红楼梦 三

星期六我和我丈夫到咖啡馆去学习.我看了...

贾雨村有了盘缠，便于十六日动身，进京赶考。他时来运转，考中进士，不久便升为知府。
这贾雨村飞黄腾达后，虽然破颇有才干，但为人贪酷，而且恃才侮上，他的同事都很讨厌他。

生词
盘缠　pan2chan traveling expenses
便于 bain4yu2 easy to, convenient for
动身 dong4shen1 set out on a journey, leave
运转 yun4zhuan4 revolve, turn around
升 sheng1 promote
府 fu3 government office
进士 jin4shi4 jin shi (introduced scholar) examination
飞黄腾达 fei1huang2teng2da2 become a rising star in the political world
颇 po1 quite considerable
才干 cai2gan4 ability competence
贪 tan1 corrupt
酷　ku4 cruel, oppressive
恃 shi4 rely on depend on
侮 wu4 insult bully
同事 tong1shi4 colleague
讨厌 tao3yan4 disagreeable, disgusting, repugnant

edit,
时来运转：

时机来了，运气有了好转。
time or luck has shifted in one's favour; fortune is smiling (on sb).

New Year

I'm not normally one for resoulutions but this year there's several things I've been needing to start doing and this seems like a good as time as any to practice a bit of self discipline.

1, spend at least one hour every day studying Chinese. Hopefully this will be a paragraph from 红楼梦 character practice and at least a 2-3 times a week sitting down for a couple of serious hours of studying classical. As well as attending a Mandarin class.

2, start getting regular exercise again and hopefully getting a bit thinner.

3, try to stay on budget better until I find a new job.

4, stop this habit of social smoking which I seem to have fallen into in the past couple months.

I think that was it. It was great fun having a couple weeks free from job hunting just to relax, see friends, read and play video games. I think I just need to structure my time a bit more productivley and start seriously focusing on my Chinese as it really is the most important thing for me in order to be able to do a phd.

I hope everyone had a fun New Year's eve and that the New Year will bring lots of happiness for everyone!
新年快乐！！