Since I tend to travel to China every other year or so, I have started taking a class in Chinese.
The class has taken over my life.
It used to be that the rule of thumb for college classes was 3 hours of home work for every hour in class. In recent times, it has been scaled back to 1-2 hours per hour in class. My Chinese class seems to be old school because I spend about 10-12 hours a week doing the homework. I usually finish home work for Tuesday on the Saturday before and then start the homework for two Tuesdays hence on Sunday morning. Every morning, I wake up and do 1-1.5 hours of homework before heading off to work for the day. Saturdays I usually do several hours of work.
I figure I have to keep this schedule because our production season is starting very soon and will keep me from completing the homework before Monday or Tuesday unless I start 8 days early. What is slowing me down is writing everything in Chinese characters. It is like reproducing pictures rather than writing letters. If you write the letter J and don’t dot the lower case or cross it as an uppercase, no one will care. You leave a dot or line out on a Chinese character and it is a different word.
The thing is, I love it and anticipate taking the more advanced class next semester. While my pronunciation of the tones is probably off, I can grasp the vocabulary and grammar rules pretty well.
But it has gotten me to wondering– can I afford another time and energy consuming obsession alongside my career in the arts? I also wonder if my enthusiasm for learning the language comes from a similar place as my enthusiasm for the arts. While I was a good student when I was younger, I was never as diligent as I am with this class.
I have written a number of times on the idea that people in the arts are sustained by the emotional satisfaction they get from their jobs. This can lead to decision making which values devotion to the arts to detriment of their professional and personal development, financial situation, relationships and health.
Now given I actually have time to have something non-arts related monopolize my time is probably a sign that the amount of time I devote to my arts career may be at a healthy level. Or that I have merely displaced other portions of my life to accommodate both activities. (The pile of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes does seem higher lately…)
My brain may be releasing chemicals into my pleasure centers in relation to both arts and Chinese class, but I don’t think it comprises some sort of addiction. Still, I wonder if there is a tendency among arts people to exhibit personality traits common to those prone to addictions. If anyone has seen any studies, about arts people having addictive personalities, I would be interested to learn more.
In any case, it is something to which I will have to give more thought.
After I finish my Chinese homework.