Evening blog

As I was just browsing facebook, and, more specifically, replying to a friend request from another China 15 member. I won't mention her name, to protect the innocence of FB users but I'll transcribe her recent status update: "Do you guys actually speak / understand Mandarin? Like, seriously? ohhhhh".

I'm a little nervous about heading to staging and PST, and I think that nervousness stems mostly from the looming, Berlin-esque language barrier staring me in the face. Reading that status update felt like a refreshing wave of community and commonality. My concern is pretty specific (How many people are really scared of not knowing Chinese?), so the relief of knowing someone else shares it, or at least possess the same lack of ability, is comforting.