Chinese is a frikkin lot of work!

I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn't. I didn't think it would take this much time! After about 7 months of sort of fluffing around, I've spent the last 3-4 weeks buckling down. I am studying about an hour a day. Okay. Not every day. But I try and some days are better than others.

"Buckling down" means that I am going back to the first lesson and reading and writing every dialog, reading every single note, practicing writing every single dialog and each of the vocabulary lists. Then going to the workbook and doing those exercises. That doesn't even include the extra words I learned in class, or the extra words scatter throughout the textbook and workbook that I've noted down. I have to go back and find the characters for those still!

I am at Chapter Four. Comfortably. Just today! It took me about a week of work to master chapter four. Okay. Semi-master. A. WEEK. GAH!

I am now only 5 chapters behind. FIVE.
But that doesn't consider the fact that even though I am behind, I am having homework due five chapters ahead of where I am comfortable! FIVE!

And now we have listening exercises that Laoshi sends us via email. We have to listen, repeat, translate, answer the questions. And let me tell you. THOSE CHINESE PEOPLE CAN SPEAK FAST!
GAH!!!

The first listening exercise was 3 nminutes of sheer hell. Took me about 20 replays and 30 minutes.

The second listening exerise is about 5 minutes of sheer hell. I am only half way through. And I am thinking, WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT???

So the first listening exerise I turned in, I had three missing sentences because I couldn't understand what they were saying. They were TALKING TOO FAST! So Laoshi hands my homework back to me with the script transcribed in Chinese Characters. Only I can't READ HER HANDWRITING!!! I gave it to my friend Lilly to see if she could help. She could, but she says, "oh, that's sloppy handwriting." Well, gee. I never would have guessed. I guess it's the equivalent of our own script handwriting. All the strokes are CONNECTED!!! Okay, not for nothing, but I am NOT off writing characters in blocks yet. In fact, even when I was learning Korean, I never moved off of block letters. Even in English, even today, I STILL WRITE IN BLOCK LETTERS!!!

ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am doomed.