Pressure from Michelle

Today, I got a mail from Shanghai's Michelle.  Here is a section of her letter:

How’s your English study going? Remember our pact? – that we each give ourselves 10 years for our ‘weaker’ language to catch up with our strong one? You’ve enrolled yourself in a school, but I’m not far behind either. I’ve bought myself abridged versions of 史记 and资治通鉴 where they place the 文言version along with the白话 one. I’m therefore able to have some idea what those (otherwise intimidating) history books say. I really, really believe that to be a good journalist, I must write my china stories with the history of China at the back of my mind. I’ve also picked up the habit of spending 5 minutes each day to memorize famous quotes from ancient poems/essays/sayings. In addition, I try to read as much as I can. Right now, I’m reading a 好玩interpretation of Ming history called “明朝那些事儿“ by a blog writer called 当年明月。It’s a bestseller in China right now, and presents Ming history in a ‘modern,’ accessible way – eg, one of the chapters is titled ‘朱元璋的第一桶金”。I’m also reading 易中天’s book on三国and watching CCTV’s 百家论坛 DVDs. I know from your interview that my Chinese ‘education’ is not as remotely 正统as yours, but it’s better than nothing.

Well, I really, truly feel pressure now. Of course , I remember our pact--that we each give ourselves 10 years for our ‘weaker’ language to catch up with our strong one,  but  how can I keep the same pace as sho  does?  She is much younger than me!  Anyway, under this pressure , from now on, at least, I will try no longer to regard literature review as a killer .

Good news is that she will come back Vancouver for a vacation soon. For that, I can not wait.

By the way, my instructor gave "a dream or a game" a good comment : "Your ideas and style put you on the top of our class". He also corrected a couple of "careless mistakes", which belong to technical problems and will be tackled over time.