好久没看 (Hǎojiǔ méi kàn, Long time, no see)!

It's been several months since I've had time to write, mostly because things got a little crazy after I got back from the Christmas/New Year's break. We started chugging along even faster, and our teachers got a little carried away with our homework assignments – there were periods where we were getting 4-5 hours of homework per night, on top of our 6 hours per day of class, which violated the dean's policy stating that teachers can't assign more than 2 hours of homework each night (after all, we do have military duties to keep up with, as well).

But I reached an important milestone this week – we just completed semester one (of three), so we're a third of the way there! We've covered the most important grammar structures and have built the foundation for the next two semesters. From here we begin to transition from basic language structure into using and comprehending authentic sources of the Chinese language, and we continue our study of the culture (because it is impossible to really grasp a language – any language –without understanding the culture which has shaped it). Hopefully things get a bit easier from here on out, and hopefully I'll be able to start writing more frequently.

Oftentimes, the cultural studies are immensely enjoyable, and many of us have adopted parts of Chinese culture into our private lives as well. Several of my classmates and I get together every Friday night to play Mahjongg (actual Chinese Mahjongg, mind you, not the computer “Mahjongg” solitaire game), some of us get together every once in a while to watch Chinese movies (most of the best ones are produced in Hong Kong, so they're in Cantonese, which means we have to watch dubbed versions), and I've even started reading 哈利波特 (Hālì bōtè), the Chinese translation of Harry Potter. There's a nearby Chinese restaurant many of us love going to, because in addition to offering some of the best Chinese food in the area, it's also one of the few local restaurants where the staff speak Mandarin (most of the local Chinese population in the San Francisco region are Cantonese-speakers), so we also get great speaking practice there.

One of my favorite cultural experiences though, has been being part of the Asian School I (ASI teaches Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tagalog) Chinese Dragon Dance team (舞龙队Wǔ lóng duì) as the team's drummer, which opened up the performance schedule recently at DLI's Language Day, which is an annual event where we showcase to the public what it is we do here, but is really sort of a big to-do as well, since there's a full day of cultural performances by students and teachers from all of the different language schools, as well as food vendors of all cultures, commercial vendors, and (obviously) military recruiters. In the weeks leading up to Language day, we began training for the first time with one of the Chinese instructors who actually had a background in dragon dance performance. As a result, we rapidly improved our own routine, and Language Day ended up being our best performance so far.

We are, of course, approaching Memorial Day, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the very recent loss of one of our shipmates out here, Boatswain's Mate, Second Class Jason Steen, who passed away yesterday morning while on a weekend camping trip. BM2 was admired by all, especially those in his division. He exemplified the kind of sailor the rest of us all ought to be, and, as such, was an inspiration to many of his juniors. The exact cause of death is not known right now, but does not appear suspicious. It's just sudden, unexpected, and, for his family and shipmates, hard to comprehend. If you are reading this, I'd ask you to take a moment of your day on Memorial Day to think of BM2, and to keep his family and friends in your thoughts as they mourn this Memorial Day instead of celebrate it.

That about does it for now, I hope to have time to write again soon!