Two Days

A few pictures from the cabin this past weekend. Was great to see all of the family who were able to make it up.  I'm ready to go to China.  Not much more to say about that, and I'm kind of pressed for time so ehh, just a photo dump here.

The next post will be from Shanghai!

One Week Out

Exactly one week out from departure and I am finally really starting to get excited.  Going to spend the next few days up at the cabin and when I come back I'll have two full days to get everything organized and cleaned up and I'll be on my way.

The only thing I am apprehensive about as of right now is the language.  I finally got Rosetta Stone last week and I have been working diligently with it every day since then.  I have to say, Mandarin is going to be a brutal language to learn.  I am picking up some vocabulary pretty easily, but the grammar looks to be killer.  It seems completely arbitrary so far, and since Rosetta Stone is a total immersion program, I don't get any explanation in English for why things are the way they are.  Looking at the pictures and trying to find context clues has proven to be tough so far, but I guess that is to be expected.  I got a few language apps on the iPad that hopefully will help me out a bit as well.  I'm not discouraged yet when it comes to learning the language, but I can foresee some problems arising that I will just have to work my way through.

Anyway, ready to go.  Wish it was time to leave already.  Patience is not my strong suit.