It Was The Best of Times...

...and then it was area studies.

Sigh.

First the good stuff.

Despite the fact that I have a progress test tomorrow (and on a slight tangent, please please please cross your fingers and toes, pray, send positive energy, or whatever other assistance you can offer that I do well...), I had a really good day in language class.

Specifically, I was really happy with my performance during speaking at length. We had Culture Shock as a topic, and I felt like I did pretty well with it. I was comfortable. I had anecdotes. I had a point I wanted to make and I feel like I made it. And I spoke for six minutes. And when the teacher asked me a follow on question, I had an answer and an example for why I thought my answer was true.

Yay!

And then we went to area studies.

I so shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

Last week was great...I foolishly thought we had turned a corner. And the topic this week seemed relevant.

Sadly, it wasn't. And our countries weren't mentioned. And he took the whole three hours. And at one point, he was taking so long on each slide that the computer went into screen-saver mode. He literally spent 45 minutes on the first three slides...and he had 32 slides.

Just painful.

Next week is supposed to be on the Balts. But I am afraid to get my hopes up.

In better news, how cool is my post?! They assigned me a control officer for my immersion trip.

I don't need one, of course...it is an immersion trip. Even so, their doing so makes me feel welcomed and valued.

And that means a lot to me.