Surreal
Monday, July 13, 2009 @ 7:12 pm.
Chinese O Level Oral is over.
The waiting was terrible... at least two hours. We were sitting upstairs, not allowed to move, not allowed to do anything really, except melt in our own panic.
The group downstairs was allowed to walk around and take books from the shelves. We were very envious of them. I think. All we were capable of doing, really, was to play never-ending games of chopsticks, drink water, try and remember "vicious cycle" in Chinese, and of course obsessively time the duration taken by all the candidates.
Shortest time: Four minutes (Felicia)
Mode (?) time: Seven minutes. I think that was the longest time too, but I didn't time mine.
Reading passage was about not missing what you never had/ the grass is greener on the other side of the fence/ we need to experience worse things to appreciate our fortune or a mix of all of them. I'm not usually good at this part but at least the passage was easy so I didn't do as badly as I would have otherwise.
Conversation topic was - get this - CIP!
As in volunteer work organised by the school.
The examiner started with 学校安排的社区活动... then I kinda forgot the rest.
I asked him to repeat it again as I was digesting it, because I didn't get all of it at first and I needed to think, then I suddenly thought
ooh, could this be what I think it is?
So I asked him whether it was basically 义工, and he said yes.
Uh, yay!
I mean, I somewhat prepared for that and even if I didn't it's pretty easy to talk about too.
So I talked and then said something about never going to old folks' homes for CIP but since I've been there before because of my grandfather I do want to go there and help out.
The examiner asked something to the effect of "so, if you do go to an old folks' home, what will you do?"
So... I told him.
Then he asked, "So, if you do go to an old folks' home, how will you feel?"
And I thought
wait, haven't I told him this already?
So... I told him.
The female examiner, by the time I got to the jie jue fang fa, was just
smiling at me. I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.
Then I left.