midterm distraction by "Casino"; One-year anniversary overseas

Things are picking up rapidly around this time surrounding midterm exams and the group trip to southwestern China. At the moment I am taking a break from studying for a massive written (汉语） exam that will include, among other sections, two impromptu essays and a dictation covering 160 words, some of which are essentially completely trivial for me to know how to write (such as 招聘，燕子，汗珠）, but I am chugging through it nonetheless. I do like my teacher for that class quite a bit... among the Chinese students he has a reputation for being pretty intense. In class he is really animated and acts so ridiculous at times I just laugh and eventually he laughs with me, regardless of whether or not he knows why I am. He's one of those people whose mannerisms I can just think of and start laughing on the spot. I remember one time, a vocab word of ours was 吸毒 (to take drugs) to which he discussed by using the example of frequent drug use in the U.S. Then he went around the room and put a few of the students on the spot and asked each of them one after the other with a pointing finger: "你吸大麻啊？" ("Do you smoke weed?")
My other class is speaking for the most part, and that teacher I enjoy a lot as well. It's a much easier class to follow and moves considerably slower than my other, but I do appreciate the ability to have chances to talk more, and much of the grammar we learn in it is more applicable to common speech. Whereas in the other class Cao Laoshi will be going way into depth on a given grammar pattern only to reveal later that it's strictly used in written Chinese and not spoken. As for the speaking class, we generally have at least 2 speeches to give in front of the class each week, and that is good compared to the 1 or 2 oral speeches I was required to give each TERM back at the U of O.
Yesterday/today was the one year anniversary for Shawna and me which we conducted quite well with an ocean between us. She sent the absolute most sweetest thing that she had put together. I finished downloading it around 2 or 3 last night. At the time my roommate Funstar was asleep and I was pretty absorbed in watching the movie "Casino." I remember feeling really good as I turned off my computer and crawled into my bed, excited to see the gift in the morning and putting off the stresses of studying for another day.