After 23 days of tutoring, we are in the end game. Wednesday is my last day, and although I will miss my student when he leaves, I can tell you I really, REALLY need a day off.

It has been a great experience.

We have read through five volumes of "Chicken Soup" books, three issues of Sports Illustrated, one volume of "Extraordinary Facts" and one of "Ozark Laughter". We have
discussed the cultural differences between Chinese and the US, the World Cup, football, Dairy Queen ice cream, racial relations in the US (oye), Yosemite National Park, politics (double oye), education, and food, among many other things.

Yesterday, he spoke of some of the obstacles he has overcome, and showed me a scientific paper he had written that made me feel like I have the intellect of a bug. Apparently there is a lot of pressure on Chinese kids to excel. Education is not free, and spots are limited. Not everyone has the opportunity to attend. Even though he was lucky enough to receive an education, for a period of time he rebelled and made life difficult for his parents. In spite of this, he was able to get into college. He is now 25 with a Master's degree and in his third year of medical school. Next year he hopes to apply for a PhD position, but whether it's here or China remains to be seen.

I have seen great improvement in his spoken English, although it was fairly good to start with. His pronunciation is better, and so is his comprehension. He said he doesn't see it, until I pointed out how seldom he has to stop during a story to have words explained, context examined, or pronunciation corrected now as opposed to the first day. It's still not good enough, but he told me I was doing a great job, it's because he's not working hard enough.

O.o

I am nonplussed. He works like a horse.

I worry about him returning to China with no way to practice his English - he'll lose all this progress if he isn't able to continue speaking it on a regular basis. He said other students "look down" on people speaking English, as if they are bragging. So, I did some research and recommended he purchase the Rosetta Stone for English. The fact it can correct pronunciation and help with context was attractive enough, but his face positively lit up when I told him it can be downloaded and used with an MP3 player. Although he seemed very concerned with the high price tag.

So, I took the info to Dad and told him about it. :) I have a feeling my student will have his copy of Rosetta Stone when he returns home. I'm a good salesperson when I want to be, and I really hope this is as big a help as I suspect.

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His dad wanted to know if I would be available for next July. :)

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In other news, my main laptop has shit the bed. Not sure what the problem is, and the resident geeks are stumped, as well. I did manage to get all my stuff off of it, thankfully, but either the hard drive has gone belly-up or the video card is shot. Or, it could be something completely different. You know how computers are.

In the meantime, I have broken out the Vaio with its missing "W" key, missing "A" key, and broken spacebar (which I snapped in half myself, completely by accident, of course) in addition to a cursor that jumps all over the screen like a cricket, driving me absolutely toward a homicidal rage. Oh, and don't forget the agonizingly slow load times. However, I have the resources to fix this situation one way or the other - on my next day off, hopefully. I'd have done it sooner but a medical problem cropped up and needed the attention. What can ya do.

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And that's about it. Moving on.