Today was it. My first step into The Octagon.

Due to a small e-mail glitch, I didn’t get my weekly lesson plan until this morning, and my itinerary kept me out of the house most of the day. Still, I knew what today’s lesson was, so I listened to it about a half a dozen times in the car driving to and fro.

It was a Newbie lesson, for those playing the home game: 菜鸟144 Simple Toasts.

I’d kind of skipped past this one when it came around because I’m not a big drinker, and it seemed such a location-specific topic that I remember using that day to review other things. Anyway, I dug in today and I actually learned quite a bit from that expansion area. Don’t discount that stuff, people. That’s where the gold gets mined.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a very good student back in school. I don’t take notes well and I dislike pop quizzes. Enter Aggie. She calls me at our prearranged time and we get right to work! She asks me to speak the five or so new phrases that I’ve learned. I do, and she only has to correct me on one of them. (Mentally, I put the dunce cap back in the closet and save it for another day.)

Then we delve into that expansion area stuff. (I warned you, didn’t I?!) She speaks about a half a dozen sentences in English and asks me to translate them into Chinese. Again, she’s got minor corrections for me, but that’s it! Woo hoo!  We also talked a bit about grammar, and had a small chuckle over tomorrow’s lesson: 菜鸟133 Please Speak Slowly (She thought I was asking her to speak more slowly, when I was just clarifying the subject of tomorrow’s call. Heh.)

Our current plan is to hit me with two Newbie and three Elementary lessons a week. We’ll adjust that depending on how this first week goes.

I can’t speak for Aggie, but I felt like tonight’s call was a rousing success. I redeemed myself a little for my poor showing on our first call and I got a much-needed boost for my confidence. Starting off on that Newbie level was a good idea!

Lesson 1 is down. Just 39 to go!