Ted Hong - CP4

On Friday the 25th, I met with Joyce at Yogurt Mountain.

There, she filled me in on her past weekend with Allison and the crazy times. She told me that she drove past where my hometown is and even went to the beach there. Siesta Key. I told her it was the #1 beach in America and she did not believe me. She asked me if I was being biased, saying it's #1 in my book but I said, "Nay, nay, nay, good woman. AMERICA SAYS SO!"

I didn't actually say that, but something to that effect. Here's a link: http://www.drbeach.org/top10beaches.htm BAM! Lawyered.

I asked where her roommate, Faye, was and she said she had just woken up (this is about 1PM) and wasn't up for moving about. She apparently stays up watching chinese shows and things of the such. Things shifted to her telling me that she normally studies during the week and doesn't do too much otherwise. Sometimes too lazy to cook so she'll keep to simple things. On the weekends, she goes to bible studies and church so she's typically busy during those times.

She asked me what I did and I end up telling quite a bit. I was horribly burnt out this week that even my body was resisting any sort of conducive work. It's been hard to sleep as of late so I'm perpetually tired. I told her that I've had to deal with a lot of things - a lot with TEFL, but also keeping promises and handling an auto insurance settlement from a car accident back in November that has been dealing a great deal of stress to me. I finally got my settlement so that's now out of the way, thankfully. lol Now paying off medical bills.

We eventually got onto the topic of accents. I told her that some people never really get over their accents and she slumped over in disbelief. If I had to describe that exact moment, it would be as if I had just punched her in the soul with an iron fist of despair as she... spiraled down in darkness.

I assured her that it still can be overcome, but I told her that it's more efficient to focus on communication and coherency before the accent. Eventually, some people just disregard the accent because it's so minimal. And to reassure her, one of my friend's that's in Tianjin, China right now has a fluent grasp on Mandarin Chinese. I wanted to give her an example so I suggested skyping Denise later with Joyce to show. Not that it was of absolute importance, but it might be reassuring to actually see it.

I also brought up a video about a guy named Mike Sui on youtube who did 12 different characters, all surrounding Chinese in some form, all with accents. I would link it here, but it seems almost inappropriate in verbal content. Look it up, if you're interested.