Part I: About Chinese Class
After this school year ends, I will have completed 3 years of Chinese class. I did Chinese 1 & 2 in person while this year (Chinese 3) was all online. I have learned a lot in the 3 years of Chinese class and the most helpful tool were the Hanzi worksheets. Even though they were really long and sometimes annoying to complete, they were ultimately the best study tool. In Chinese class you will learn a lot about Chinese culture and traditions. The general traditions and cultures will be introduced in the class but most of the in depth learning is through self-research while completing the assignments and projects. Many of the students enrolled in Chinese class are asian but that is also because Logan does have a high percentage of asian students. One of my favorite memories of Chinese class is being able to find common interests with many of my classmates. Many of them like K-pop or anime so you won't be considered "weird" or an "outcast" if you have those same interests. The structure of the class is very organized which makes each unit very easy to learn and follow along. In my opinion, it is very hard to fall behind on assignments because in Chinese class Du Laoshi gives us plenty of time to complete each assignment. I really appreciate Du Laoshi because she is extremely nice about deadlines and late work which is very different than other teachers. She doesn't give many extra credit opportunities but if you complete all your work on time and to the best of your ability, then you should be fine.
Advice For Learning Chinese
Some advice I would give to people learning Chinese is to really study the Chinese sentence structure. Although it may not sound as important as learning the characters and pronunciations, it is essential if you want to be able to communicate with people. Just knowing words and pronunciations will not really help you communicate in Chinese. Chinese sentence structure is very different from english and it can be difficult to remember. For example a subtle difference is the Chinese structure of writing the date compared to the english structure. In Chinese, it goes year, month, day, while in english we do month, day, year. Sometimes I struggle with sentence structure while writing paragraphs about a topic or even when I speak. A resource that has really helped me with sentence structure is watching a lot of C-dramas and my favorite Chinese movies. Just hearing Chinese a lot really helped me improve my sentence structure and a bonus was also being able to enjoy watching some of my favorite Chinese movies and TV shows. :)
Part II: About High School Life
Sports
我从九年级开始打水球。我现在James Logan打了三年水球。我做了很多好朋友和我的最好的朋友。我很喜欢打水球。我觉得是一个很好的体育和你也会做很多新朋友。
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Waterpolo has been a significant part of my high school experience. I have been a part of the James Logan Girls Waterpolo team for 3 years. I have made so many friends and my bestfriend by joining waterpolo. It is a sport I really enjoy and I think it is a very good sport to join and you will make many new friends.
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My High School Experience
High School has been pretty crazy. I realized that none of my high school years has gone perfectly. For example, my freshman year I never got to finish the school year because of the teacher strike that lasted for a month at the end of the school year. Then the next year (Sophomore year) Covid-19 had caused a global pandemic which cut our year short again. This year (Junior) I was actually able to complete the entire school year although it was all online. In my opinion, I thought this online school year ran pretty smoothly and I am surprised that I did learn much more than I expected to. I really like the block period schedule and I thought that made school and assignments easier to manage. Although I enjoy online school, there are some things I miss about in person school. Obviously one is I miss my friends but another one is getting help from teachers. Online school is a lot of self-studying and self-learning and if you don't understand something going to a teacher for help is much more difficult. It is also very hard for teachers to teach over zoom and so I really appreciate all the teachers for their time spent in Office Hours.
What do you think of yourself? Have you changed in the past 3 years of high school?
I realized I have changed a lot from 9th grade. My freshman year I was pretty insecure about myself. Before I put on my outfit every morning for school, I would think "How would people judge me if I wore this today?". I was always thinking about what other people would say about me and my appearance. Now, I've learned to not care about what others say or think about you. If I like what I'm wearing, that's all that matters. Who cares if they judge me? If I like it then I can be confident with whatever I'm wearing. This may be a bit cheesy but in my instagram bio I have the phrase "Look fab, feel fab". This phrase really resonates with me because it promotes self-confidence and I think a lot of young girls these days should care more about how they feel about themselves before worrying about what other people will think.