I've been using them for several years now, my main source of Chinese study, and last year I won the Irish National Mandarin competition （汉语桥）. Nuff Said.
Wooo, check out the big brain on Brett!
I guess that did sound a little arrogant, huh? 
Apologies.
Probably because it's the first time I've ever been the champion at anything at all.
I'd love to hear more about it, actually. Tell me! Tell me! (I'm very competitive and want to compete, too 
)
the competition itself is a Chinese-style speech competition where all the contestants prepare a talk up to five minutes long. You'll be familiar with the English version of this if you've ever taught in a Chinese uni!
Being the annoying little swot that I am, I memorized two Chinese poems, one modern and one by Li Bai, and gave a comparison between them and similar styles of English language poems. (all in Chinese)
I needn't have tried so hard, as the competition was pretty weak (even though these were Chinese language majors!) and in fact I kind of ended up embarrassing eveyone there as my standard and levels of preparation were way beyond all the other competitors. This wasn't great as the univeristy that was hosting it (University College Cork) was using it as a flagship for their new Chinese language program... and then in walks ol' Fozzy from University College Dublin (Woo!), who's studying in his spare time, and murderises all their star pupils.
My boss (from UCD) was in the audience though, and I have had infinite kudos with her ever since.
