Sluggish Spring

This morning's meeting at the busstop decribed the common mood of us foreign students at the moment. I was well aware that the time was getting close to the beginning of the first class of the morning, but somehow I wasn't able to get my butt up from the sofa and finish the cup of coffee I had just made. Then, at a point when I should have already been at school, I managed to pull myself away from the online newspaper and made my way downstairs and across the street to the corner where you can catch a little minibus going past the university to the centre.

I was thinking that others are so often late, it doen't matter if I'm late sometimes too. As long as someone is there at the beginning of the class... But who did I find at the busstop if not two of my classmates who live in the same compound as me, yawning and blurry-eyed just like me.

I know what it is, though, it happens every year to most of the student population everywhere.

Spring.

When the sun comes out, and you're almost done with the studies, your mind tends to wonder towards summer plans and what comes after the studies. You feel like you've pushed yourself this far, it's about time for a break. And no, the brain does not easily listen to the little, whispering voice of reason that says: "just a few more weeks, you can keep pushing". Nope, the brain is on holiday.

All this translates into reduced class sizes, students flip-flopping in in the middle of the class -- if at all, increased yawning frequency in the classroom and sudden dissapearance of all homework notebooks.

But hey, at the moment my holidaying brain is giving the voice of reason a rather good argument about how I've already done quite a lot this term: Yesterday I found out that I got the highest grade in the official intermediate Chinese proficiency test. So now I am officially a Chinese speaker! 太棒了！