Apparently I won my Chinese class speech today. I'll compete against people from other classes who won and the winner of that will go to the campus-wide Chinese speech contest. I am not excited about this because I hate both competition and public speaking. And before anyone starts thinking my Chinese is even relatively good, let me clarify by saying that only 10 people showed up in class today, 4 out of those 10 hadn't even finished writing their speeches, and Hong Kong Roger helped me out a lot.

I really shouldn't be wasting my time blogging right now because I have my portfolio for grad school admission due on Monday. The education dept. board finally decided that they would let me start the M.A.T. program this summer and finish it when I return in 2 years.

Here is my to-do list before I leave:
1. Graduate
2. Take and pass 6 hours of grad. school classes in June
3. Take and pass TESOL courses online for a certificate.
4. Move out of the house I live in.
5. Find people to babysit the stuff I don't want to get rid of quite yet.
6. Get a visa.
7. Raise lots of money
8. Hang out with my friends and family as much as possible
9. Pray a lot (I didn't say this list was in order of importance)
10. Learn enough Chinese to keep me from getting too lost (within the city is okay, I'm thinking I need to avoid ending up in another province)
11. Attend a couple more Famous in May shows before James and Adam are really famous.
12. Learn everything I can about the culture I'm going into.

That list isn't all-encompassing but it's a decent picture of what the next few months are going to be like...I think it'll be a fun ride...