. . .In class today, the teacher was discussing some well-known Chinese authors and poets whose works are still studied and quoted today. And it really got me thinking.
. . .My maternal grandmother was a very accomplied Chinese calligraphist and painter, who also enjoyed the acquaintence of the Taiwanese hero Chiang Kai Shek for well over two decades.
. . .My maternal grandfather, as well as being a first-class rank-immediately-below-general, was also a very skilled poet in Tang/Sung dynasty-styled poems.
. . .My eldest maternal aunt's husband, although not blood-family, has also exerted great influence in my family. As well as being a second-class general, he was also quite the accomplished author and novelist, whose book on logic/critical thinking became the popular/standard textbook used in many Taiwanese highschools and Universities.
. . .My second-eldest maternal aunt, although not in the profession of literature, was equally well-educated in the classics, and a great fan of novels and literature from past dynasties. Even her 'common speech' is easily recognisable as the words of the well-educated and linguistically adept.
. . .Finally, my mother, who on top of studying linguistics in University, also owns a very impressive collection of classical Chinese literature as well as more interesting volumes, such as a Sung-dynasty dictionary, and a copy of the original writings of the book on Confucius (which is to say, a copy in which the words are written in that archaic font instead of the modern Chinese written language).
. . .And then there's me, who can barely express my desired thoughts. With such a strong literary 'lineage', I cannot help but feel the utmost of shame for my inability to even read a sentence in a Chinese novel. So while most of you may commend me on my current fluency "for a CBC", I firmly believe that someone whose family is saturated with such Chinese literary influence as mine should be at a significantly higher proficiency than my current Mandarin standing.
. . .Today, however, I was lent two modern Chinese novels by my teacher at my request. Hopefully, by next week, my Chinese proficiency will take another giant leap forwards.
2003/10/31
2003/10/30
Happy Happy?
. . .Yay! I finally got a job teaching English here! Not much; an estimated $32 a week. But all I want is pocket money anyways, right? And hopefully, if I do a good job, she'll tell her friends, who'll tell their friends, etc.
. . .My student seems to be quite curious about the world, but rather silent... the signs of a thinker! haha. And I get along with the mother great; we talked a lot about things not relating to my duties as a tutor. ^^
. . .So I'm feeling pretty happy. Or at least, that's what I would have been saying had it not been for earlier today. Whatever good feelings I had from last night were quickly obliterated from the events of this morning.
. . .Woke up at 6:15am, at the click of the alarm clock I forgot to set. Luckily, I was already somewhat semi-conscious at the time that my alarm clock was supposed to go off. Remembering the events from yesterday, coupled with the anticipation of catching a cartoon show at 6:30am, I quickly got out of bed and went to the washroom to brush my teeth. But as I passed the living room couch on my way to the bathroom, I noticed that the normally empty couch was occupied by the slumbering figures of my uncle-in-law and the 9-month old family dog.
. . .Drat! I thought to myself, now I'll never get to watch TV. But apparently, my bustling in the washroom made enough noise to wake my uncle-in-law and the dog. By the time I had come out of the washroom, both parties had retreated to the master bedroom.
. . .Yay! I thought to myself, I get to watch TV now! But no sooner had I sat down and turned on the TV when my aunt waked by and tersely and sharply ordered me to turn of the television because she'd be walking back and forth in front of the TV and didn't want to suffer any radioactive injury. Mentally scoffing at this stereotypically Chinese attitude, I reluctantly turn off the TV, thinking to catch at least the ending of that episode after my aunt would finish with her morning routine of watering the plants.
. . .After her third trip back from the plants, I figured she must have finished by then, and decided to turn the TV back on. She came out again and started yelling, "Joey! I already told you not to turn on the TV! I'm almost finished anyways!"
To which I replied, "Well, my show's almost over too!"
. . ."Joey! I've already told you many times! The radiation emissions of this TV is especially high!"
. . ."Well, a little radiation won't kill you!"
. . ."How dare you say something like that!!"
. . .And then there was a little battle of stares to determine who's will was stronger. I then remembered that I was staying at her house as a guest, and should this be allowed to continue, it would get back to my mother, who would be sure to be unhappy with the situation. So I rudely clicked the TV off, and storm back into my room to sulk and wonder how in the world I was planning on resolving this mess.
. . ."And he's always talking about how other people breech etiquette," my aunt yelled down the hallway as she raged toward the master bedroom.
. . .So yah. Things are better now; sorta talked out stuff... sorta.. I mean, with the whole Chinese 'older is superior' thing, I kinda lost out on the deal. And I'm not even sure if I'm happy that everything's settled cuz now she just maintains the idea that I'm just a kid. (What the gay.)
. . .Class went by in a blur, so nothing remarkable to mention there. Though hopefully tomorrow, teacher'll lend me some novels to read for Chinese practice. ^__^
. . .My student seems to be quite curious about the world, but rather silent... the signs of a thinker! haha. And I get along with the mother great; we talked a lot about things not relating to my duties as a tutor. ^^
. . .So I'm feeling pretty happy. Or at least, that's what I would have been saying had it not been for earlier today. Whatever good feelings I had from last night were quickly obliterated from the events of this morning.
. . .Woke up at 6:15am, at the click of the alarm clock I forgot to set. Luckily, I was already somewhat semi-conscious at the time that my alarm clock was supposed to go off. Remembering the events from yesterday, coupled with the anticipation of catching a cartoon show at 6:30am, I quickly got out of bed and went to the washroom to brush my teeth. But as I passed the living room couch on my way to the bathroom, I noticed that the normally empty couch was occupied by the slumbering figures of my uncle-in-law and the 9-month old family dog.
. . .Drat! I thought to myself, now I'll never get to watch TV. But apparently, my bustling in the washroom made enough noise to wake my uncle-in-law and the dog. By the time I had come out of the washroom, both parties had retreated to the master bedroom.
. . .Yay! I thought to myself, I get to watch TV now! But no sooner had I sat down and turned on the TV when my aunt waked by and tersely and sharply ordered me to turn of the television because she'd be walking back and forth in front of the TV and didn't want to suffer any radioactive injury. Mentally scoffing at this stereotypically Chinese attitude, I reluctantly turn off the TV, thinking to catch at least the ending of that episode after my aunt would finish with her morning routine of watering the plants.
. . .After her third trip back from the plants, I figured she must have finished by then, and decided to turn the TV back on. She came out again and started yelling, "Joey! I already told you not to turn on the TV! I'm almost finished anyways!"
To which I replied, "Well, my show's almost over too!"
. . ."Joey! I've already told you many times! The radiation emissions of this TV is especially high!"
. . ."Well, a little radiation won't kill you!"
. . ."How dare you say something like that!!"
. . .And then there was a little battle of stares to determine who's will was stronger. I then remembered that I was staying at her house as a guest, and should this be allowed to continue, it would get back to my mother, who would be sure to be unhappy with the situation. So I rudely clicked the TV off, and storm back into my room to sulk and wonder how in the world I was planning on resolving this mess.
. . ."And he's always talking about how other people breech etiquette," my aunt yelled down the hallway as she raged toward the master bedroom.
. . .So yah. Things are better now; sorta talked out stuff... sorta.. I mean, with the whole Chinese 'older is superior' thing, I kinda lost out on the deal. And I'm not even sure if I'm happy that everything's settled cuz now she just maintains the idea that I'm just a kid. (What the gay.)
. . .Class went by in a blur, so nothing remarkable to mention there. Though hopefully tomorrow, teacher'll lend me some novels to read for Chinese practice. ^__^
2003/10/29
Droop
. . .I need someone to frisk me or something cuz apparently the 'mind over matter' theory isn't working too well right now for me. I REALLY want/need to continue working on my essay, but my lack of sentience isn't really helping...
2003/10/27
The Postmaster
. . .Class was strange. Apparently, since people caught a glimpse of my sketchbook yesterday, the class president wanted me to sign her uhh... 'memories book' or something. So I did... ... and then somehow, the topic of playing piano came up. "Can you play piano, Joseph?"
. . ."Err.. yah, I can play a bit..."
. . .After I ran away from the scary women, I decided to mail some letters on my way to my uncle-in-law's office, since there was a post office just outside the subway station. I walk around, reading the various counter names, got lost, asked information, "excuse me but ehh... do you sell Umm... *mimes envelope*"
. . .The woman looked at me strangely, and pointed to counter 7. "Any counter beyond 7 should be able to help you."
. . ."Thank you," said I as I made my merry way to counter 11. "I need to ehh... sent two letters to Canada. But ehh.. I don't have the umm... 'surrounding paper'." The man laughs. "You mean 'envelope'?"
. . ."Yah..."
. . ."Do you have postage?"
. . ."Nope."
. . ."That'll be $57NT in total."
. . .I take my sweet time writing down the addresses, then ask where the water sponges are for sealing the envelopes and attaching the stamps.
. . ."Just over there on the counter," he says. But I don't really see anything... So back to information I go. The lady was nice enough to walk with me right to the counter and pointed to this tin box with some sort of white paste inside with a brush handle protruding upwards.
. . ."Eww...." I think to myself, "a large brush for glue? How... barbaric..." But I finally get everything done, bring it back to the counter and ask if everything's fine.
. . ."Yup, that's all."
. . ."Err... how long will it take before it reaches there?"
. . ."About a week."
. . ."k, thanks!"
. . .But I have no idea if by a week they mean 7 days, or 5 business days, or 7 business days... @_@
. . ."Err.. yah, I can play a bit..."
. . .After I ran away from the scary women, I decided to mail some letters on my way to my uncle-in-law's office, since there was a post office just outside the subway station. I walk around, reading the various counter names, got lost, asked information, "excuse me but ehh... do you sell Umm... *mimes envelope*"
. . .The woman looked at me strangely, and pointed to counter 7. "Any counter beyond 7 should be able to help you."
. . ."Thank you," said I as I made my merry way to counter 11. "I need to ehh... sent two letters to Canada. But ehh.. I don't have the umm... 'surrounding paper'." The man laughs. "You mean 'envelope'?"
. . ."Yah..."
. . ."Do you have postage?"
. . ."Nope."
. . ."That'll be $57NT in total."
. . .I take my sweet time writing down the addresses, then ask where the water sponges are for sealing the envelopes and attaching the stamps.
. . ."Just over there on the counter," he says. But I don't really see anything... So back to information I go. The lady was nice enough to walk with me right to the counter and pointed to this tin box with some sort of white paste inside with a brush handle protruding upwards.
. . ."Eww...." I think to myself, "a large brush for glue? How... barbaric..." But I finally get everything done, bring it back to the counter and ask if everything's fine.
. . ."Yup, that's all."
. . ."Err... how long will it take before it reaches there?"
. . ."About a week."
. . ."k, thanks!"
. . .But I have no idea if by a week they mean 7 days, or 5 business days, or 7 business days... @_@
Blazing Ashes
. . .Discussions about one's personality - fun, insightful and informative.
. . .Discussions about one's personality in Chinese - slow and painful.
. . .Having said that, I hope to either master Chinese in a night, or leave Taiwan as soon as possible.
. . .Discussions about one's personality in Chinese - slow and painful.
. . .Having said that, I hope to either master Chinese in a night, or leave Taiwan as soon as possible.
hotmail in taiwan
. . .What the hey's wrong with hotmail???!? I try to download my attachment (which is shown to contain no virus. Then, instead of giving me the window to select which directory I'd like to save it under, it loads a "please re-enter password" screen. K, so I re-enter password. I'm now back at the 'home' page of my hotmail account. I go to inbox. then my e-mail. then attachments. "No virus found!". "download". "please re-enter password". What the F***!!!! Grr... and this cycle repeats no matter how many times I do it, under whichever language encoding. (so it can't be because the language setting is confusing how the code is being read. but it's not only this computer; the exact same thing happened to me at Tao Bai Ren's house on their family computer. GRR!!!
Terra Firma
. . .I hope I spelled that right. But yah. today's rant is about society. Well, it would be, but I just ate and now all the blood is devoted to digesting my food rather than helping me think.
. . .So the weekend. Yah. No internet over the weekend. Well, I did for a sparce few moments on Friday evening, but that was about it. E-mailed my Chinese essay(if you can call it that; it was about 239 words) to my teacher.
. . .Saturday involved sleeping in 'til around 9:30am or so. That was pretty sweet. Especially since I normally have to wake up at 6:30am in order to get to school on time. ($1 NT per minute late! NB: $25NT=$1Can.)
. . .Had some cold soy bean milk and an egg-with-bread thing for breakfast. Mmm... they call it 3-in-1, but I have no idea how to call two of the three ingredients in English. But that's basically what I've been having whenver I have breakfast. (Need more fruit...)
. . .Lazed in front of the TV the rest of the morning with sketchbook in hand. I've yet to buy normal, lose-leafed, lined paper -- it doesn't seem to be terribly popular around here. Everything's about notebooks. (So annoying. No wonder the students are always stressed.) Which means, I've yet to be able to start scribbling my ideas for my stories/novels.
. . .After a disinteresting lunch, I bussed over to Tao Bai Ren's house to lounge around. First the most part, I was surfing the 'net, researching archaic names and researching about Norse myth. Now I know what the "Fenrir Wolf" really means, and why it sounds 'cool'. Along with the three names Skuld, Urd and "Belldandy"(Veldandi), Yggdrasil, Freya, Ragnarok, etc. And yes, becoming frightfully hooked on é”探å�µãƒã‚(Mythical Detective Loki). Haha. I'm sure that hints at my sudden revived interest in Norse myth. The second half was devoted to writing a letter to Alison -- a letter of which I should send really soon... Especially since it already takes so long for letters to be delivered.
. . .Sunday... ... ehh... ... ... church started an hour early; they had a meeting after service to discuss the new year (finances, plans, etc.) Didn't really involve me so *poof* I went. Afternoon/evening also resulted in being in front of the tele. Saw Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone! haha. Mmmmm... British magic...
. . .Wanting to see several movies right now... "Underworld", "The Matrix Revolution" and "�左走��走", which stars Gigi(of HK) and Takeshi(of Taiwan/Japan). *sniff* nobody'll either let me, or go with me to see any movies in theatres; they all say it's too expensive... ... though it's about the same as in Toronto... everybody's a stinge here.
. . .I've made a goal for myself to write an essay a week in Chinese in the effort of improving my writing skills. (both penmanship and composition.) So this week, I shall write about ... uhh... something I know a lot about... first impressions of Taiwan, perhaps.
. . .K, food is making me feel too tired... ...
. . .So the weekend. Yah. No internet over the weekend. Well, I did for a sparce few moments on Friday evening, but that was about it. E-mailed my Chinese essay(if you can call it that; it was about 239 words) to my teacher.
. . .Saturday involved sleeping in 'til around 9:30am or so. That was pretty sweet. Especially since I normally have to wake up at 6:30am in order to get to school on time. ($1 NT per minute late! NB: $25NT=$1Can.)
. . .Had some cold soy bean milk and an egg-with-bread thing for breakfast. Mmm... they call it 3-in-1, but I have no idea how to call two of the three ingredients in English. But that's basically what I've been having whenver I have breakfast. (Need more fruit...)
. . .Lazed in front of the TV the rest of the morning with sketchbook in hand. I've yet to buy normal, lose-leafed, lined paper -- it doesn't seem to be terribly popular around here. Everything's about notebooks. (So annoying. No wonder the students are always stressed.) Which means, I've yet to be able to start scribbling my ideas for my stories/novels.
. . .After a disinteresting lunch, I bussed over to Tao Bai Ren's house to lounge around. First the most part, I was surfing the 'net, researching archaic names and researching about Norse myth. Now I know what the "Fenrir Wolf" really means, and why it sounds 'cool'. Along with the three names Skuld, Urd and "Belldandy"(Veldandi), Yggdrasil, Freya, Ragnarok, etc. And yes, becoming frightfully hooked on é”探å�µãƒã‚(Mythical Detective Loki). Haha. I'm sure that hints at my sudden revived interest in Norse myth. The second half was devoted to writing a letter to Alison -- a letter of which I should send really soon... Especially since it already takes so long for letters to be delivered.
. . .Sunday... ... ehh... ... ... church started an hour early; they had a meeting after service to discuss the new year (finances, plans, etc.) Didn't really involve me so *poof* I went. Afternoon/evening also resulted in being in front of the tele. Saw Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone! haha. Mmmmm... British magic...
. . .Wanting to see several movies right now... "Underworld", "The Matrix Revolution" and "�左走��走", which stars Gigi(of HK) and Takeshi(of Taiwan/Japan). *sniff* nobody'll either let me, or go with me to see any movies in theatres; they all say it's too expensive... ... though it's about the same as in Toronto... everybody's a stinge here.
. . .I've made a goal for myself to write an essay a week in Chinese in the effort of improving my writing skills. (both penmanship and composition.) So this week, I shall write about ... uhh... something I know a lot about... first impressions of Taiwan, perhaps.
. . .K, food is making me feel too tired... ...
2003/10/25
2003/10/23
Tempus Fugit
. . .Time is indeed of the essence, wouldn't one say? Ah, where's my Latin textbook when I need it. Then again, I should be working harder at Chinese, shouldn't I. I have such a great idea for how I might improve my Chinse essay (which is to be presented tomorrow), but the problem is, I sorta lack the proper vocabulary and literary exposure that a normal Chinese person would have in order to implement the idea that I have. In short, I wanted to write in the style of which I'm critizising. The idea is that people will think that my ideas are less valid because I'm imitating someone else's work, until they realize that that's exactly what I'm speaking against -- making them almost instantly agree. Ah, the joy of writing. But alas, I don't think a satire is entirely possible at this point in time. I need to know too many more words in order to be able to write with the freedom and agility that I do with the English language. (not that I'm a sequipedalianist or anything...)
. . .For the first time in my life, I finished a homework while in front of the computer -- meaning I get more play time when I get home tonight. ^_^
. . .I think I'll talk about the etiquette of expression one's opinions today.
. . .What is the difference between "I hate jazz" and "Jazz is the worst"? The former is a mere subjective statement of one's opinion -- the speaker is expressing his taste (or lack of taste, to some people) in music.
. . .But what of "Jazz is the worst"? This, I find, to be a most foul, offensive and unjust statement that should be shot. (Similar to Alison's attitude towards Confucius.) I think it's quite unforgivable when someone back-handedly dismisses an entire genre of music (in this case), or movies, TV programming, animation, novels, etc., simply one cannot or does not comprehend or appreciate its artistic value. Admittedly, each genre has its greater pieces of work which push the limits and challenge the norms of itself and pre-existing genres, as well as less-than-remarkable examples of why other genres might be prefered.
. . .I find this typically to be a careless form of speech (found in most youths in English-speaking North America -- Canada and USA), in which the speaker seems to somehow have convinced that his or her opinion is God-given fact, and is as thus stated.
. . ."Romance novels are nothing more than pornographic literature!" is something that is totally inaccurate, as well as being offensive to any young lady with dreams and imagination. If the speaker really felt that way about romance novels, one would be forced to question what kind of dull life has the speaker been leading.
. . .However strongly one feels for or against a certain genre, one should always be most careful to never state these opinions if possible, and at the very least, state them in such a manner that is in the least, unoffensive to enthusiasts of said genre. After all, were I to say "I think romance films are the best!" cannot offend anybody, since I have not said as if it were fact that romance films are in any way superior to any other genre. At the worst, someone might think less of me for not liking another 'better' genre. But nobody's truely offended by such statements that are expressed personal opinion. After all, tacit expressions of personal desires and tastes are firstly hard to distinguish, and secondly incomplete, as far as communicational etiquette is concerned. Whose etiquette? Mine, so to speak, but really, it's more of a quantified acumulation of my years of observation of human interaction. (another reason why I find etiquette so important -- my sensitivity picks up on pretty much everything.)
. . .Not to say that I'm the most sensitive there is when it comes to these matters, but apparently, I'm more easily offended and injured than most people. And perhaps, if everybody were a little more attentive and a little less careless, we might all end up living in a better world, because (and I realize this is a bit of a stretch) war might just be avoided. ^___^
. . .To such individuals beyond saving (Chen, for example), I can only pray that God gives them the mental agility and intellectual malleability that only the youth possess for the ability to change and adapt oneself to any particular or prefered situation.
. . .For the first time in my life, I finished a homework while in front of the computer -- meaning I get more play time when I get home tonight. ^_^
. . .I think I'll talk about the etiquette of expression one's opinions today.
. . .What is the difference between "I hate jazz" and "Jazz is the worst"? The former is a mere subjective statement of one's opinion -- the speaker is expressing his taste (or lack of taste, to some people) in music.
. . .But what of "Jazz is the worst"? This, I find, to be a most foul, offensive and unjust statement that should be shot. (Similar to Alison's attitude towards Confucius.) I think it's quite unforgivable when someone back-handedly dismisses an entire genre of music (in this case), or movies, TV programming, animation, novels, etc., simply one cannot or does not comprehend or appreciate its artistic value. Admittedly, each genre has its greater pieces of work which push the limits and challenge the norms of itself and pre-existing genres, as well as less-than-remarkable examples of why other genres might be prefered.
. . .I find this typically to be a careless form of speech (found in most youths in English-speaking North America -- Canada and USA), in which the speaker seems to somehow have convinced that his or her opinion is God-given fact, and is as thus stated.
. . ."Romance novels are nothing more than pornographic literature!" is something that is totally inaccurate, as well as being offensive to any young lady with dreams and imagination. If the speaker really felt that way about romance novels, one would be forced to question what kind of dull life has the speaker been leading.
. . .However strongly one feels for or against a certain genre, one should always be most careful to never state these opinions if possible, and at the very least, state them in such a manner that is in the least, unoffensive to enthusiasts of said genre. After all, were I to say "I think romance films are the best!" cannot offend anybody, since I have not said as if it were fact that romance films are in any way superior to any other genre. At the worst, someone might think less of me for not liking another 'better' genre. But nobody's truely offended by such statements that are expressed personal opinion. After all, tacit expressions of personal desires and tastes are firstly hard to distinguish, and secondly incomplete, as far as communicational etiquette is concerned. Whose etiquette? Mine, so to speak, but really, it's more of a quantified acumulation of my years of observation of human interaction. (another reason why I find etiquette so important -- my sensitivity picks up on pretty much everything.)
. . .Not to say that I'm the most sensitive there is when it comes to these matters, but apparently, I'm more easily offended and injured than most people. And perhaps, if everybody were a little more attentive and a little less careless, we might all end up living in a better world, because (and I realize this is a bit of a stretch) war might just be avoided. ^___^
. . .To such individuals beyond saving (Chen, for example), I can only pray that God gives them the mental agility and intellectual malleability that only the youth possess for the ability to change and adapt oneself to any particular or prefered situation.
2003/10/22
Maternal Alliance
. . .Did I ever mention the fact that my uncle-in-law was an architect? I'm seeing the office printer in action for the first time!! It's sooo cool!!! Whee... Go CMYK! (well, no, I'm a RBG guy myself, but ehh... I'd like to see YOU print that pure RBG green on a CMYK printer!)
. . .ehehe... It prints on that cool nifty architecture paper thingy. (the kind that my sworn-sister hand-drew for that project she had to hand in in Toronto) hehe.. and it cuts the paper itself too! (since blueprints don't necessarily have their own default size of paper -- unlike normal essay paper (e.g. legal, letter, A3, A4, A5, &c.)
. . .Must... master... Chinese.
. . .ehehe... It prints on that cool nifty architecture paper thingy. (the kind that my sworn-sister hand-drew for that project she had to hand in in Toronto) hehe.. and it cuts the paper itself too! (since blueprints don't necessarily have their own default size of paper -- unlike normal essay paper (e.g. legal, letter, A3, A4, A5, &c.)
. . .Must... master... Chinese.
Sinophile
. . .Am I? No. But now that I have my own Chinese blog, I don't really have an urge to write in Chinese anymore here. hehe. So kudos to all my readers.
. . .Booh. Need to meet more people. I was all happy and stuff this morning too! Then I see the face of that cute guy from the Uni café, and suddenly I get all depressed and stuff. Crying dry tears. What's going on? Is it because he reminds me of Geoffrey? Does the memory of Geoffrey indeed haunt me so? Or do I make myself remember because I've been raised to think that it should?
. . .Interestingly enough, I've begun to type faster in English here than I usually did when I was in Toronto. Strange, isn't it? though I suddenly seem to be making a lot of typos and most of the speed seems to be my fingers lunging for the [backspace] button.
. . .So I have an interview this Friday for teaching English. Currently, this is pretty much my only hope at making any sort of money to buy nice things for myself. (Why can't I have nice things???? -- funny quote.)
. . .Apparently, I'm learning a lot of Chinese. I guess it all comes out of practice; reading more and speaking more really do have their merits. Go idioms. Argh. At least with English, we're allowed to pun, joke and abuse 'commonly accepted usage' for certain phrases. But apparently that's somewhat frowned upon here in Taiwan, and instead, they see such 'poor' usage of idioms to be the signs of a poorly educated or simply uneducated commoner. (well, maybe not as severe as 'commoner' but definately not literatus).
. . .Yarg. Need ability to walk up to random strangers and strike up conversations.
. . .Booh. Need to meet more people. I was all happy and stuff this morning too! Then I see the face of that cute guy from the Uni café, and suddenly I get all depressed and stuff. Crying dry tears. What's going on? Is it because he reminds me of Geoffrey? Does the memory of Geoffrey indeed haunt me so? Or do I make myself remember because I've been raised to think that it should?
. . .Interestingly enough, I've begun to type faster in English here than I usually did when I was in Toronto. Strange, isn't it? though I suddenly seem to be making a lot of typos and most of the speed seems to be my fingers lunging for the [backspace] button.
. . .So I have an interview this Friday for teaching English. Currently, this is pretty much my only hope at making any sort of money to buy nice things for myself. (Why can't I have nice things???? -- funny quote.)
. . .Apparently, I'm learning a lot of Chinese. I guess it all comes out of practice; reading more and speaking more really do have their merits. Go idioms. Argh. At least with English, we're allowed to pun, joke and abuse 'commonly accepted usage' for certain phrases. But apparently that's somewhat frowned upon here in Taiwan, and instead, they see such 'poor' usage of idioms to be the signs of a poorly educated or simply uneducated commoner. (well, maybe not as severe as 'commoner' but definately not literatus).
. . .Yarg. Need ability to walk up to random strangers and strike up conversations.
2003/10/21
Blog time!
. . .YAY! I added another page to one of my two smaller projects. But I still have no idea what I'm going to be doing for my thesis. I mean, how do I get two people to supervise something like that? And if/when I graduate from IS, do we have our own convocation, or do with make friendly with the arties?
. . .Growing more and more confused. From the dawn of my sentient existence, I have always considered it very crude, barbaric, rude, vulgar, etc., to openly and publically discuss and joke about seemingly 'dirty' matters. ('yellow' as it were for the Chinese.) But then again, that's not entirely true. I mean, when it's a sleep-over or something, and my friends and I are as giddy as drugged commoners, we speak just as they do, without a hint of any particularly conservative or traditional upbringing.
. . .perhaps, then, my own personal distinction for this subject resides within both the level of familiarity I have with that person, and place. For example, in the privacy of one's own home, why shouldn't one have the right to speak however one wishes? But if one were in the company of a bosom-friend (archaic term, leave me alone) but in a public area such as a train station, perhaps they should save the vulgar merriment for when their actions leave no impression on society.
. . .Extraordinary. So technically, I find it bad taste to speak about those kinds of things largely because it's spoken with people I'm not terribly familiar with. Though I appear to have let down my guard today with an online conversation I had. I don't know if it has any bearing on how that person thinks of me now, but since we've never met in person, I guess it's impossible to say whether that person thinks anything of me at all...
. . .So funnily enough, we're back at the sensitivity issue. Why do I care whether people message me first or whether I initiate a conversation? Because of the implications. I imagine, if a person wasn't terribly eager to speak to me, he or she'd cut short the conversation. But not even that... it's nice when people message first because it shows that they care. If they never initiate but they'll have a conversation if one initiates, it seems to imply that they're quite indifferent. (nonchalant, even.) "cool", as it were. (no pun intended, Ian.)
. . .A very frosty-cold wind is bellowing through the empty recesses of my life...
. . .Wouldn't it be nice if we could just meet random people without fear of being hurt or harrassed? Wouldn't it be grand if we could just walk up to someone on the subway, strike up a conversation and end up being great friends? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could meet someone online and then meet in person without fear of mistaken age and gender?
. . .And I'll bet most of you are asking, "wouldn't it be great if Joseph would wake up and realise that the world is a cold and ugly place?"
. . .Well, I'm afraid I'm a dreamer and an idealist. ^^;
. . .Growing more and more confused. From the dawn of my sentient existence, I have always considered it very crude, barbaric, rude, vulgar, etc., to openly and publically discuss and joke about seemingly 'dirty' matters. ('yellow' as it were for the Chinese.) But then again, that's not entirely true. I mean, when it's a sleep-over or something, and my friends and I are as giddy as drugged commoners, we speak just as they do, without a hint of any particularly conservative or traditional upbringing.
. . .perhaps, then, my own personal distinction for this subject resides within both the level of familiarity I have with that person, and place. For example, in the privacy of one's own home, why shouldn't one have the right to speak however one wishes? But if one were in the company of a bosom-friend (archaic term, leave me alone) but in a public area such as a train station, perhaps they should save the vulgar merriment for when their actions leave no impression on society.
. . .Extraordinary. So technically, I find it bad taste to speak about those kinds of things largely because it's spoken with people I'm not terribly familiar with. Though I appear to have let down my guard today with an online conversation I had. I don't know if it has any bearing on how that person thinks of me now, but since we've never met in person, I guess it's impossible to say whether that person thinks anything of me at all...
. . .So funnily enough, we're back at the sensitivity issue. Why do I care whether people message me first or whether I initiate a conversation? Because of the implications. I imagine, if a person wasn't terribly eager to speak to me, he or she'd cut short the conversation. But not even that... it's nice when people message first because it shows that they care. If they never initiate but they'll have a conversation if one initiates, it seems to imply that they're quite indifferent. (nonchalant, even.) "cool", as it were. (no pun intended, Ian.)
. . .A very frosty-cold wind is bellowing through the empty recesses of my life...
. . .Wouldn't it be nice if we could just meet random people without fear of being hurt or harrassed? Wouldn't it be grand if we could just walk up to someone on the subway, strike up a conversation and end up being great friends? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could meet someone online and then meet in person without fear of mistaken age and gender?
. . .And I'll bet most of you are asking, "wouldn't it be great if Joseph would wake up and realise that the world is a cold and ugly place?"
. . .Well, I'm afraid I'm a dreamer and an idealist. ^^;
2003/10/20
Rescue me...
help me...
. . .At mother's Taiwan best friend's house right now. Her son has brought two guests for dinner, and made things extremely socially awkward for myself. Why?
1. Little if any introductions were made. I have no idea with what relation they have to anybody nay, to each other.
2. Since I'm the foreigner, it's a natural subconcious (or perhaps superconcious) inclination to stray from the 'odd-one out', and to chat about more merry matters which apply to a greater number of people. Sufficed to say, I'm feeling alone in a room full of people. And so, I escaped the dinner table to type my feelings away on this blog. The real tricky part is to mask the feelings that I type; I'm sure they'd be able to sense a hint of discomfort and/or emotional anguish.
. . .Yay! People online, so I don't have to write anymore. Now to distract my emotional mind with
. . .At mother's Taiwan best friend's house right now. Her son has brought two guests for dinner, and made things extremely socially awkward for myself. Why?
1. Little if any introductions were made. I have no idea with what relation they have to anybody nay, to each other.
2. Since I'm the foreigner, it's a natural subconcious (or perhaps superconcious) inclination to stray from the 'odd-one out', and to chat about more merry matters which apply to a greater number of people. Sufficed to say, I'm feeling alone in a room full of people. And so, I escaped the dinner table to type my feelings away on this blog. The real tricky part is to mask the feelings that I type; I'm sure they'd be able to sense a hint of discomfort and/or emotional anguish.
. . .Yay! People online, so I don't have to write anymore. Now to distract my emotional mind with
Words and Wishes
. . .Words. What are words? Representation of things, actions or relationships between those things and actions. Why do I care so much?
. . .People say things all the time which conceptually or semantically offend me all the time. If they don't have any ill-will, and only mean well, is it wrong for me to be offended? Is it wrong to be sensitive? Many of my closer friends seem to struggle with this question as well. "Why should I care when the person(or people) I care for don't seem to care back?" Certain thoughts which I thought were universal in human interaction apparently don't necessarily exist in every else's mind. Even the mere idea that different people think differently doesn't seem to reside within the murky depths of some people's minds. They say things like, "well, if [event A] happened, you'd feel the same!" No, I wouldn't. How DARE you have the audacity to equate my intelligence and thought processes to that of your assumptive self! Might I react in a *similar* manner? perhaps. But the "same"? Say it once more and you will no longer have the right to my acquaintance.
. . .Inarguably, there are some brilliant forms of 'misusing' certain words for expressed emphasis. E.g. "he's frightfully witty", "the thirsty woman practically inhaled the jug of water". Of such creative and literary uses of words I am not forming an attack against. But rather, the stark opposite. Conversation forms which stem from the notion that pragmatism has supremacy o'er decorum. People who give orders instead of requests; speak in imperatives instead of questions. It is thee to whom I spite!
. . .One would almost surmise that what was once called 'manners' is now a thing of the past. Social greetings aren't necessary because they waste both time, effort, energy and resources. Narcissists who don't even bother to pretend to care jump out of nowhere with "give me the book" instead of "might I borrow your book?". Nevermind "Hi, how are you today? Did you remember our previous conversation regarding Dostoevsky? I was wondering if you might have remembered and brought the novel."
. . .Am I angry? Guess. You pragmatists and CS/Eng. people at UW! You only live and survive because of your morbid numbers. Such unnatural state of being shouldn't be allowed, and it is at fault of our society for which such perversion of social development has been allowed to continue. They say, "he doesn't have any friends, but he makes up for it because he has a brilliant mind." I ask you, what's so brilliant about a person who can't even tell the difference in connotation between "Good evening" and "hey, how's it goin'?"?? The Chinese have a saying, 增廣見聞, which basically means, "The more friends one has, the more perspective can be brought to him". Which is basically a tacit statement saying that one who has no friends essentially has no perspective, nay, isn't really a person. (notice how my tone is getting more and more angry? ^^;)
. . .K, I just finished practicing Fantasie Impromptu (by Chopin) for about an hour, so I'm feeling a little more happy. I'll finish this attack against society some other time.
. . .People say things all the time which conceptually or semantically offend me all the time. If they don't have any ill-will, and only mean well, is it wrong for me to be offended? Is it wrong to be sensitive? Many of my closer friends seem to struggle with this question as well. "Why should I care when the person(or people) I care for don't seem to care back?" Certain thoughts which I thought were universal in human interaction apparently don't necessarily exist in every else's mind. Even the mere idea that different people think differently doesn't seem to reside within the murky depths of some people's minds. They say things like, "well, if [event A] happened, you'd feel the same!" No, I wouldn't. How DARE you have the audacity to equate my intelligence and thought processes to that of your assumptive self! Might I react in a *similar* manner? perhaps. But the "same"? Say it once more and you will no longer have the right to my acquaintance.
. . .Inarguably, there are some brilliant forms of 'misusing' certain words for expressed emphasis. E.g. "he's frightfully witty", "the thirsty woman practically inhaled the jug of water". Of such creative and literary uses of words I am not forming an attack against. But rather, the stark opposite. Conversation forms which stem from the notion that pragmatism has supremacy o'er decorum. People who give orders instead of requests; speak in imperatives instead of questions. It is thee to whom I spite!
. . .One would almost surmise that what was once called 'manners' is now a thing of the past. Social greetings aren't necessary because they waste both time, effort, energy and resources. Narcissists who don't even bother to pretend to care jump out of nowhere with "give me the book" instead of "might I borrow your book?". Nevermind "Hi, how are you today? Did you remember our previous conversation regarding Dostoevsky? I was wondering if you might have remembered and brought the novel."
. . .Am I angry? Guess. You pragmatists and CS/Eng. people at UW! You only live and survive because of your morbid numbers. Such unnatural state of being shouldn't be allowed, and it is at fault of our society for which such perversion of social development has been allowed to continue. They say, "he doesn't have any friends, but he makes up for it because he has a brilliant mind." I ask you, what's so brilliant about a person who can't even tell the difference in connotation between "Good evening" and "hey, how's it goin'?"?? The Chinese have a saying, 增廣見聞, which basically means, "The more friends one has, the more perspective can be brought to him". Which is basically a tacit statement saying that one who has no friends essentially has no perspective, nay, isn't really a person. (notice how my tone is getting more and more angry? ^^;)
. . .K, I just finished practicing Fantasie Impromptu (by Chopin) for about an hour, so I'm feeling a little more happy. I'll finish this attack against society some other time.
Culture and Life
. . .Had to recite my Confusian quote today in class. I got the longest one too! And I was the last to go, so I had to top everybody! ahaha.. well, no, but I couldn't afford to look bad, cuz the best had already gone. Utilizing my newly learned form of reading, I recited and got full marks! :D
. . .At this point, only REALLY Chinese people would understand what I'm talking about here. Basically, there's the normal of reading -- synonymous to the way one would speak. Then there's the poetic way of reading Chinese literature, where the high notes go higher and the low notes go lower. One's supposed to sway one's head to convey the full emotion and meaning in the literature. And there's no set rule either. Because it's older Chinese that's being read, something that's a descending tone in modern Mandarin very often is an ascending tone in its original form. Which makes it doubly hard to understand what's being recited if one doesn't already have prior knowledge of the piece being recited.
. . .skipped breakfast today; alarm clock didn't go off. Or it did and I subconciously turned it off. My dreams have been getting really interesting. I'm thinking of writing a story based on one of my dreams, and titling it "the grasslands". Sounds kinda boring but I promise you, the dream was interesting. ^_^
. . .Speaking of writing, I need to write more. I'm horribly behind with my other writing too. At least I half-finished my essay for this week. I gave it to my teacher to edit for me so that I can rewrite it, hopefully in time for Friday. ^___^
. . .What I really need is a computer at night; that's when I can be most productive/creative. 'Cause it's impossible to force creativity in a working environment, such as my uncle-in-law's office. I can't even stretch my legs at this desk because the underneath is piled with crap. *fumes*
. . .Haven't really drawn in a while either...
. . .After reading what my American friend Alex said about me in his 10.19th entry, my heart rate must have doubled and I'm sure I'm blushing. Ah, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop... *takes a looong gulp of ice-cold water* k, stopped blushing. All I can say is awww~~~ love ya, Alex! ^^;
. . .It's great because although we don't share a lot of common interests, I feel that we're learning lots from each other -- learning things from a perspective so totally different and almost skewed from our own. (ahh.. there's that word again. "skewed". must... fustigate...) He said that I had an amazingly expansive vocabulary (paraphrased), but I can't possibly imagine from what he's gleaning this impression. According to some IQ/English vocab. test I took a few years ago, I ranked dangerously low against the Canadian population... (my ranked percentile was 93 or 87.... something REALLY low...)
. . .Didn't really appreciate being labeled a 'republican' (or was it 'democrat'?), mainly because I'm not an American, and also because I don't really have any strong political views. But if that's what helps give someone a framework from which to understand me, I guess I can live with it... ...though I fear I may be breaking convention again. (whee...)
. . .All in all, though, I must say that Alex is a great guy. Always in good humour with just a touch of cynicism, he's not too sweet nor too sour. =P
. . .At this point, only REALLY Chinese people would understand what I'm talking about here. Basically, there's the normal of reading -- synonymous to the way one would speak. Then there's the poetic way of reading Chinese literature, where the high notes go higher and the low notes go lower. One's supposed to sway one's head to convey the full emotion and meaning in the literature. And there's no set rule either. Because it's older Chinese that's being read, something that's a descending tone in modern Mandarin very often is an ascending tone in its original form. Which makes it doubly hard to understand what's being recited if one doesn't already have prior knowledge of the piece being recited.
. . .skipped breakfast today; alarm clock didn't go off. Or it did and I subconciously turned it off. My dreams have been getting really interesting. I'm thinking of writing a story based on one of my dreams, and titling it "the grasslands". Sounds kinda boring but I promise you, the dream was interesting. ^_^
. . .Speaking of writing, I need to write more. I'm horribly behind with my other writing too. At least I half-finished my essay for this week. I gave it to my teacher to edit for me so that I can rewrite it, hopefully in time for Friday. ^___^
. . .What I really need is a computer at night; that's when I can be most productive/creative. 'Cause it's impossible to force creativity in a working environment, such as my uncle-in-law's office. I can't even stretch my legs at this desk because the underneath is piled with crap. *fumes*
. . .Haven't really drawn in a while either...
. . .After reading what my American friend Alex said about me in his 10.19th entry, my heart rate must have doubled and I'm sure I'm blushing. Ah, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop... *takes a looong gulp of ice-cold water* k, stopped blushing. All I can say is awww~~~ love ya, Alex! ^^;
. . .It's great because although we don't share a lot of common interests, I feel that we're learning lots from each other -- learning things from a perspective so totally different and almost skewed from our own. (ahh.. there's that word again. "skewed". must... fustigate...) He said that I had an amazingly expansive vocabulary (paraphrased), but I can't possibly imagine from what he's gleaning this impression. According to some IQ/English vocab. test I took a few years ago, I ranked dangerously low against the Canadian population... (my ranked percentile was 93 or 87.... something REALLY low...)
. . .Didn't really appreciate being labeled a 'republican' (or was it 'democrat'?), mainly because I'm not an American, and also because I don't really have any strong political views. But if that's what helps give someone a framework from which to understand me, I guess I can live with it... ...though I fear I may be breaking convention again. (whee...)
. . .All in all, though, I must say that Alex is a great guy. Always in good humour with just a touch of cynicism, he's not too sweet nor too sour. =P
2003/10/17
Update~
. . .For the frightfully astute, one may have noticed a new link at the top right of the sidebar. After being here for nearly a month, I decided that a good way to practice is to write regularly in Chinese. So, there it is, my Chinese blog! Granted, it won't be as informative and/or entertaining as this one, but hopefully my Taiwanese buddies'll get a kick out of it. ... out of the bad grammar probably. Or misuse of words. For those of you who can read (or want to have a hobby), feel free to saunter on there and check it out. ^_^ My English isn't entirely what it usually is right now because I was strangled into a converation with a weirdo. Who thought I was Japanese... Anyways.
. . .My head is spinning. Today's Friday, isn't it. When I got off class today, I couldn't get online cuz of uhh... yah... stuff. Too many outlets in the office, and everything wasn't set up when I arrived.. booh. But After a headache and some Taiwanese KFC, I'm finally online! ... when it's around 3:00am for pretty much everybody I'd talk to online...
. . .What happened in class today? It seemed so long ago... I got my other hw back, but I'm not sure if she found it funny or inappropriate. I also found some extra-information for my essay/poem report thing next week. I'm supposed to critique(I think) these four lines that this woman wrote in the Tang Dynasty (about 1000 years ago).
. . .Yah.. so guess what I'll be doing this weekend? STUDYING. booh. And preparing my speech/essay for next week, when I have to present my thoughts on the poem. Oooou, my head really hurts right now. Never before has that Chinese expression meant so much to me before... ... ... or the English expression, "It hurts to think"... maybe I need more sleep. ...or water.Whee... look at me go.
. . .Crap. Just remembered. Also need to memorize those four Confucian quotes. Well, Confusian phrases... since they can't very well be direct quotes -- something about Confucius never actually writing everything down, but rather stuff that his students wrote down after he died. But it begs to question how exactly they spoke back then. If they indeed had such a harsh and strict gap between written Chinese and spoken Chinese.
. . .Whee... Thoughts float back to Canada once more. Yes, Shelly, I got your mail. And no, it wasn't sent to the wrong address. Rest assured. ^^ I'll be sending you a letter back sometime ehh.. soon. :P I bought some pretty paper especially for writing your letter. Feel special? I sure don't. j/k~
. . .Oh yah. I recently started watching a Taiwanese show; it's about this ehh... guy. And this... girl. Apparently, they're working for the devil or something. But this catholic priest can see them even though everybody else is oblivious to their presence. It's interesting. And some of the characters use some pretty formal Chinese so kudos to me! I just have to repeat everything they say and then I should be able to bring my Chinese up to their level, right? ehehe...
. . .My head is spinning. Today's Friday, isn't it. When I got off class today, I couldn't get online cuz of uhh... yah... stuff. Too many outlets in the office, and everything wasn't set up when I arrived.. booh. But After a headache and some Taiwanese KFC, I'm finally online! ... when it's around 3:00am for pretty much everybody I'd talk to online...
. . .What happened in class today? It seemed so long ago... I got my other hw back, but I'm not sure if she found it funny or inappropriate. I also found some extra-information for my essay/poem report thing next week. I'm supposed to critique(I think) these four lines that this woman wrote in the Tang Dynasty (about 1000 years ago).
. . .Yah.. so guess what I'll be doing this weekend? STUDYING. booh. And preparing my speech/essay for next week, when I have to present my thoughts on the poem. Oooou, my head really hurts right now. Never before has that Chinese expression meant so much to me before... ... ... or the English expression, "It hurts to think"... maybe I need more sleep. ...or water.Whee... look at me go.
. . .Crap. Just remembered. Also need to memorize those four Confucian quotes. Well, Confusian phrases... since they can't very well be direct quotes -- something about Confucius never actually writing everything down, but rather stuff that his students wrote down after he died. But it begs to question how exactly they spoke back then. If they indeed had such a harsh and strict gap between written Chinese and spoken Chinese.
. . .Whee... Thoughts float back to Canada once more. Yes, Shelly, I got your mail. And no, it wasn't sent to the wrong address. Rest assured. ^^ I'll be sending you a letter back sometime ehh.. soon. :P I bought some pretty paper especially for writing your letter. Feel special? I sure don't. j/k~
. . .Oh yah. I recently started watching a Taiwanese show; it's about this ehh... guy. And this... girl. Apparently, they're working for the devil or something. But this catholic priest can see them even though everybody else is oblivious to their presence. It's interesting. And some of the characters use some pretty formal Chinese so kudos to me! I just have to repeat everything they say and then I should be able to bring my Chinese up to their level, right? ehehe...
2003/10/16
ehehe..
. . .Ehehe... apparently, 10/16 is the date; not my score... ^^; Ah, I really don't understand this culture.
冬暖夏涼
. . .Teacher really liked my homework today. ^___^ Yay! 16/16! ... At least, I hope it's a 16/16, since she only gave checkmarks... and I'm hoping her pen was a little dry, otherwise it'd mean that I only got 10/16. *weeps*
. . .Yay! Talking to hs friends whom I haven't spoken to in ages... Apparently, I kinda lost track of people when I was doing all my flying around. ^^; =D
. . .Aside from that, not too much terribly exciting happening in my life right now. Learning more and more words... ... and yah. Time to do some more studying... ^^;
. . .Yay! Talking to hs friends whom I haven't spoken to in ages... Apparently, I kinda lost track of people when I was doing all my flying around. ^^; =D
. . .Aside from that, not too much terribly exciting happening in my life right now. Learning more and more words... ... and yah. Time to do some more studying... ^^;
2003/10/14
見利思義
. . .可惡!! Nobody's messaging me ... ... 'cept for a certain ex-fangirl... *sniff sniff* Am I the only one who has time to spare? Well, no, not really -- I really should be working as well.
. . .Class was really good today; learned some more Chinese literary devices. They also organized things differently, so it was kinda fun for me with me English and all. So yah, basically, I learned about rhetorical questions (apparently, there's three kinds of them), and also two forms of oxymorons. Well, only one's really an oxymoron, I think the other one's just reg. conceptual contrast. (ehehe... the difference between coherence and cohesion...)
. . .Gotta memorize some Confucian quotes and stuff for my test sometime this week. People are picking on me for being the 'other guy' in the class... (this is what I get for being in a class filled with females...) ... not that they're evil or anything...
...not that I'm bitter or anything...
. . .Woman who sits behind me is being a little too friendly, in my opinion. Either she likes me, or she's trying to 'help' me 'fit in'. Blarg.. Away from me, away I say! *hem* No, she's not that bad... I'd just rather not be talking in class. ^^; Yah, have homework today... (for the first time). Gotta do some ... ... exercises to prove I know how to use those literary devises. Whee... So, off I go...
. . .Aside from that, not too much has happened yet. Waiting for lunch to arrive... ... and freaking out at the alarmingly slow pace at which I'm learning Mandarin. Maybe I should stop blogging in English... :P
. . .Ah, it's too funny. Checked my marks today for last semester, and for the Algebra class, to which I practically only went 9 times for, and the final exam of which I finished an hour and a half early, I ended with an 83%! WHOOHOO! And ahaha. I wonder where I lost my 17%...
. . .Class was really good today; learned some more Chinese literary devices. They also organized things differently, so it was kinda fun for me with me English and all. So yah, basically, I learned about rhetorical questions (apparently, there's three kinds of them), and also two forms of oxymorons. Well, only one's really an oxymoron, I think the other one's just reg. conceptual contrast. (ehehe... the difference between coherence and cohesion...)
. . .Gotta memorize some Confucian quotes and stuff for my test sometime this week. People are picking on me for being the 'other guy' in the class... (this is what I get for being in a class filled with females...) ... not that they're evil or anything...
...not that I'm bitter or anything...
. . .Woman who sits behind me is being a little too friendly, in my opinion. Either she likes me, or she's trying to 'help' me 'fit in'. Blarg.. Away from me, away I say! *hem* No, she's not that bad... I'd just rather not be talking in class. ^^; Yah, have homework today... (for the first time). Gotta do some ... ... exercises to prove I know how to use those literary devises. Whee... So, off I go...
. . .Aside from that, not too much has happened yet. Waiting for lunch to arrive... ... and freaking out at the alarmingly slow pace at which I'm learning Mandarin. Maybe I should stop blogging in English... :P
. . .Ah, it's too funny. Checked my marks today for last semester, and for the Algebra class, to which I practically only went 9 times for, and the final exam of which I finished an hour and a half early, I ended with an 83%! WHOOHOO! And ahaha. I wonder where I lost my 17%...
2003/10/13
Taiwan Stalker!
. . .So yah... today after class, on my way to my uncle-in-law's office, I'm standing in the train, waiting for my stop when this woman suddenly approaches me. At first, I reason, "well, I'm by the door, so she's probably getting off at the next stop. No need to be alarmed.
. . ."ehh... sorry for asking but umm... how long did it take you to grow your hair?"
. . ."geeehh.... .... 4 years..."
. . ."Ah, really! So anybody can grow hair as long as yours in four years, or does your hair grow especially fast?"
. . ."iunno..."
. . .And yah... conversation spawned from then, and stuff. She ended up asking for my name and phone number, but settled for my e-mail instead. Talk about scary!!!!
. . .Meanwhile, I'm being threatened to include a certain someone in this bog... so I guess I shall...
. . .So yah... recently started IM'ing an interesting fellow, who's incidentally also a 華僑 from Texas. My conversations with him are a real eye-opener for a small glimpse at American society. ^^
. . .K, now I'm hungry... lunch time! :D
. . ."ehh... sorry for asking but umm... how long did it take you to grow your hair?"
. . ."geeehh.... .... 4 years..."
. . ."Ah, really! So anybody can grow hair as long as yours in four years, or does your hair grow especially fast?"
. . ."iunno..."
. . .And yah... conversation spawned from then, and stuff. She ended up asking for my name and phone number, but settled for my e-mail instead. Talk about scary!!!!
. . .Meanwhile, I'm being threatened to include a certain someone in this bog... so I guess I shall...
. . .So yah... recently started IM'ing an interesting fellow, who's incidentally also a 華僑 from Texas. My conversations with him are a real eye-opener for a small glimpse at American society. ^^
. . .K, now I'm hungry... lunch time! :D
孤獨世界
. . .Booh... had school again today... After a three-day weekend. Which is so rare in Asia that it's not even funny. But yah. Ended up sleeping far later than I should have... (which is to say, at around 1:30am or even 2:00am) when I should have slept at 11:30pm.
. . .I don't know if I've already said it, though I probably have, but I'll say it again! Ahhahaha... Anyways, yah. My self-study thingy is really paying off! who'd have thought. But yah... still way behind my own personal goal. Gotta start working on trudging through that Tang-dynasty poem essay thing to write my review... Fun...
. . .I got 10/13 for my first homework in my chin. lit. course.. Booh!!! She didn't really go by a rubric either, so it' impossible for me to know where exactly I lost my marks... Booh... gotta work harder then... ... must... become... fluent... in ... [written] Chinese... Arg. To be as fluent in Mandarin as I am in English... now that's a challenge. Especially since I fear that the acquisition of a second language is really only that -- kinda like a master-slave HD configuration... But to have two 'primary' languages? I guess I might have a shard of hope, since I was raised in Mandarin before being shoved into daycare, where everybody spoke English. Let's hope enough of my linguistic wiring before age 5 is still there for me to work with... :P
. . .Aside from that, not too too much is happening... ...it's kinda lonely here in Taiwan; most of the people I know talk to me either for superficial reasons, or only out of respect of my mother... (which is to say, they wouldn't bother with me if I weren't my mother's son.)
. . *sighs*....
. . .I don't know if I've already said it, though I probably have, but I'll say it again! Ahhahaha... Anyways, yah. My self-study thingy is really paying off! who'd have thought. But yah... still way behind my own personal goal. Gotta start working on trudging through that Tang-dynasty poem essay thing to write my review... Fun...
. . .I got 10/13 for my first homework in my chin. lit. course.. Booh!!! She didn't really go by a rubric either, so it' impossible for me to know where exactly I lost my marks... Booh... gotta work harder then... ... must... become... fluent... in ... [written] Chinese... Arg. To be as fluent in Mandarin as I am in English... now that's a challenge. Especially since I fear that the acquisition of a second language is really only that -- kinda like a master-slave HD configuration... But to have two 'primary' languages? I guess I might have a shard of hope, since I was raised in Mandarin before being shoved into daycare, where everybody spoke English. Let's hope enough of my linguistic wiring before age 5 is still there for me to work with... :P
. . .Aside from that, not too too much is happening... ...it's kinda lonely here in Taiwan; most of the people I know talk to me either for superficial reasons, or only out of respect of my mother... (which is to say, they wouldn't bother with me if I weren't my mother's son.)
. . *sighs*....
2003/10/12
心靜自然涼
. . .Let's see... Took the train/bus to church today... That cost me about a Canadian dollar. Then I went to the library with 世偉, in the hopes of doing lots of work. But ehh... towards the latter 2 hours, we ended up chatting... ... and not doing any productive stuff...
. . .After the library (around 5:00pm), I went to Tao Bai Ren's house, where I had dinner... ... but ehh.. her son kinda didn't shower after his basketball game from this morning, so he reaks like there's no tomorrow... ...and it's such a nasty, typical male odor... *shudders*
. . .So I didn't end up getting a lot of studying done... ... I got maybe 30 words memorized... ...Waaay behind in my research papers. :(
. . .Aside from that, not too much happening...
. . .After the library (around 5:00pm), I went to Tao Bai Ren's house, where I had dinner... ... but ehh.. her son kinda didn't shower after his basketball game from this morning, so he reaks like there's no tomorrow... ...and it's such a nasty, typical male odor... *shudders*
. . .So I didn't end up getting a lot of studying done... ... I got maybe 30 words memorized... ...Waaay behind in my research papers. :(
. . .Aside from that, not too much happening...
2003/10/11
Idiom... Idiot... Hmm...
. . .K, so apparently, the new thing I was testing out with my hair wasn't such a great idea... Er Yi Ma said that it looked 奇奇怪怪 (Qi-qi-guai-guai). Ah well. Back to my boring bangs. ^^;
. . .Let's see... Friday, Octobre 10th was "Taiwan Day", when they celebrate the birth of the Republic of China (or the birth of the Guo Min Dang... either or ...)
. . .Learned more about my family history; apparently, my Grandmother personally knew Chiang Kai Shek, and was a personal secretary (of sorts) to him for over 20 years. I say 'of sorts' cuz she only handed letters and notes... or something like that.
. . .In the evening, after staying at home the entire day and cramming as many Chinese words as possible into my tired little mind, the benevolent 世偉 rescued me from sure death and brought me out to some downtown-ish area. This was about from 6:15pm 'til around 10:15pm. It was a good evening; got to chat lots, did a little window shopping, saw some clothes I might want to buy later. Through this shopping, I also discovered that it's really hard for me to imagine what looks good on other people cuz I seem to only know what would suit me... =/
. . .I love how people here don't know how to read me cuz they don't really know if I am Chinese or just CBC. Which is to say, they take me for a foreigner and therefore refuse to think of me as Chinese. Or Asian. At all.
. . .lalala... Well, whether or not I'm honestly learning 50-100 words a day, I'm definately learning something, since I'm gradually picking up more and more of what people say. (yay!) Who knew that something picked out of a textbook would actually be applicable in real life?
. . .Another thing is that apparently, I'm borrowing a bit too many Cantonese phrases into my Mandarin... ... so for things like "how much", "how many", "how long" all sound 'awkward' in Mandarin. ... though they understand what I mean to say, they find it unnatural and foreign. (as in, they instantly know I'm not local.)
. . .Also, they can't seem to stand me trying to use higher/harder phrases. Though it'd be a waste of time for me to explain to them my own personal theories regarding language acquisition. The real trick is to discover what I understand of the English language to be 'universal linguistic truth'.
. . .So yah. Yesterday was good. This morning... ... had some more food at home, and crammed a few more words into that tiny little brain of mine. Never know when the term 'teammate' will come in handy... ... though I've learned long ago (in Japanese) that it only beneficial to learn as many words as possible, regardless of it's seeming face-value or attraction.
. . .e.g. two hours after learning all these political terms and stuff (like 'politics', 'election', 'prime minister', etc.) my uncle-in-law starts talking to me about the mess of Taiwanese politics. I'm inwardly thinking, "whoa... ... it's actually useful."
. . .Now I'm counting the minutes before I have to run for my language exchange at 2:00. Better cram in a few more words... (whee... go vocab! I wonder how to say "and even then, ~~" in Mandarin.
. . .Let's see... Friday, Octobre 10th was "Taiwan Day", when they celebrate the birth of the Republic of China (or the birth of the Guo Min Dang... either or ...)
. . .Learned more about my family history; apparently, my Grandmother personally knew Chiang Kai Shek, and was a personal secretary (of sorts) to him for over 20 years. I say 'of sorts' cuz she only handed letters and notes... or something like that.
. . .In the evening, after staying at home the entire day and cramming as many Chinese words as possible into my tired little mind, the benevolent 世偉 rescued me from sure death and brought me out to some downtown-ish area. This was about from 6:15pm 'til around 10:15pm. It was a good evening; got to chat lots, did a little window shopping, saw some clothes I might want to buy later. Through this shopping, I also discovered that it's really hard for me to imagine what looks good on other people cuz I seem to only know what would suit me... =/
. . .I love how people here don't know how to read me cuz they don't really know if I am Chinese or just CBC. Which is to say, they take me for a foreigner and therefore refuse to think of me as Chinese. Or Asian. At all.
. . .lalala... Well, whether or not I'm honestly learning 50-100 words a day, I'm definately learning something, since I'm gradually picking up more and more of what people say. (yay!) Who knew that something picked out of a textbook would actually be applicable in real life?
. . .Another thing is that apparently, I'm borrowing a bit too many Cantonese phrases into my Mandarin... ... so for things like "how much", "how many", "how long" all sound 'awkward' in Mandarin. ... though they understand what I mean to say, they find it unnatural and foreign. (as in, they instantly know I'm not local.)
. . .Also, they can't seem to stand me trying to use higher/harder phrases. Though it'd be a waste of time for me to explain to them my own personal theories regarding language acquisition. The real trick is to discover what I understand of the English language to be 'universal linguistic truth'.
. . .So yah. Yesterday was good. This morning... ... had some more food at home, and crammed a few more words into that tiny little brain of mine. Never know when the term 'teammate' will come in handy... ... though I've learned long ago (in Japanese) that it only beneficial to learn as many words as possible, regardless of it's seeming face-value or attraction.
. . .e.g. two hours after learning all these political terms and stuff (like 'politics', 'election', 'prime minister', etc.) my uncle-in-law starts talking to me about the mess of Taiwanese politics. I'm inwardly thinking, "whoa... ... it's actually useful."
. . .Now I'm counting the minutes before I have to run for my language exchange at 2:00. Better cram in a few more words... (whee... go vocab! I wonder how to say "and even then, ~~" in Mandarin.
2003/10/09
方纔歸來
. . .Whee. Just got back from lunch. And from a very filling lunch. I swear, I ate enough to last me 'til tomorrow evening. Booh... and I'm not exercising enough to make up for it either.. I'm just swelling up like a little balloon... for about $10 American, I had a small fruit salad, Bacon clam chowder, bread-with-some-cream-thing, some sort of ice fish, American pineapple pie (with icecream), and Ceylon tea with fruit tossed in.
. . .Class today... ... was... ... ... well, we watched this VCD that was talking a bit about some Chinese philosophy thingy... ... Mencius and the other guy... something-zhe. One felt that humans were inherintly evil and therefore needed education to become good. The other guy felt that humans were inherently good and were corrupted by the world, and that's why education is needed in order to remain pure. So in either case, education was placed at the highest importance. (this is during or after the 'first emperor of China' of the Chin dynasty -- 秦始皇.)
. . .Yah... gotta get around to finishing those essay questions in Chinese.. it's sooo evil... ...and uhh.. evil. Well, no, that's not entirely true. It's actually quite interesting, and EXACTLY the sort of thing I came to Taiwan to learn. Yes. The literary mathie. *sighs*. I still can't forgive my calc. prof. for not knowing the difference between an adjective and an adverb. (This happened when the prof. was explaining why the term 'uniformly' in the term "uniformly continuous" was an appropriate "adjective".) Yarg. And it's not like the other mathies noticed either. Thank God I was taking two language courses that term or I would have seriously gone insane.
. . .So yah... Train ride to uncle-in-law's workplace was uneventful. I think I've finally figured out the most effecient means of getting here from class. If I didn't have to transfer all the time, I so could do some studying on the way -- cram in an extra hour or two of studying. Speaking of which...
. . .According to www.clavisinica.com, I know about 1000~2000 Chinese characters. However, to be considered functionally literate, one is estimated to know between 3000 and 4000 characters. So I have 1000-3000 characters to go. So, in an insane attempt to kick my memory into high-gear, I've proposed a goal for myself of learning 50-100 words a day. How much I actually remember is another thing... but the idea is that by the mere exposure to all these other words, I'll have an easier time getting the gist of any given sentence.
. . .Oh yah. And the other screwy part of the Chinese that I do already know is that while half of it is modern conversational Mandarin, the other half is derived from a 400-year old novel which I'm working through right now. which is to say, it'd come across as something like this in English: "Whither are ya at, yo?" Ahaha. People here are getting a kick out of my writing style since they find my strange hybrid style both foreign and entertaining. (Not like I intended it to be funny, but... meh.)
. . .What else? To the observant reader, one may have noticed that there's a new name under the blogs I read section. Thanks to the new alliance between ICQ and AIM, I'm able to contact people in the states! (yay. That makes.... three people.)
. . .Trying out something different with my hair; gonna see how it is at the end of the day. Basically, tossed the upper part of my bangs all off to one side, tucked it behind my ear, and had the rest of my hair tied up in a loose bun. Nothing too fancy, but a severe deviant from the routine bangs that I usually sport and by which I'm most often recognised.
. . .Apparently, I have this weird ability to learn the meaning of Chinese characters without necessarily having the pronunciation down pat. ... or it's overriden with the Japanese way of pronouncing it. And it's SOO not my fault; some vocab I learned in Japanese first before learning it in Chinese. Ahaha... so yah. I'll be able to read Chinese, but I won't necessarily be able to read it outloud.
. . .Well, nobody's online (or they're too busy/tired to talk to me), so I'd best take the advantage of this time and start studying my new batch of chinese words/phrases. Whee...
. . .Class today... ... was... ... ... well, we watched this VCD that was talking a bit about some Chinese philosophy thingy... ... Mencius and the other guy... something-zhe. One felt that humans were inherintly evil and therefore needed education to become good. The other guy felt that humans were inherently good and were corrupted by the world, and that's why education is needed in order to remain pure. So in either case, education was placed at the highest importance. (this is during or after the 'first emperor of China' of the Chin dynasty -- 秦始皇.)
. . .Yah... gotta get around to finishing those essay questions in Chinese.. it's sooo evil... ...and uhh.. evil. Well, no, that's not entirely true. It's actually quite interesting, and EXACTLY the sort of thing I came to Taiwan to learn. Yes. The literary mathie. *sighs*. I still can't forgive my calc. prof. for not knowing the difference between an adjective and an adverb. (This happened when the prof. was explaining why the term 'uniformly' in the term "uniformly continuous" was an appropriate "adjective".) Yarg. And it's not like the other mathies noticed either. Thank God I was taking two language courses that term or I would have seriously gone insane.
. . .So yah... Train ride to uncle-in-law's workplace was uneventful. I think I've finally figured out the most effecient means of getting here from class. If I didn't have to transfer all the time, I so could do some studying on the way -- cram in an extra hour or two of studying. Speaking of which...
. . .According to www.clavisinica.com, I know about 1000~2000 Chinese characters. However, to be considered functionally literate, one is estimated to know between 3000 and 4000 characters. So I have 1000-3000 characters to go. So, in an insane attempt to kick my memory into high-gear, I've proposed a goal for myself of learning 50-100 words a day. How much I actually remember is another thing... but the idea is that by the mere exposure to all these other words, I'll have an easier time getting the gist of any given sentence.
. . .Oh yah. And the other screwy part of the Chinese that I do already know is that while half of it is modern conversational Mandarin, the other half is derived from a 400-year old novel which I'm working through right now. which is to say, it'd come across as something like this in English: "Whither are ya at, yo?" Ahaha. People here are getting a kick out of my writing style since they find my strange hybrid style both foreign and entertaining. (Not like I intended it to be funny, but... meh.)
. . .What else? To the observant reader, one may have noticed that there's a new name under the blogs I read section. Thanks to the new alliance between ICQ and AIM, I'm able to contact people in the states! (yay. That makes.... three people.)
. . .Trying out something different with my hair; gonna see how it is at the end of the day. Basically, tossed the upper part of my bangs all off to one side, tucked it behind my ear, and had the rest of my hair tied up in a loose bun. Nothing too fancy, but a severe deviant from the routine bangs that I usually sport and by which I'm most often recognised.
. . .Apparently, I have this weird ability to learn the meaning of Chinese characters without necessarily having the pronunciation down pat. ... or it's overriden with the Japanese way of pronouncing it. And it's SOO not my fault; some vocab I learned in Japanese first before learning it in Chinese. Ahaha... so yah. I'll be able to read Chinese, but I won't necessarily be able to read it outloud.
. . .Well, nobody's online (or they're too busy/tired to talk to me), so I'd best take the advantage of this time and start studying my new batch of chinese words/phrases. Whee...
2003/10/08
続
. . .*sniff sniff* Not many people online today...
. . .Argh... Need a life... ... what I really need is a Mandarin-native speaker with near-scholarly understanding of the Chinese written language with enough free time to be assaulted with my multitudes of questions (and conversation practices) While I'm not in class. Which is a large majority of the day.
. . .Apparently, I've developed this alarming ability to learn how to read and write a Chinese character, and know exactly what it means in whichever various circumstances, but have no idea how to pronounce it. I blame this ability on my years of studying Japanese.
. . .Speaking of which, I ought to e-mail that prof. regarding her research, which is apparently right up my alley! (I'm supposed to write an essay-type thing in which I compare the difference in writing systems between the Chinese and Japanese, the history/development of each system, how using each system is psychologically manifest, the advantages and disadvantages of using either system, etc. It ought to be worth the 150 hours of research I'm devoting to it.
. . .My Mandarin-language acquisition is an on-going process. If I only learned 20 words/phrases a day... ... better make that a hundred. Haha... In theory, I have at least another 2000-3000 words to learn before being able to claim to be literate in Chinese. If only I had a list of words/phrases from which to go on... ... sifting through a textbook is boring and tedius. (Learning may be natural, but my learning/studying habits aren't. :P)
. . .Boooh... drizzling outside. it's like walking through mist. Only instead of that dreamy, ethereal feeling of cleansiness, it's more like walking through layers of wet lint/dust/dirt, coupled with the aromatic odour of a bazillion cars' exhaust fumes.
. . .Funny... ... Suddenly reminded of a dear friend of mine, and I'm really worried about her, all of a sudden. I'm not sure why, entirely. Guess I'll write an e-mail and see how she's doing.
. . .Argh... Need a life... ... what I really need is a Mandarin-native speaker with near-scholarly understanding of the Chinese written language with enough free time to be assaulted with my multitudes of questions (and conversation practices) While I'm not in class. Which is a large majority of the day.
. . .Apparently, I've developed this alarming ability to learn how to read and write a Chinese character, and know exactly what it means in whichever various circumstances, but have no idea how to pronounce it. I blame this ability on my years of studying Japanese.
. . .Speaking of which, I ought to e-mail that prof. regarding her research, which is apparently right up my alley! (I'm supposed to write an essay-type thing in which I compare the difference in writing systems between the Chinese and Japanese, the history/development of each system, how using each system is psychologically manifest, the advantages and disadvantages of using either system, etc. It ought to be worth the 150 hours of research I'm devoting to it.
. . .My Mandarin-language acquisition is an on-going process. If I only learned 20 words/phrases a day... ... better make that a hundred. Haha... In theory, I have at least another 2000-3000 words to learn before being able to claim to be literate in Chinese. If only I had a list of words/phrases from which to go on... ... sifting through a textbook is boring and tedius. (Learning may be natural, but my learning/studying habits aren't. :P)
. . .Boooh... drizzling outside. it's like walking through mist. Only instead of that dreamy, ethereal feeling of cleansiness, it's more like walking through layers of wet lint/dust/dirt, coupled with the aromatic odour of a bazillion cars' exhaust fumes.
. . .Funny... ... Suddenly reminded of a dear friend of mine, and I'm really worried about her, all of a sudden. I'm not sure why, entirely. Guess I'll write an e-mail and see how she's doing.
2003/10/07
手機簡訊
. . .Ahaha... on the way to my uncle-in-law's office after class, I
1. forgot to get a transfer
2. got on the wrong bus.
. . .So yah... I still saved *some* time getting here, but yah... I hate walking outside... it's still perversely warm outside. I'll get you sun!! I'll get you good!!!!!
. . .*ehem* Yah... I hate sweating. Grr. stupid human body system. If only I could re-engineer my body... Ah, the colours my hair would be... :P
. . .Meanwhile, I'm becoming modernized. Nooo~~~~!!! I'm text-messaging a friend via cellphone... (in Chinese.. whee). He's in class and I'm bored out of my mind. He's kinda vulgar though, he's like "I've been sitting so long that my ass is sore". *sighs* youth these days.
1. forgot to get a transfer
2. got on the wrong bus.
. . .So yah... I still saved *some* time getting here, but yah... I hate walking outside... it's still perversely warm outside. I'll get you sun!! I'll get you good!!!!!
. . .*ehem* Yah... I hate sweating. Grr. stupid human body system. If only I could re-engineer my body... Ah, the colours my hair would be... :P
. . .Meanwhile, I'm becoming modernized. Nooo~~~~!!! I'm text-messaging a friend via cellphone... (in Chinese.. whee). He's in class and I'm bored out of my mind. He's kinda vulgar though, he's like "I've been sitting so long that my ass is sore". *sighs* youth these days.
死網
. . .Booh. Cursed internet. Kept logging me off MSN Messenger. Must be because of either my computer back in Toronto, or because of the computer in Tao Bai-Ren's house. In either case... Grr! Mid-conversation with people and *poof* I'm offline. Moreover, although I repeditively tell it that I'm not interested in any new Messenger upgrades, it KEEPS ON ASKING ME if I want to upgrade. Damn computer. Stupid internet. A pox on Microsoft!
. . .Meanwhile... Can't afford to sleep right now... cuz then I won't be able to sleep in the evening, which'll only translate to more fatigue problems for the following day. I had dumplings for lunch, accompanied by this funky-tasting thick soup-like thing, filled with I-don't-want-to-know-what stuff. It was described to me as 'sour and spicy', though it was just 'funky' for me. And I don't me 'cool'. Just... ... ... funky.
. . .Really should be studying today... Teacher made me read the [Chinese] paragraph on the board, and I couldn't... She's first like, "Hmm... Joseph! Why don't you read what I've written on the board. Reading is good for your word-recognition."
. . .I'm like, "eerrr...."
. . ."c'mon"
. . ."but ... ... I don't know how to read..."
. . ."Aiya... we're all here to learn. c'mon, nobody's gonna hit you."
. . ."It's shameful of me [to not be able to read]..."
. . ."Aiya... no need to be so melodramatic..."
. . .So, of course I read it... ... barely. Sighs. I'm back at the bottom of the class. whee... haven't been in that position since I was five-years old. Meanwhile, my classmates are probably looking down at me for not being able to read the more simple characters... it was so sad... when I came across a character that I couldn't read in Chinese, I read it the Japanese way and my teacher was like, "erm! Reading Japanese??"
. . .^^;;;
. . .Meanwhile... aside from that, not much happened... though apparently more people read my blog than leave messages... ... since I'm now talking to people online when I get online. ^_^ *sniffs* I feel so special. It's good to know that some people actually care enough to bother going online during those slim few minutes to be able to chat with me, see how I'm doing, keeping me posted on what's going on in Toronto, UW, Guelph, Ottawa, Vancouver, etc. So a big thank you to my friends who care. ^___^
. . .Heh.. and the title is so negative... How'd I end up with such a positive note? Kinda like my Chinese lit. teacher.. She starts off with rambling about the political situation during which some of the stuff we're looking at came out of, and then she some how ends up teaching us how to say 'pole-dancer' in Chinese... ...At first I totally didn't understand her... she was like, "you know... they're very popular in the west. There's this pole, and these pretty... well no, not pretty... but good-bodied females writhe and wiggle all around the pole."
. . ."Oh," says I. Kinda funny, my teacher. Don't really get her... ... (probably unmarried...) but her sense of humour is definately better than Kallen's... *shudder* Now THERE's a woman you'd never want to meet... ...and someone that nobody would want to marry. And she says that she doesn't want to get married anyways.. which is just as well... the bitter old bitch shouldn't have the honour of being married. I'd feel soooo sorry for her husband.
. . .Then again, I shouldn't really say that. I mean, just the thought of a certain other female equally repulses me, and yet there are more than a couple of guys who apparently find her attractive. I sooooo don't get that. I mean, EWW!!! Then again, guys tend to be more dense with first impressions. Ah, the curse of taking after one's mother.
. . .Aaaaaanyways.
. . .Oh yah... Today I start my language exchange with Ryuuichi. Haha. Guess which language(s). Though I think that after today, the weekend might be better. We'll see. ^^;
. . .Meanwhile... Can't afford to sleep right now... cuz then I won't be able to sleep in the evening, which'll only translate to more fatigue problems for the following day. I had dumplings for lunch, accompanied by this funky-tasting thick soup-like thing, filled with I-don't-want-to-know-what stuff. It was described to me as 'sour and spicy', though it was just 'funky' for me. And I don't me 'cool'. Just... ... ... funky.
. . .Really should be studying today... Teacher made me read the [Chinese] paragraph on the board, and I couldn't... She's first like, "Hmm... Joseph! Why don't you read what I've written on the board. Reading is good for your word-recognition."
. . .I'm like, "eerrr...."
. . ."c'mon"
. . ."but ... ... I don't know how to read..."
. . ."Aiya... we're all here to learn. c'mon, nobody's gonna hit you."
. . ."It's shameful of me [to not be able to read]..."
. . ."Aiya... no need to be so melodramatic..."
. . .So, of course I read it... ... barely. Sighs. I'm back at the bottom of the class. whee... haven't been in that position since I was five-years old. Meanwhile, my classmates are probably looking down at me for not being able to read the more simple characters... it was so sad... when I came across a character that I couldn't read in Chinese, I read it the Japanese way and my teacher was like, "erm! Reading Japanese??"
. . .^^;;;
. . .Meanwhile... aside from that, not much happened... though apparently more people read my blog than leave messages... ... since I'm now talking to people online when I get online. ^_^ *sniffs* I feel so special. It's good to know that some people actually care enough to bother going online during those slim few minutes to be able to chat with me, see how I'm doing, keeping me posted on what's going on in Toronto, UW, Guelph, Ottawa, Vancouver, etc. So a big thank you to my friends who care. ^___^
. . .Heh.. and the title is so negative... How'd I end up with such a positive note? Kinda like my Chinese lit. teacher.. She starts off with rambling about the political situation during which some of the stuff we're looking at came out of, and then she some how ends up teaching us how to say 'pole-dancer' in Chinese... ...At first I totally didn't understand her... she was like, "you know... they're very popular in the west. There's this pole, and these pretty... well no, not pretty... but good-bodied females writhe and wiggle all around the pole."
. . ."Oh," says I. Kinda funny, my teacher. Don't really get her... ... (probably unmarried...) but her sense of humour is definately better than Kallen's... *shudder* Now THERE's a woman you'd never want to meet... ...and someone that nobody would want to marry. And she says that she doesn't want to get married anyways.. which is just as well... the bitter old bitch shouldn't have the honour of being married. I'd feel soooo sorry for her husband.
. . .Then again, I shouldn't really say that. I mean, just the thought of a certain other female equally repulses me, and yet there are more than a couple of guys who apparently find her attractive. I sooooo don't get that. I mean, EWW!!! Then again, guys tend to be more dense with first impressions. Ah, the curse of taking after one's mother.
. . .Aaaaaanyways.
. . .Oh yah... Today I start my language exchange with Ryuuichi. Haha. Guess which language(s). Though I think that after today, the weekend might be better. We'll see. ^^;
2003/10/06
2003/10/05
上升下落
. . .Yay. Got off class today; gotta find a coffee/tea-house for my language exchange tomorrow. It's scary... the longer I live here, the more I realize just how CHINESE my family is. And I mean REALLY chinese. Just the other day, I was observing how people didn't do a certain thing that my family always does. When I mentioned this to my friends, they were like, "WHAT??!?! But that's sooo archaic!!"
. . .me: "eeehh....... ..... My family still does it..."
. . .Ahaha... so booyaka to my conservativism.
. . .Meanwhile, my thoughts sometimes wander back to Canada... How is everybody? From what I can tell, some people are doing ok, while others are doing a little less-than-ok. Some are in a paradoxial state; they feel lonely, but won't let anybody into their lives. But I'm not one to force myself into others' lives. Meh. I rarely see anybody online anymore... ...and only SOME of you would care enough to write to me... :'(
. . .Learned some nasty details about the cost at which the Tang dynasty earned its place in History. And we finally finished Confucius (孔子) today in class. Yay! But ehh.... now teacher wants me us to write a review and stuff on some other people's essays... and mine is about some line from a Tang-dynasty poem... Tang being somewhere in the B.C. ... like 300BC or something like that. Probably earlier...
. . .Meanwhile, I haven't been working nearly hard enough, so starting from now on, if anybody wants to catch me online, the best time is 11:30am~1:30pm Taiwan time... ... which would be 11:30pm~1:30am Toronto time. Dear readers can calculate for their timezones accordingly. ^_^
. . .I've recently also discovered that being hard-core traditional Chinese isn't any fun either... ...after looking at my cousin, who's turned out to be a bit of a loser... ...and my aunt keeps comparing me to both her kids... grr... Anyways, as it turns out, I prefer to combine the etiquette of both western and eastern cultures -- doing things implicitly, AND saying things implicitly. Ah, the joy it'd be to speak to me 4 years from now. Lalala... Nobody online, so I'm gonna go away and do something productive. ^_^;
. . .me: "eeehh....... ..... My family still does it..."
. . .Ahaha... so booyaka to my conservativism.
. . .Meanwhile, my thoughts sometimes wander back to Canada... How is everybody? From what I can tell, some people are doing ok, while others are doing a little less-than-ok. Some are in a paradoxial state; they feel lonely, but won't let anybody into their lives. But I'm not one to force myself into others' lives. Meh. I rarely see anybody online anymore... ...and only SOME of you would care enough to write to me... :'(
. . .Learned some nasty details about the cost at which the Tang dynasty earned its place in History. And we finally finished Confucius (孔子) today in class. Yay! But ehh.... now teacher wants me us to write a review and stuff on some other people's essays... and mine is about some line from a Tang-dynasty poem... Tang being somewhere in the B.C. ... like 300BC or something like that. Probably earlier...
. . .Meanwhile, I haven't been working nearly hard enough, so starting from now on, if anybody wants to catch me online, the best time is 11:30am~1:30pm Taiwan time... ... which would be 11:30pm~1:30am Toronto time. Dear readers can calculate for their timezones accordingly. ^_^
. . .I've recently also discovered that being hard-core traditional Chinese isn't any fun either... ...after looking at my cousin, who's turned out to be a bit of a loser... ...and my aunt keeps comparing me to both her kids... grr... Anyways, as it turns out, I prefer to combine the etiquette of both western and eastern cultures -- doing things implicitly, AND saying things implicitly. Ah, the joy it'd be to speak to me 4 years from now. Lalala... Nobody online, so I'm gonna go away and do something productive. ^_^;
2003/10/03
文學得到
. . .Q&%)#&$@ internet... making me retype this entry... Stupid uni. administration... but i sure showed you!! I jumped like, at least 2 levels above my original 'assessment' for my Mandarin proficiency, but there was such a lack of professionalism that I question whether it's really a university.
. . .Meanwhile... People still think I'm either Korean or Japanese. Though I guess it'd be near-impossible to guess asian blends, eh? Class is pretty fun; teacher is pretty funny and learning lots. Unlike my other class, where we're only taking baby steps... I'd write more, but I've barely any energy...
. . .Meanwhile... People still think I'm either Korean or Japanese. Though I guess it'd be near-impossible to guess asian blends, eh? Class is pretty fun; teacher is pretty funny and learning lots. Unlike my other class, where we're only taking baby steps... I'd write more, but I've barely any energy...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)