Lately I've been staying after school for an hour or so. Even though my brain is super tired from trying to make sense of Chinese, I make myself stop and sit at the table in the 3rd floor lobby, next to the elevator. It's a noisy room, since everyone walks through the lobby and stands around discussing their lunch plans. But most of it's discussed in Chinese or some other language I understand even less, so it merely becomes background noise as I try to decipher my homework assignments.

Of course I've had numerous lengthy conversations with classmates, adding to the noise, also with fellow students from my congregation, teachers, former teachers, and at least one new student who introduced himself. But I don't mind the distractions, other than my growing hunger, I have lots of time to burn. At first everyone who knew me and saw me sitting there wanted to know why I was still at school. I cheerfully explained to each of them that when I'm at home I see my bed when I walk in and then it's all over, then I'm on it, then I'm sleeping. Two to three hours later I wake up with no memory of homework, and even less desire to do it. So, I tell them, I stay at school where Chinese is still fresh in my head and I'm not tempted to sleep. You could say it's "a learning environment" not a "sleeping environment" like my bedroom.

So far my strategy has been working, I've been getting more homework done, and I think I've increased my retention by a few words per day, not that I have anyway to test this, but it just feels like it's helping a little.

My next trick on my temperamental brain will be to somehow arrive early to preview the lessons. But to pull that trick off I'll somehow have to trick myself into waking up earlier. I'm not sure that's possible, I've been trying that trick most of my life. Another thing I'm worried about is once my brain figures out what's going on it might realize that it's perfectly capable of sleeping at that same table that's against the wall and near the elevator in the lobby. It's amazing how an object that you normally think of as flat and hard, a book, becomes an irresistible pillow when you're a little drowsy.

Other than my slightly altered learning method and schedule, my days have been pretty routine. The weather has been very nice since the typhoon passed. A few people died in it I've heard. At least one bridge collapsed, and there were a few land slides. Also my teacher keeps talking about huge American companies going bankrupt, Lehman Brothers and AIG. She often brings a news paper to class and tells us about the latest new. She's very animated and often acts some of it out for us. The newspaper she brings usually has a little storyboard for some of the more sensational news, usually murders or horrific accidents, whether in Taiwan, China, America, or recently Russia. I don't think you'd really need to even be able to read to understand some of the news in that newspaper. Maybe I don't have to learn Chinese after all!