Xīn nián kuài lè! Or if you prefer the traditional greeting: Gōng xǐ fā cái!

I'll be pigging out with my family on Saturday. None of this "attend the university's celebration and get bonus marks" crap.

(Rant time!)

I have to say learning Chinese for these past three years has been fun. I actually know a language that most people couldn't figure out at first glance. But lately I've been hating it more and more. It's not really the professor's fault; I'm more annoyed with the Chinese program as a whole I suppose.

Every year they have a speech competition. During my first year you wrote something and the professor chose two beginner students to take part in the competition. By the time you hit the intermediate level, you don't get a choice. You're automatically entered based on the criteria that you're enrolled in a Chinese class. I guess in the eyes of the competition people your willingness to be in a Chinese class means you want to participate. Um, no. I hate that we don't get a say in this. Yes, it's part of our mark, but I don't want to speak in front of a panel of judges for a prize I know I won't win. A panel of judges who ding a bell if you go over your time limit.

In addition, this year they're holding the speech competition in conjunction with Chinese New Year's celebrations. I'm not required to go to the celebration, but my prof basically is bribing us with bonus marks if we do go. I was even considering going just for the bonus marks when the prof sprang on the class lyrics for a Chinese song. A song, for whatever reason, that every Chinese program student must sing at the celebration. Wait, I didn't sign up for that at all. What happened to free will? Now it's bribes all around. The prof wants six students to sing the song on stage. Those who want to will receive a gift. You know, there's a reason why not a lot of the students have shown up for these things. Forcing us to sing isn't going to make it better.

I'm in my last year. I think I've just stopped caring.

On occasion, my Chinese class can actually be kind of amusing. We've been learning sports words this week and my prof brought up the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She showed us the mascots for Beijing and I have to admit they are the cutest things ever. Just look:


From left to right they are: a fish, a panda, fire, a Tibetan antelope, and a swallow. The fish one is a little creepy, but the others are cute. :-D

And each Fuwa, I think they're being called Friendlies in English, is shown performing a summer sport here. My personal favourite is this one:


ETA: Damn, the link changed. It doesn't show you the Fuwa acting out the sports anymore. And they were so cute, too.

Title: Plum Blossoms
Characters: Mal, Inara
Rating: G (which is code for badly written fluff)
Disclaimer: These are Joss' characters. I can only claim the crappiness of the drabble.
A/N: See below