goes to the last merchant to try and get his orange shirt back, the girl says "I don't like orange." So the last merchant who has the orange shirt looks around and grabs the the first merchant's shirt that he is wearing and says "I have a blue shirt!" and then it goes down the line of merchants in reverse order with them grabbing the first merchant (that would be me) by his blue shirt and trying to sell it... then the first merchant shrugs and tries to sell the shirt he is wearing to her as well. T

hen the girls says she doesn't want shirts. Everybody asks "Well, then what do you want!?" and she says "I want a pair of (goes into intense detail) shoes." Then all of the merchants sigh and go "We don't sell shoes!"


Not laughing? I guess you had to be there. But people thought it was funny, and I brought one of my trusty orange shirts/myself as a prop. Steve knows all about the orange shirts ;). It was probably the shortest skit, but it was coherent and everybody spoke their lines well. I would rather have a short skit that I remember and lose points on length than have a long skit that I choke in the middle of and lose points AND embarrass myself and my partners.

The point is, things went well and I am happy. Now if I could understand how to make these geological cross-sections which are due next week, I would be very happy!

While I wouldn't say my academics are good, I would say they are a far stretch better than what they were since school started. This has been a better week. Let's hope the next one tops it.