July 30, 2008
the foreign mother tongue
I played tennis with jensen today – and it turned out to be an utter farce. it’s experiences like this which make you seriously concerned about global warming. and this, too, at 150 million kilometres away from the sun. can’t wait for the day we manage to colonize and inhabit mercury.
anyway during the torturous ordeal I (to my detriment) realized my inability to write 残废. uneasiness ensued and hence when I reached home I began to prepare for the chinese placement test (funny how in america they screen foreign admissions so stringently, selecting the best of the very best, only to assume that everyone’s first (and only!) language is somehow english – and hence everything else satisfies the foreign language criteria). again, not a very satisfactory experience as I discovered what 5 years of inactivity can do to your mastery of language. these are (some) of the products of that session:
invasion of the scrawlies
I’m probably overreacting and overpreparing, but heck. I’m balancing it out by reading the great gatsby anyway.
