My little Nightmarish Miracle

Some of you know that I’ve been taking Chinese classes. I’ve taken classes at a few different schools, and also in Taiwan and by personal tutoring. You know the language part of your brain? Mine has problems. So languages have come harder to me than just about anything else in life, well, maybe except memorizing dance moves. I truly suck at language skills. It’s funny that a person so deficient in natural language know-how would want to be trilingual. But that’s what my life and goals require.

When I had Ariana, I thought that the whole taking classes and school thing was over. I had a masters degree in a field that I loved and that was that. If there was any else that I needed for my career, it certainly wasn’t more school but more experience in my field. After I had Ariana, I suffered a bit of what happens to every new mom. They go from an exciting life where they see progress and achievement every day, to a life where if you end the day with a house that isn’t a total disaster, an outfit that doesn’t have any bodily fluids on it, and nobody’s starving, then you’re doing good. I did what I had to do and I made some goals for activities that I thought could bring me some other senses of personal achievement and help me get out of the house. I trained for triathlons and half marathons and I ran 2 half marathons within a year, 2 triathlons, and 1 duathlon. I also invigorated my mind and decided to finish second year Chinese at UCI. I had started the Chinese 2A class when I was in grad school. However, eventually, grad school requirements plus the differences in school schedules stopped me from finishing. I wanted to finish second year Chinese and look for the opportunities in the future, namely continually Chinese in Minnesota.

I had found out that the University of Minnesota also offered classes, in fact, it offered up to 5 years of Chinese. I wanted to do that to make up for the defiency in my brain. I feel like learning Chinese isn’t necessary for my life, but knowing if would be really convenient for my family and my husband’s future work situation.

I thought that taking the classes at UCI would pretty much guarantee a spot in the 3rd year Chinese. After all, an upper division class doesn’t always fill up, right? Well, after I got accepted at University of Minnesota, I looked at the status and it was full and already waitlisted. Once more, I couldn’t even register until the middle of August, after I went to a stupid Orientation and advising thing. School starts two weeks later. I felt so much angst. It seemed like there was so many things in my way.

1) A Parking pass lottery- that I happened to win- while I was camping and out of the reach of a phone and internet service. Will I be walking in the snow and -30 degrees?
2) Childcare? Who will take care of Ariana?
3) Do I really want this?
4) Placement test?
5) Waitlisted class
6) Not being able to register
7) Do I really want to do this?

When you have a kid, you sort of have to be a little planned out, but whatever I did, it seemed like things were all going against me in my pursuit to take the class. Is taking the class wrong? I have to spend time and energy away from Ariana. Is it going to be too much of a sacrifice?
(Of course I don’t want Ariana to be away from me, but at her age when she just really wants to go wild and crazy with other kids, I think that it might work out for her to have an external outlet.)

The big kicker of a challenge was what I found out at orientation. By the way, University of Minnesota is just too great and grand of a school to let you continue taking Chinese from the fact that you’ve already taking two years at a different school. They have to give you a placement test, based on their book, the whole book, which just happens to be a book that I haven’t used. I had a task ahead of me. Memorize 1000 new words and read the entire textbook in a week. So I’ve studied morning and night burning the midnight oil since then . (And by the way, Ariana has had jet lag and has suddenly made it a habit to get up in the middle of the night, every night which has added to my stress!) So this last little bit, I’ve been studying 4 to 6 hours a day. I’ve felt just about every emotion and had to evaluate if I really wanted to do this, if taking this class would be worth it. You know, I feel that it doesn’t make sense, but I really still wanted to do it. Something inside me said it would be giving up to not do it.

I got a blessing from Reuben the night before. It talked about faith. I read my patriarchal blessing and my favorite chapter of the Book of Mormon in Ether. I felt alright and Reuben said that he felt good too. He said that he thought that it would be a hard test, but things would work out.

When I got into the test, it was so much more nightmarish than I ever expected. I received the test, and it was all in simplified. In my communications I had read specifically that it was traditional. I just didn’t have time to memorize both.

I couldn’t read hardly anything. Even the grammer was something that I didn’t remember seeing in the book. Also, the entire test wasn’t on anything but the vocabulary from the last chapter, the chapter with so many vocabulary words that I couldn’t remember and I decided to focus my efforts on the previous 17 chapters. I cried silently during the entire test. All of my planning over the last year led to this, and I was going to fail. I tried to have faith and think positively but my mind kept on thinking of alternatives, thinking that I really didn’t want to do this, that I would be much happier if I just gave up my goals and ambitions. I thought that this was a trial, but not of my faith, just of my character.

I was the last person to finish the test and I did something I’ve never done before- I didn’t answer all the questions. I laughed- well, Reuben got it half right, the test was hard but I’m not going to pass. I turned it in and met with the instructor who did the oral part. She asked me a few questions and even in my daze and craziness, recognized that I could speak alright. I had already sent her an email about my situation and had basically begged for a space in the already filled to capacity class. She gave me a permission number cheerfully. “But I didn’t do well on the test!” I exclaimed.
She gave it a little peek. “Oh, it looks fine! “
“But I didn’t finish the writing part!”
“That’s okay!”

I walked out of the room grateful and amazed. I had spent 2 hours in torture taking the test, knowing that this was the worst test I have ever taken, and I was mercifully accepted into the class. I know that not everyone got in. Both classes really were full to capacity. But somehow it really was all about faith, just what Reuben and my chapter in Ether had told me. How can it be that if you have faith and work hard, all things, even those that seemed impossible at the time, really will work out? After this experience, I realize that this concept is something that I have yet to really learn but have again, been blessed after the trial of my faith.