The title of this entry, Zheng Zhong Xia Huai, is a Chinese "proverb" which means to be just what one hopes for, or fit in exactly with one's wishes. Since that's mostly the way I feel about the concert last Saturday, I feel it's apt.
Caroline and I met up at Xinpu station and caught a cab to Xinzhuang. When we arrived, Nat, Charlene, and Sharrie were already there, out front with Wu Bai's parents having a chat. I haven't seen his folks since 2005, so it was a treat to see them again. Wu Bai's mom (whom we call Auntie in Taiwanese, sounds like Ah Mm) looked great, seems to have lost quite a bit of weight, and his dad (Uncle in Taiwanese, Ah Bei) looked the same as always. I love to watch Ah Mm smile, because she has the exact same smile that her son has. He definitely takes after mom, not dad. Sharrie went with them to have some dinner, and the rest of us went to another place. By this time we'd been joined by the rest of our crew, and after some lovely potstickers, we headed for 7-11 for drinks. There I ran into my friend Dan Qi, whom I haven't seen since April. Her hubby, who hates Wu Bai, had graciously brought her to the show and would sit in a coffee shop the entire time waiting for her. Then Tona and David from Singapore showed up, and then Hui Lian and Yumiko, also from Singapore. We all headed back over to the stadium to wait until show time, finding a sort of cool area where the air conditioning from inside was leaking out. I bought a little bit of the concert merchandise, but I wasn't awfully impressed with what they had this time, so I got to save some money!
This much-anticipated Wu Bai & China Blue 15-year celebration was certainly different, at least in the beginning, than other shows, for it seems that recently Wu Bai has been bitten by the dancing bug, and there were at least three numbers in which Wu Bai did not once play guitar, just sang and danced with the girlies. Unfortunately, he appears to have been only partially infected by said bug, and his dancing could still use a few years of daily practice! I do have to say that he's awfully cute when he's on stage surrounded by scantily clad, skeletally-thin women and so obviously nervous trying to match their fluid movements. I think for someone like him, who really is so painfully shy, to be willing to get in front of thousands of fans and risk their laughter is quite a feat. I know the man has rhythm, because I've seen him shaking his ass quite nicely while he's holding his guitar. But you take that security blanket away from him, and he becomes totally awkward (while retaining that Wu Bai adorable-ness that I love so much). He did a few songs from a tiny stage in the midst of the audience, with no guitar, and at one point he just picked up the mike stand and tried to play it! Definitely out of his element sans guitar. So after a couple dance numbers, Nat turns to me and screams at the top of her lungs in order to be heard, "Wu Bai cannot dance!" I screamed back, "I know he can't dance, but at least he's trying!" "But he CAN'T DANCE!" And then I noticed, not far above our heads and a bit to the right, the microphone that was being used to record the show. Oh peachy, two women yelling in English that The Emperor of Rock can't dance, that's gonna be quite obvious when they play that back. I shouldn't have told Dino, who just about busted a gut laughing when he heard, because he'll probably try to find that bit and point it out to Wu Bai.
But other than having to watch cutsie pseudo-sexy stick women drape themselves around the object of my adoration (one wonders what thoughts of violent death Mrs. Wu had running through her mind during these displays), the show was fabulous. When they began, Wu Bai wasn't on stage, but slowly emerged from a hole under the stage, holding an umbrella, to sing "Innocent Years." There was an extra guitar player in the back, near Da Mao, and a bald fellow out front playing. Didn't really pay much attention to them, as I tend to focus on Wu Bai most of the time, and I think we were at least four songs into the show before I realized that the bald guy was Xiao Zhu! Now, we've always known that he was balding and that's why we've never seen him without a baseball cap or a head scarf, but he's had the long ponytail running down his back all these years. Gone, completely gone, shaved that skull bare he did! You can bet that today, when we go see ABS at the Canada Day beach party, I'm asking him what on earth possessed him to do such a thing. I would have asked his wife, who was standing down in front of us, but it was too difficult to try to talk while screaming. Perhaps he just decided that's it's too flippin' hot to wear hats all the time and that if he shaved it all, no one would guess it was departing on its own already.
We had very nice seats, quite close to the stage and off to the band's left. As I mentioned, there was a small stage, called the Rainbow Stage, in the middle of the standing rock area, and that was even closer to us. When Wu Bai was there, the fans could crowd around and even get their hands shaken, if lucky. We watched our friend Xiao Hu, arms leaning on the stage, right at Wu Bai's feet and gazing up at him in pure adoration, and were completely jealous. When Wu Bai sang "Only Love" all the house lights were on, and he could clearly see the audience. There's a part of the song that says, "I used to be alone, and was used to being alone. Why did you bother to give me that kind of kiss? Maybe I've awakened and shouldn't take this seriously - you stole my soul away." During the "you stole my soul" part, I was singing along and pointing at Wu Bai, and damned if he wasn't pointing right back at me. I don't think it was my imagination, either, because Charlene gave me a good hard whack on the back from behind, so she thought so, too.
The second part of the show was very cool, because it was a recreation of the old pub days at Live-a-Go-Go, back in 1994 and 1995, I think, when the band was first starting to build up a following. They even had shirts just like they wore when they filmed the Wu Bai Live DVD, those pirate-y looking ones. And Xiao Zhu wore his head scarf (thank the goddess). The whole stage extended out farther into the audience, bringing everyone even closer to us. As they were preparing for this part of the show, they showed the Wu Bai Live video, getting everyone all worked up. I sure wish I could have been there at the beginning, part of those intimate pub shows that made the band so famous.
There were a lot of encores at this show, and during one of them the whole band hit the stage to dance to "You are My Flower." Damn, they're so cute, really. There had better be a concert DVD for this one! The show ended at 11:30, much later than I'd expected (I'm not complaining!), and I was in a daze by that time, so thirsty but having to pee so badly. Caroline and I went to the ladies', and when we came out everyone was gone, except for David and Tona. It took forever to get a cab, and the MRT had already ceased for the evening, so I had no choice but to pay for a cab ride home. We dropped Caroline in Banqiao first, then headed toward Taipei 101, where David and Tona's friend lives. They'd brought their baby, Kimi, with them, and the friend was babysitting. Would have loved to have gone out to eat with them, but it just wasn't feasible. The cab driver had arranged for another cab to meet us along the way so I could make the switch, and I got home around 1:30 a.m. It was still incredibly hot outside, and my apartment was stuffy and muggy. And DZ was griping at me for being gone so long, as usual.
I spent the next few days running the show back through my head, getting silly smiles on my face when I thought about it. On Monday I met up with David, Tona, and Little Kimi, and we went for lunch at Shanghai Dumpling then to Coldstone Creamery for dessert. Wow, it has been so long since I've had really good ice cream (the cheap stuff doesn't tempt me one bit, and I won't pay the price for Hagen Daaz, however you spell it). Coldstone is actually affordable, as a bowl is around $3.35US for a decent-sized serving. Then I added another buck for the chocolate dipped waffle cone bowl. Ummmmmmm! Good thing it's so far out of the way and not easily accessible, because it could make dieting a bit harder!
Oh yeah, I've lost 12.75 pounds now, 5.8 kilos. Was hoping it would be more this week, because I've been doing a lot of walking (and sweating), but it didn't drop much. Perhaps next week will be better. I did go out for lunch twice this week, but I tried to just eat fruit in the evenings on those days. Since I'm going to the beach party this evening, I'll try to be really good the rest of the day.
I thought the school would announce the scholarship winners this week, but they didn't, so hopefully next week I'll know. I gave up my Wednesday night teaching, because it just didn't seem worth it to me. The students don't really have the time to study, and two hours a week just won't help them make progress. It's wasting their time and money and my time. I found a new pair of students, a brother and sister, and I'll start once a week with them for two hours, and they might bump that up to twice a week. The guy is a cutie, but of course too young for me. Still, I'd rather be teaching a handsome fellow than a butt-ugly one, ha.
Ye Ying got her IELTS score last night, and this time she passed! I have mixed feelings - happy for her because she made it and will be able to go to Holland to study, but sad because she'll be gone and I won't get to see her for a long, long time. And she won't have time for our language exchange, because she'll be working more in the next couple of months before she leaves. But now her boyfriend, Xuan Yi, is finally finished with his thesis and will graduate, so he's going to start again in her place.
I can't believe this semester is almost over, only three more weeks left. I need to write a few more compositions to meet the teacher's requirement, and I'd best get my butt in gear! Sometimes it's just difficult to think of a topic, and I want to make my compositions interesting. I suppose I can just wing it, after all it doesn't have to win the Pulitzer Prize. I've been thinking about writing a letter to Wu Bai, so maybe I'll use that as an assignment, be good practice for me.
OK, enough, I have so much that I should be doing before I take off at 4:00, including studying for the test on Monday! Over and out.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Spring Break
I'm on break from school, don't have to go back until April 9. April 5 is a holiday here, commonly called Tomb Sweeping Day in the West. This is the day that families go to take care of the graves of their ancestors, sweeping up, pulling weeds, putting everything in order. Originally, the school was only going to be closed on that day, but apparently someone in the government decided he or she would like the full week off, and suddenly the schools were all closing for the full week. I wouldn't mind, except that I'm getting cheated out of one week of classes, and I paid money for those! Now I'm only getting 10 weeks of instruction instead of 11. Truly unfair!
In other unfairness news, I have learned a valuable lesson about one of the big differences between Western culture and Chinese culture, and that is called "guan xi" - 關係. I already knew that 關係 played a huge part in the business world, where it's not so much what you know but who you know that will get you a good job. Relationships between people are very important here, so it's a good idea to makes friends with as many people as possible, as one never knows who in the future may play a part in helping one with something. However, I didn't realize that 關係 extended to scholarships, which I have always assumed to be awarded based on merit. They posted the names of those awarded scholarships, and I wasn't on the list. My teacher said it was not because I'm not a good student, because I am. She said the American guy who got the scholarship has been at the school for a long time, and although he's not a very good student and I'm much better (her words!), he got rewarded for time served. She encouraged me to apply again in June, since by that time I'll have six months in and have a better chance. So, no money for me this time around. I did decide on one more year of Chinese classes before starting at the university, because if I want a scholarship for that, I need to maintain a good grade, so I'd best be good at Chinese!
I've started teaching Xiao Niu and her co-workers on Wednesday evenings, and that's fun. They're a good group, and they seem serious about learning. Right now they don't understand a lot of what I say in English, so I'm using more Chinese to explain. I was hoping to do total immersion, like I get in my Chinese classes, but they just aren't ready for it. They chose a very good book, TV English, which contains "real" conversational English, like that between friends. They also chose a much more difficult one for business English, and I'm guessing those classes, which will alternate every other week, will not be as much fun. I also need to teach them some basic grammar. This will be a long road to travel, and I hope they stick with it. The downside is getting home at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights, but I can live with that once a week.
Last Friday evening ABS had a performance at Riverside Pub, so of course we attended. We had a large group this time: Twiggy and Joel from Hong Kong, Elsa (I can never figure out if she's from Hong Kong or Taiwan!), Charlene, Caroline, Xiao Niu, Kennie (who brought a co-worker with her, a guy who looked a lot like Nic Tse), my former teacher Shannon, and the birthday girl, Natari. Nat's birthday was actually on Sunday, but we celebrated that evening, getting Dino to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and providing a ridiculously expensive cake. Charlene, I know you're reading this, and I'm never going to stop saying that that cake was so overpriced it was laughable! Folks, for a 12" cake, we ended up paying around US$54! If you want to see what it looked like, view the Ripoff Cake here. If the flavor had put us into spasms of ecstasy, maybe that would have been OK, but it was your normal, not-sweet-enough, weird-stiff-pudding-in-the-middle sort of cake, i.e., Japanese lack-of-flavor style. But, boy it sure was pretty, and I think Nat liked it, so I suppose that's the most important thing, right? But damn it, next time give ME the money and I'll make two killer cheesecakes that will make everyone swoon and still have money left over for profit.
Every time I see ABS perform, I'm blown away by the talent. Dino's energy on the drums combined with his fine voice, Da Mao's magical keyboarding (sometimes you can almost see flames spouting out of him when he gets into it), Xiao Zhu's heart-thumping bass underscoring it all, and then the fantastic technical skill of guitar players Xiao Yang and Lao Liu. It's no wonder these two guys are both referred to as Stevie Ray, because that's how good they are. When the band is covering Stevie Ray Vaughn tunes, if you closed your eyes, you'd swear it was the man himself come back to life. As much as I adore Wu Bai, I have to be honest and say that Dino can outsing him anyday, and Xiao Yang and Lao Liu play guitar far, far better. No, Wu Bai's pull comes from somewhere other than just skill, it's his music combined with his passion, some weird charisma that sucks you in and makes you overlook it when his voice cracks as he sings. Somehow that just doesn't matter at the time. And if Wu Bai weren't backed up by three excellent musicians like Dino, Da Mao, and Xiao Zhu, would the magic be there? I think maybe not. I think that spell requires four key ingredients, and if you leave any out, the result just isn't the same.
We didn't ever really have "winter" this year, more like a cool spring, and now instead of real spring it seems we're getting a slightly cooler summer already. It's hot and sticky, and I'm afraid when we hit June and July it will be unbearable. Damned global warming. Eh, maybe I'll sweat off some of the excess poundage. Probably not, but we all need dreams, hm?
Daily life is much the same as always, nothing new or exciting. I'm truly enjoying having the afternoon class, able to sleep later in the mornings, given that the brats upstairs still drive me nuts with their noise in the evenings. Now it stays quiet until around 9:00 or so and then the noise starts, usually up until 11:30 p.m. I find that if I'm playing on the computer it doesn't bug me as much, but if I'm just trying to read or study in the living room, I get totally fried. Sometimes now I just put on a CD of instrumental music to drown them out, and that helps. When I signed the lease for this year, I told my landlady I'd seriously considered moving, and she said she'd understand if I still wanted to. Having experienced living under this family herself, she knows how intolerable it is at times. I like her, and I like my apartment, so I'm going to stick it out.
Last night when I turned on the laptop, it wouldn't. Instead I was greeting with "disk read error, press Ctrl +Alt +Del to restart." So, I did, but got the same error. Oh no! Major tragedy! I tried three or four more times with the same result, even turned it off and back on, no go. I called Charlene to ask if one of her friends could help, and she suggested I contact Rudy. So, I sent him an SMS, and when I turned back to the computer, it had started. Whew! Funny thing is that I already have plans to go with Xuan Yi on Monday to buy a new computer, a PC. I thought the laptop was acting a bit sluggish, and the color when it first starts is now red which slowly changes to blue, so I was afraid the video card was on the way out. It's four years old and it gets a lot of use, so I figured it was time for a new one before I lost everything. I made backups last night, since last time I did it was a couple months ago, and I'm always saving new stuff. I hate to spend more of my ever-dwindling money, but I gotta have a computer for school and teaching and staying in touch. Gotta. The laptop started right up this morning with no problems, not sure what was wrong yesterday. Charlene said it was protesting the heat of the day, and that could be true. :)
And DZ.....she's gotten herself banished from my bedroom at night (she's been banished during the day when I'm not home for a long, long time). Normally she comes in late and sleeps on the bed with me until I get up, but night before last she jumped up on the dresser and attacked yet another Wu Bai poster, so she's being punished. I might let her back in after a week. What is it with that cat and my posters, my WU BAI posters, not the kung fu movie ones? And no, I'm not getting her a playmate, because that would just be destruction times two!
I'm meeting a potential student today, one of Funck's friends, named Claire. I hope she ends up being one who will actually come to class so I can make a little money. She wants Saturdays, and since Xiao Zhu says his son is too busy, I'll take Claire for twice the fee, no problems. If Vincent ever gets "unbusy" I'll try to work him in. I'm still meeting Ye Ying once a week for language exchange, and Shannon and I started yesterday meeting for that, too. It's great to have two Chinese teachers to help out with my questions, as well as enjoying their friendship. I haven't been able to meet with Ye Ying's boyfriend, Xuan Yi, for our language exchange for a long time, because he's been so busy writing his thesis. Now that he's done, maybe we'll be able to find some time.
OK, well, this was a long post. I'm done now, thanks for reading. :)
In other unfairness news, I have learned a valuable lesson about one of the big differences between Western culture and Chinese culture, and that is called "guan xi" - 關係. I already knew that 關係 played a huge part in the business world, where it's not so much what you know but who you know that will get you a good job. Relationships between people are very important here, so it's a good idea to makes friends with as many people as possible, as one never knows who in the future may play a part in helping one with something. However, I didn't realize that 關係 extended to scholarships, which I have always assumed to be awarded based on merit. They posted the names of those awarded scholarships, and I wasn't on the list. My teacher said it was not because I'm not a good student, because I am. She said the American guy who got the scholarship has been at the school for a long time, and although he's not a very good student and I'm much better (her words!), he got rewarded for time served. She encouraged me to apply again in June, since by that time I'll have six months in and have a better chance. So, no money for me this time around. I did decide on one more year of Chinese classes before starting at the university, because if I want a scholarship for that, I need to maintain a good grade, so I'd best be good at Chinese!
I've started teaching Xiao Niu and her co-workers on Wednesday evenings, and that's fun. They're a good group, and they seem serious about learning. Right now they don't understand a lot of what I say in English, so I'm using more Chinese to explain. I was hoping to do total immersion, like I get in my Chinese classes, but they just aren't ready for it. They chose a very good book, TV English, which contains "real" conversational English, like that between friends. They also chose a much more difficult one for business English, and I'm guessing those classes, which will alternate every other week, will not be as much fun. I also need to teach them some basic grammar. This will be a long road to travel, and I hope they stick with it. The downside is getting home at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights, but I can live with that once a week.
Last Friday evening ABS had a performance at Riverside Pub, so of course we attended. We had a large group this time: Twiggy and Joel from Hong Kong, Elsa (I can never figure out if she's from Hong Kong or Taiwan!), Charlene, Caroline, Xiao Niu, Kennie (who brought a co-worker with her, a guy who looked a lot like Nic Tse), my former teacher Shannon, and the birthday girl, Natari. Nat's birthday was actually on Sunday, but we celebrated that evening, getting Dino to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and providing a ridiculously expensive cake. Charlene, I know you're reading this, and I'm never going to stop saying that that cake was so overpriced it was laughable! Folks, for a 12" cake, we ended up paying around US$54! If you want to see what it looked like, view the Ripoff Cake here. If the flavor had put us into spasms of ecstasy, maybe that would have been OK, but it was your normal, not-sweet-enough, weird-stiff-pudding-in-the-middle sort of cake, i.e., Japanese lack-of-flavor style. But, boy it sure was pretty, and I think Nat liked it, so I suppose that's the most important thing, right? But damn it, next time give ME the money and I'll make two killer cheesecakes that will make everyone swoon and still have money left over for profit.
Every time I see ABS perform, I'm blown away by the talent. Dino's energy on the drums combined with his fine voice, Da Mao's magical keyboarding (sometimes you can almost see flames spouting out of him when he gets into it), Xiao Zhu's heart-thumping bass underscoring it all, and then the fantastic technical skill of guitar players Xiao Yang and Lao Liu. It's no wonder these two guys are both referred to as Stevie Ray, because that's how good they are. When the band is covering Stevie Ray Vaughn tunes, if you closed your eyes, you'd swear it was the man himself come back to life. As much as I adore Wu Bai, I have to be honest and say that Dino can outsing him anyday, and Xiao Yang and Lao Liu play guitar far, far better. No, Wu Bai's pull comes from somewhere other than just skill, it's his music combined with his passion, some weird charisma that sucks you in and makes you overlook it when his voice cracks as he sings. Somehow that just doesn't matter at the time. And if Wu Bai weren't backed up by three excellent musicians like Dino, Da Mao, and Xiao Zhu, would the magic be there? I think maybe not. I think that spell requires four key ingredients, and if you leave any out, the result just isn't the same.
We didn't ever really have "winter" this year, more like a cool spring, and now instead of real spring it seems we're getting a slightly cooler summer already. It's hot and sticky, and I'm afraid when we hit June and July it will be unbearable. Damned global warming. Eh, maybe I'll sweat off some of the excess poundage. Probably not, but we all need dreams, hm?
Daily life is much the same as always, nothing new or exciting. I'm truly enjoying having the afternoon class, able to sleep later in the mornings, given that the brats upstairs still drive me nuts with their noise in the evenings. Now it stays quiet until around 9:00 or so and then the noise starts, usually up until 11:30 p.m. I find that if I'm playing on the computer it doesn't bug me as much, but if I'm just trying to read or study in the living room, I get totally fried. Sometimes now I just put on a CD of instrumental music to drown them out, and that helps. When I signed the lease for this year, I told my landlady I'd seriously considered moving, and she said she'd understand if I still wanted to. Having experienced living under this family herself, she knows how intolerable it is at times. I like her, and I like my apartment, so I'm going to stick it out.
Last night when I turned on the laptop, it wouldn't. Instead I was greeting with "disk read error, press Ctrl +Alt +Del to restart." So, I did, but got the same error. Oh no! Major tragedy! I tried three or four more times with the same result, even turned it off and back on, no go. I called Charlene to ask if one of her friends could help, and she suggested I contact Rudy. So, I sent him an SMS, and when I turned back to the computer, it had started. Whew! Funny thing is that I already have plans to go with Xuan Yi on Monday to buy a new computer, a PC. I thought the laptop was acting a bit sluggish, and the color when it first starts is now red which slowly changes to blue, so I was afraid the video card was on the way out. It's four years old and it gets a lot of use, so I figured it was time for a new one before I lost everything. I made backups last night, since last time I did it was a couple months ago, and I'm always saving new stuff. I hate to spend more of my ever-dwindling money, but I gotta have a computer for school and teaching and staying in touch. Gotta. The laptop started right up this morning with no problems, not sure what was wrong yesterday. Charlene said it was protesting the heat of the day, and that could be true. :)
And DZ.....she's gotten herself banished from my bedroom at night (she's been banished during the day when I'm not home for a long, long time). Normally she comes in late and sleeps on the bed with me until I get up, but night before last she jumped up on the dresser and attacked yet another Wu Bai poster, so she's being punished. I might let her back in after a week. What is it with that cat and my posters, my WU BAI posters, not the kung fu movie ones? And no, I'm not getting her a playmate, because that would just be destruction times two!
I'm meeting a potential student today, one of Funck's friends, named Claire. I hope she ends up being one who will actually come to class so I can make a little money. She wants Saturdays, and since Xiao Zhu says his son is too busy, I'll take Claire for twice the fee, no problems. If Vincent ever gets "unbusy" I'll try to work him in. I'm still meeting Ye Ying once a week for language exchange, and Shannon and I started yesterday meeting for that, too. It's great to have two Chinese teachers to help out with my questions, as well as enjoying their friendship. I haven't been able to meet with Ye Ying's boyfriend, Xuan Yi, for our language exchange for a long time, because he's been so busy writing his thesis. Now that he's done, maybe we'll be able to find some time.
OK, well, this was a long post. I'm done now, thanks for reading. :)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Rainy Days and Sundays
After many days almost summer-like weather, we've had nothing but rain, rain, rain for a week. Cold rain. Cold days. I'm not complaining, you know. A little bit of cold in a hot country like Taiwan is a good thing!
I'm once again experiencing teacher frustration. Friday night Xiao Zhu called and said Vincent is just too busy these days to attend English class on Saturday and that he'd call me when his son has more time. Having experienced this excuse before (Rosa, Jennifer) to take the place of the more straightforward, "Sorry, changed my mind, don't want to study English.", I'm not holding out much hope of Vincent returning. We shall see. Xiao Zhu asked how to get me the paltry fee from the first class, which was supposed to be paid with the rest of this month's classes in one shot, and I told him I'd collect it from him on the 23rd when we go to see ABS.
I decided I'm going to apply for a scholarship at the language center, which would be NT$12,000 per month, or approximately US$365 (tuition is NT$16,000 every 11 weeks). I meet the requirements, so we'll see. Wish me luck.
Every time I think about trying to attend regular university beginning this year, I start thinking about how little I do know about the Chinese language, and I start to worry. I've only actually studied for a year and a half, and that barely scrapes the surface. I'd much prefer one more year of studying the language itself before attempting to attend classes taught in Chinese. So, at this point, I've decided to wait until 2008 to start my "real" studies. Ye Ying also advised that I look into a couple other universities that might be cheaper than Tamkang.
There's a test tomorrow, so today will be spent studying. Since it's no weather to be outside, staying in is certainly not a problem!
I'm once again experiencing teacher frustration. Friday night Xiao Zhu called and said Vincent is just too busy these days to attend English class on Saturday and that he'd call me when his son has more time. Having experienced this excuse before (Rosa, Jennifer) to take the place of the more straightforward, "Sorry, changed my mind, don't want to study English.", I'm not holding out much hope of Vincent returning. We shall see. Xiao Zhu asked how to get me the paltry fee from the first class, which was supposed to be paid with the rest of this month's classes in one shot, and I told him I'd collect it from him on the 23rd when we go to see ABS.
I decided I'm going to apply for a scholarship at the language center, which would be NT$12,000 per month, or approximately US$365 (tuition is NT$16,000 every 11 weeks). I meet the requirements, so we'll see. Wish me luck.
Every time I think about trying to attend regular university beginning this year, I start thinking about how little I do know about the Chinese language, and I start to worry. I've only actually studied for a year and a half, and that barely scrapes the surface. I'd much prefer one more year of studying the language itself before attempting to attend classes taught in Chinese. So, at this point, I've decided to wait until 2008 to start my "real" studies. Ye Ying also advised that I look into a couple other universities that might be cheaper than Tamkang.
There's a test tomorrow, so today will be spent studying. Since it's no weather to be outside, staying in is certainly not a problem!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Ugh
I've been sick all week. It started last Sunday evening, when my throat began to hurt. Monday I felt awful, but I still had to go to school, because it was the first day of the new semester. I got my final exam - and it was 99%, wow! I was amazed. I got a final grade for the semester of 90%, which I assume is based on tests and homework completed. It's high enough that I am eligible to apply for the scholarships they give out, so I think I will.
After the first session with the new teacher, I knew I wasn't going to be very happy. Boring, boring, boring. This teacher seems like a nice person, but no spark of life in her at all. Perhaps her mind is on her upcoming wedding in March, but all of us were in danger of falling asleep.
Tuesday I was so very sick that I did stay home, feeling chilled all day despite the warm weather outside, even my skin hurting when my clothes slid across it. I dosed myself with some Theraflu and spent most of the day sleeping. Dragged myself to school Wednesday and Thursday, still feeling like crap, but if I don't go to school, then I have visa problems. The bright point was that the teacher, Chen Laoshi, decided that it wasn't worth her time to teach a class of only four students, so on Friday we split, with my three Indonesian classmates joining Chen Laoshi's 8:00 a.m. class and me going into Deng Laoshi's 1:00 p.m. more advanced class.
I like Deng Laoshi. She was the one who gave me the placement test, and I thought at that time she was pretty cool. Even though she's one of the older teachers, she's not stuffy and rigid, she's funny and lively. I was still half out of it on Friday, doing a lot of coughing, but I enjoyed her class, and it's obvious the other students really like her, too. I'm now on a two-week break for Chinese New Year, and I'll be spending a lot of time reviewing things I've forgotten. The book we're using in the new class is called Taiwan Today, and when I was at CLD we had studied up through lesson 4 of this book. Thankfully, a lot of it isn't brand-new stuff, but reviews what we learned in the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese Book 2, Part 2, and that's the one I've forgotten most of.
Today is another book-signing event, two actually, and Charlene, Natari, Xiao Niu, and I are going. Charlene and I went last week to the one at the book exhibition, but there were so many friggin' people there that I didn't think it was worth standing in line. Besides, my lower lip was blossoming with a huge cold sore, and I certainly didn't want to stick that in Wu Bai's face. It's better now, despite two smaller ones that popped up over the course of this rotten cold. Since I am sick, I might wear one of the face masks folks here use to prevent germs from running rampant (popularized by the SARS epidemic). I already have my book signed, but I need to get Alice and Caroline's signed, if possible, which means standing in line twice.
Oh gosh, I don't think I've written about my first lesson with Xiao Zhu's son, Vincent. Well, I consider it less than a success. His mom dropped him off last Saturday, and I spent two hours trying to get the kid to say more than "yes" or "no" to anything! I think he was just so shy that he didn't know what to do. I finally discerned that he liked Harry Potter and brought out my Harry Potter books. Vincent picked up each one, opened it in the middle, stuck his face in, and inhaled deeply. I have never seen a kid smell books before. Very strange. He also enjoyed playing with DZ and wandering around my house as if he lived there. I need to sit down and talke with Xiao Zhu and Du Du and find out what makes the kid tick, what he's interested in. I can't spend two hours just talking at him, he has to talk back. This week my voice is so bad that I told Xiao Zhu no way could I teach, so hopefully during the next week I'll be able to meet with the folks and form a plan. If anyone has hints on how to get a shy kid to talk, let me know. I even plied him with chocolate! He's either 13 or 14 (Dad says 13, kid says 14), and he's as tall as me, maybe a little taller, and he's pretty chubby, which surprised me. Xiao Zhu and Du Du are both rail thin, like most of the people here. So at least Vincent and I have one thing in common - a love of food. :)
Hm, I think I'm still a little loopy from the Theraflu. Sadly, last night I downed the last packet, and I don't think I can buy it in Taiwan. It's about time to make up a shopping list and impose on the folks back in the US to shop for me. I'll bet I can twist Dad's arm a little bit, ha.
After the first session with the new teacher, I knew I wasn't going to be very happy. Boring, boring, boring. This teacher seems like a nice person, but no spark of life in her at all. Perhaps her mind is on her upcoming wedding in March, but all of us were in danger of falling asleep.
Tuesday I was so very sick that I did stay home, feeling chilled all day despite the warm weather outside, even my skin hurting when my clothes slid across it. I dosed myself with some Theraflu and spent most of the day sleeping. Dragged myself to school Wednesday and Thursday, still feeling like crap, but if I don't go to school, then I have visa problems. The bright point was that the teacher, Chen Laoshi, decided that it wasn't worth her time to teach a class of only four students, so on Friday we split, with my three Indonesian classmates joining Chen Laoshi's 8:00 a.m. class and me going into Deng Laoshi's 1:00 p.m. more advanced class.
I like Deng Laoshi. She was the one who gave me the placement test, and I thought at that time she was pretty cool. Even though she's one of the older teachers, she's not stuffy and rigid, she's funny and lively. I was still half out of it on Friday, doing a lot of coughing, but I enjoyed her class, and it's obvious the other students really like her, too. I'm now on a two-week break for Chinese New Year, and I'll be spending a lot of time reviewing things I've forgotten. The book we're using in the new class is called Taiwan Today, and when I was at CLD we had studied up through lesson 4 of this book. Thankfully, a lot of it isn't brand-new stuff, but reviews what we learned in the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese Book 2, Part 2, and that's the one I've forgotten most of.
Today is another book-signing event, two actually, and Charlene, Natari, Xiao Niu, and I are going. Charlene and I went last week to the one at the book exhibition, but there were so many friggin' people there that I didn't think it was worth standing in line. Besides, my lower lip was blossoming with a huge cold sore, and I certainly didn't want to stick that in Wu Bai's face. It's better now, despite two smaller ones that popped up over the course of this rotten cold. Since I am sick, I might wear one of the face masks folks here use to prevent germs from running rampant (popularized by the SARS epidemic). I already have my book signed, but I need to get Alice and Caroline's signed, if possible, which means standing in line twice.
Oh gosh, I don't think I've written about my first lesson with Xiao Zhu's son, Vincent. Well, I consider it less than a success. His mom dropped him off last Saturday, and I spent two hours trying to get the kid to say more than "yes" or "no" to anything! I think he was just so shy that he didn't know what to do. I finally discerned that he liked Harry Potter and brought out my Harry Potter books. Vincent picked up each one, opened it in the middle, stuck his face in, and inhaled deeply. I have never seen a kid smell books before. Very strange. He also enjoyed playing with DZ and wandering around my house as if he lived there. I need to sit down and talke with Xiao Zhu and Du Du and find out what makes the kid tick, what he's interested in. I can't spend two hours just talking at him, he has to talk back. This week my voice is so bad that I told Xiao Zhu no way could I teach, so hopefully during the next week I'll be able to meet with the folks and form a plan. If anyone has hints on how to get a shy kid to talk, let me know. I even plied him with chocolate! He's either 13 or 14 (Dad says 13, kid says 14), and he's as tall as me, maybe a little taller, and he's pretty chubby, which surprised me. Xiao Zhu and Du Du are both rail thin, like most of the people here. So at least Vincent and I have one thing in common - a love of food. :)
Hm, I think I'm still a little loopy from the Theraflu. Sadly, last night I downed the last packet, and I don't think I can buy it in Taiwan. It's about time to make up a shopping list and impose on the folks back in the US to shop for me. I'll bet I can twist Dad's arm a little bit, ha.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Feeling Testy
Today was the last day of my first semester at the new school. Next week I begin a new class with a new teacher, and I'm so sad. I love Wang Laoshi! I wish I could continue on with her, but she'll only be teaching the very first book next semester, and I must move on. I've heard a couple of bad things about the new teacher, Chen Laoshi, but I'll wait to form my opinion until I've actually experienced her teaching. I sure hope she's not one of those extremely strict teachers, ewwww.
So because today was the last day, we had our final test, which covered the seven chapters we've studied over the last 11 weeks. I began studying yesterday around 2:00 p.m., and I kept going until 8:30 p.m., mostly practicing writing characters, because that's my weak point. Man, was I tired! I think it paid off, though, because I felt I did pretty good today. Won't know until Monday, of course, but I have a good feeling. As I was coming home on the MRT, it hit me that I'd written the entirely wrong answer for one question, though. Duh...
This semester marked my first experience with a test that's very common in most Chinese classes, but not at the school I previously attended. This is called a "ting xie" which means "listen write." The teacher reads a sentence, and we have to write the correct characters, as well as the pinyin spelling (or bo-po-mo-fo) with the correct tone marks. Luckily, we only had four of these, the first two being full sentences, and the last two being just words or phrases. On my first test, I scored 92%, on the second 93%. The third was 100% correct, and I'm confident that today's will also turn out to be 100%. For the other tests at the end of each chapter, I'm happy to say that I always did pretty good. My scores were as follows:
Chapter 1 - 95%
Chapter 2 - 99%
Chapter 3 - 98%
Chapter 4 - 98%
Chapter 5 - 98%
Chapter 6 - 100% (finally! I was tired of the 98% rut.)
I'm hoping for 95-98% for today's test, but since the final portion was writing a small essay, I'm not so sure I'll get that many points. When I can write at home, I do quite well, because I can type it first and then I have something to look at to help with characters I don't remember how to write. But on the spot like that, I can only use words I remember, which makes my composition read like a child wrote it. Argh.
Update: Wow, I got 99% on the end-of-semester final! Shocked the hell out of me, that's for sure. I got a final grade of 90% for the semester, which I assume is based on both homework and tests. Me so happy....
In other news, Xiao Zhu called to say he can't bring his son tomorrow, because he has to go to Tainan for a show, so his wife, Du Du, will bring the boy. I like Du Du, she's very energetic and happy whenever we see her at ABS shows, seems like quite a character. I must make sure the house is spotless tomorrow to make a good impression!
Tomorrow evening a new student named Donny will come for his first class. I hope that works out, because I sure can use the money. I think it will be only about a one-month class, because he's taking his IELTS test in March, and if he passes, he won't need me anymore.
Sunday Charlene and I are going to the International Book Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center to see Wu Bai. I went to his book forum on Monday at the Eslite store, and it was quite fun. He looked particulary handsome that day, and I was so happy that I understood about 75% of everything he said. Plus, he remembered my name, when I brought my book up to be signed. I like his photographs very much, and I hope one of these days he publishes a book of his drawings, too. Quite the talented fellow, that Wu Bai is. Music, photography, art, cooking - the man does it all.
One more week of school, then we break for two weeks for Chinese New Year, and Cheryl comes to visit! Yay!
So because today was the last day, we had our final test, which covered the seven chapters we've studied over the last 11 weeks. I began studying yesterday around 2:00 p.m., and I kept going until 8:30 p.m., mostly practicing writing characters, because that's my weak point. Man, was I tired! I think it paid off, though, because I felt I did pretty good today. Won't know until Monday, of course, but I have a good feeling. As I was coming home on the MRT, it hit me that I'd written the entirely wrong answer for one question, though. Duh...
This semester marked my first experience with a test that's very common in most Chinese classes, but not at the school I previously attended. This is called a "ting xie" which means "listen write." The teacher reads a sentence, and we have to write the correct characters, as well as the pinyin spelling (or bo-po-mo-fo) with the correct tone marks. Luckily, we only had four of these, the first two being full sentences, and the last two being just words or phrases. On my first test, I scored 92%, on the second 93%. The third was 100% correct, and I'm confident that today's will also turn out to be 100%. For the other tests at the end of each chapter, I'm happy to say that I always did pretty good. My scores were as follows:
Chapter 1 - 95%
Chapter 2 - 99%
Chapter 3 - 98%
Chapter 4 - 98%
Chapter 5 - 98%
Chapter 6 - 100% (finally! I was tired of the 98% rut.)
I'm hoping for 95-98% for today's test, but since the final portion was writing a small essay, I'm not so sure I'll get that many points. When I can write at home, I do quite well, because I can type it first and then I have something to look at to help with characters I don't remember how to write. But on the spot like that, I can only use words I remember, which makes my composition read like a child wrote it. Argh.
Update: Wow, I got 99% on the end-of-semester final! Shocked the hell out of me, that's for sure. I got a final grade of 90% for the semester, which I assume is based on both homework and tests. Me so happy....
In other news, Xiao Zhu called to say he can't bring his son tomorrow, because he has to go to Tainan for a show, so his wife, Du Du, will bring the boy. I like Du Du, she's very energetic and happy whenever we see her at ABS shows, seems like quite a character. I must make sure the house is spotless tomorrow to make a good impression!
Tomorrow evening a new student named Donny will come for his first class. I hope that works out, because I sure can use the money. I think it will be only about a one-month class, because he's taking his IELTS test in March, and if he passes, he won't need me anymore.
Sunday Charlene and I are going to the International Book Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center to see Wu Bai. I went to his book forum on Monday at the Eslite store, and it was quite fun. He looked particulary handsome that day, and I was so happy that I understood about 75% of everything he said. Plus, he remembered my name, when I brought my book up to be signed. I like his photographs very much, and I hope one of these days he publishes a book of his drawings, too. Quite the talented fellow, that Wu Bai is. Music, photography, art, cooking - the man does it all.
One more week of school, then we break for two weeks for Chinese New Year, and Cheryl comes to visit! Yay!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Finally, Something to Write About!
There's a Chinese saying 舊的不去﹐新的不來 - if the old doesn't go, the new doesn't come. Well, in the case of English students it appears to be true.
Today I was on the MRT on my way home when my phone rang. It wasn't a number I have programmed into the phone, so I thought it might be one of the girls Ye Ying gave my number to, a couple of prospective students. I answered (in Chinese, of course), "Hello?" A man's voice replied (the whole conversation takes place in Chinese), "Hi, is this Marla?" As I said yes, I was thinking maybe it was Kitty's brother or father calling me with an update on her whereabouts, which would sure be nice. But it wasn't. To my profound surprise, the voice said, "Hi, it's Xiao Zhu." A couple seconds of silence while I processed this information. Xiao Zhu? Wu Bai's bass player Xiao Zhu? Huh? OK, a phone call from Dino would not be totally unexpected, but Xiao Zhu?? Wah.... When I recovered my wits, I asked him how on earth he could be calling me.
It appears that Xiao Zhu's thirteen-year-old son, Vincent, is in need of someone to speak English with him, as there is no one at home who can do this, therefore he's not making much progress in his lessons. Xiao Zhu knows that I taught Guoxi English, so I guess he asked Dino for my number so he could see if I was interested in teaching his son. I told him of course I would do it, as it would be very convenient, living so close to them as I do. I'm even giving him a huge discount, because a hot (and I'm referring to his skill, not his looks, although he certainly is a cutie) bass player like Xiao Zhu deserves it. So, in a couple of weeks, on Saturday, I'll start working with Vincent.
I'm wondering how I'm going to feel about Xiao Zhu seeing my apartment, with posters and photos of Wu Bai all over the place. I think perhaps I might be just a teeny bit embarrassed about that! What can I say? I'm a fan....not just of Wu Bai, but of the whole band. It's just that photos of the rest of the guys are few and far between.
And speaking of these posters, DZ lost one of her lives this afternoon after I discovered she'd jumped up onto the cabinet, on top of the little oven, and had shredded one side of my Li Hai concert poster! That little shit, the worst she can do is fuck around with my Wu Bai stuff. Last week I found another poster from above the same cabinet on the ground when I came home, but I assumed the sticky stuff had just worn out and that it had fallen down. Now I know she'd been up there playing with it. Perhaps after her spanking today she'll think twice about jumping up there next time. She's going to find herself shut up on the balcony while I'm in school if she keeps this up.
Today I was on the MRT on my way home when my phone rang. It wasn't a number I have programmed into the phone, so I thought it might be one of the girls Ye Ying gave my number to, a couple of prospective students. I answered (in Chinese, of course), "Hello?" A man's voice replied (the whole conversation takes place in Chinese), "Hi, is this Marla?" As I said yes, I was thinking maybe it was Kitty's brother or father calling me with an update on her whereabouts, which would sure be nice. But it wasn't. To my profound surprise, the voice said, "Hi, it's Xiao Zhu." A couple seconds of silence while I processed this information. Xiao Zhu? Wu Bai's bass player Xiao Zhu? Huh? OK, a phone call from Dino would not be totally unexpected, but Xiao Zhu?? Wah.... When I recovered my wits, I asked him how on earth he could be calling me.
It appears that Xiao Zhu's thirteen-year-old son, Vincent, is in need of someone to speak English with him, as there is no one at home who can do this, therefore he's not making much progress in his lessons. Xiao Zhu knows that I taught Guoxi English, so I guess he asked Dino for my number so he could see if I was interested in teaching his son. I told him of course I would do it, as it would be very convenient, living so close to them as I do. I'm even giving him a huge discount, because a hot (and I'm referring to his skill, not his looks, although he certainly is a cutie) bass player like Xiao Zhu deserves it. So, in a couple of weeks, on Saturday, I'll start working with Vincent.
I'm wondering how I'm going to feel about Xiao Zhu seeing my apartment, with posters and photos of Wu Bai all over the place. I think perhaps I might be just a teeny bit embarrassed about that! What can I say? I'm a fan....not just of Wu Bai, but of the whole band. It's just that photos of the rest of the guys are few and far between.
And speaking of these posters, DZ lost one of her lives this afternoon after I discovered she'd jumped up onto the cabinet, on top of the little oven, and had shredded one side of my Li Hai concert poster! That little shit, the worst she can do is fuck around with my Wu Bai stuff. Last week I found another poster from above the same cabinet on the ground when I came home, but I assumed the sticky stuff had just worn out and that it had fallen down. Now I know she'd been up there playing with it. Perhaps after her spanking today she'll think twice about jumping up there next time. She's going to find herself shut up on the balcony while I'm in school if she keeps this up.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Completely Abandoned
I am now studentless. Funck came for his lesson this evening and said he wants to quit, because running his website is taking too much of his time.
Kitty is still MIA, went to Shanghai for "a week" at the beginning of December and has not been in touch since. Oh, her father called me the week after she left, said she'd be in Shanghai through the end of December, so sorry. What, they don't have e-mail in Shanghai?
Jennifer said she was too busy September through December doing her wedding consulting and would start up again in January, but she hasn't gotten in touch, either.
Rosa quit a few weeks ago, because she's just too tired on the weekends after her long and stressful work week. I can understand that.
So here I am, making no money at all. I suppose it's time to seriously look for new students, but I'm so fed up with the way people just cancel all the time or aren't all that serious about the lessons. I'm not sure it's worth it, and I'm spending more time on my own lessons this time around anyway. Hm, have to think about it, I guess.
Kitty is still MIA, went to Shanghai for "a week" at the beginning of December and has not been in touch since. Oh, her father called me the week after she left, said she'd be in Shanghai through the end of December, so sorry. What, they don't have e-mail in Shanghai?
Jennifer said she was too busy September through December doing her wedding consulting and would start up again in January, but she hasn't gotten in touch, either.
Rosa quit a few weeks ago, because she's just too tired on the weekends after her long and stressful work week. I can understand that.
So here I am, making no money at all. I suppose it's time to seriously look for new students, but I'm so fed up with the way people just cancel all the time or aren't all that serious about the lessons. I'm not sure it's worth it, and I'm spending more time on my own lessons this time around anyway. Hm, have to think about it, I guess.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Merry Christmas!
Hallo everyone! I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas, and of course a very Happy New Year. As happy as I am here, I do miss my friends back in the US, and I'm sorry I can't share the holiday cheer with you in person.
I'm also sorry I haven't been writing much lately, but there just hasn't been anything to tell. I've been going to school every day, doing lots of studying and homework, doing language exchange two days a week, and spending some time with my friend Kayun, who will be leaving in January to go back to Korea. I'm going to miss her a lot, so I'm taking advantage of what little time she has left here in Taiwan. My three-day-a-week student, Kitty, is in China this month, so I'm only teaching Funck on Wednesday evenings, not making any money at all :( Boo hoo. I don't want to find new students, though, because I need my own time to study. Jennifer, the three-hours-on-Sunday student, should start up again in January, and Kitty will (hopefully) be done with her family's business stuff in China and be back in January, too.
Tomorrow I'm having a Christmas party, starting at 2:00 p.m. and going on until we get tired of partying. I really don't know how many people will show up, maybe only a few, but I made tiramisu for the first time ever, and I have a Kahlua cake, too. I discovered that it's danged expensive to make tiramisu in Taiwan. The savoiardi cost me $6US, the mascarpone cost $9, and the amaretto (should probably have gotten cognac, but I'll drink amaretto as a drink and I won't drink brandy, so cognac it is) was $16. Of course, that bottle should make quite a few batches of tiramisu :) I hope it tastes good, because I didn't spend the $18 for real Italian espresso like the recipe said I should use. I just used plain old Barista Seattle Espresso blend. The recipe was cute, it actually says: Make the espresso and poor it into shallow flat-bottomed bowl. Add one shot of cognac, one teaspoon cocoa, and allow to cool to room temperature. If at this point you've decided to use coffee instead of espresso, take the coffee you've made and drink it. Then make espresso.
I just made some spaghetti sauce, too, not real sauce, just using Classico jarred stuff (it's really not too bad) and adding ground beef, onions, loads of garlic, mushrooms, green pepper, and red wine. However.....I have a feeling that bottle of red wine made the change to something resembling vinegar over the last 10 months that it's been in my fridge. The sauce smells a little strange, and it doesn't taste quite right. Oops, guess next time I'd better taste the wine before dumping it in. It's edible, though, just not super great, bit of a tart tang to it. Good thing I was only making it for me and not to serve at the party!
Let's see, anything else? Well, DZ has gotten a bit chubby since her operation. I guess it's partially being spayed and partially bulking up for winter. Not that we actually have winter.....the temperature has been quite nice, around 68-75 during the day, but a bit chilly at night. It's still not as cold as last year was, and some days I don't even wear my jacket in the afternoons. The Taiwan folks are all bundled up in ski jackets, and I'm in shirtsleeves. They must think I'm nuts. But I have a nice big layer of fat to keep me warm, and they don't.
The Taiwan postal service is pretty good. My dad sent a Christmas card, and he didn't write my actual street on the envelope, but they found me anyway. Probably not that many foreigners living in Zhuwei, they could figure out the street from the alley and lane numbers.
Last week I had a notice in my box that I had a parcel at the post office. I was all excited, thinking "Christmas present!" so I headed to Danshui Sunday morning to pick it up (yeah, they're open on Sunday, can you believe it?). The weather was beautiful, so I walked along the river to the post office. Sadly, it was not a Christmas present. It was a free gift from Hinet for upgrading my ADSL service. Unfortunately, it was a handy little device to help one learn English. Not exactly what I need. I think I'll give it to one of my friends - regift!
Yesterday I needed to apply for the next semester of school in order to get my visa extension. My visa is only good until January 2, so I have to go to the police station next week for sure. The school told me I had to wait until 12/21 to apply, so in the morning I picked up the forms. The assistants at this school aren't nearly as friendly and helpful as the gals at CLD were. The one who gave me the forms yesterday never smiles at all, always looks like she's sucking on a lemon. I told her I'd bring the forms back in the afternoon, so Ye Ying and I stopped at the counter after lunch, before our language exchange. That little bitch looked at my form and said, "The teacher needs to fill out this part." Well, you twit, why the hell didn't you tell me that this morning??? It was too late to catch my teacher, she was teaching another class, so I had to wait for this morning. Now I have to wait until Wednesday to get the confirmation letter from the school. That's just cutting it too close for me, and there had better not be any problems, or I'm gonna strangle that twerp.
I guess I've rambled enough now. Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I'm also sorry I haven't been writing much lately, but there just hasn't been anything to tell. I've been going to school every day, doing lots of studying and homework, doing language exchange two days a week, and spending some time with my friend Kayun, who will be leaving in January to go back to Korea. I'm going to miss her a lot, so I'm taking advantage of what little time she has left here in Taiwan. My three-day-a-week student, Kitty, is in China this month, so I'm only teaching Funck on Wednesday evenings, not making any money at all :( Boo hoo. I don't want to find new students, though, because I need my own time to study. Jennifer, the three-hours-on-Sunday student, should start up again in January, and Kitty will (hopefully) be done with her family's business stuff in China and be back in January, too.
Tomorrow I'm having a Christmas party, starting at 2:00 p.m. and going on until we get tired of partying. I really don't know how many people will show up, maybe only a few, but I made tiramisu for the first time ever, and I have a Kahlua cake, too. I discovered that it's danged expensive to make tiramisu in Taiwan. The savoiardi cost me $6US, the mascarpone cost $9, and the amaretto (should probably have gotten cognac, but I'll drink amaretto as a drink and I won't drink brandy, so cognac it is) was $16. Of course, that bottle should make quite a few batches of tiramisu :) I hope it tastes good, because I didn't spend the $18 for real Italian espresso like the recipe said I should use. I just used plain old Barista Seattle Espresso blend. The recipe was cute, it actually says: Make the espresso and poor it into shallow flat-bottomed bowl. Add one shot of cognac, one teaspoon cocoa, and allow to cool to room temperature. If at this point you've decided to use coffee instead of espresso, take the coffee you've made and drink it. Then make espresso.
I just made some spaghetti sauce, too, not real sauce, just using Classico jarred stuff (it's really not too bad) and adding ground beef, onions, loads of garlic, mushrooms, green pepper, and red wine. However.....I have a feeling that bottle of red wine made the change to something resembling vinegar over the last 10 months that it's been in my fridge. The sauce smells a little strange, and it doesn't taste quite right. Oops, guess next time I'd better taste the wine before dumping it in. It's edible, though, just not super great, bit of a tart tang to it. Good thing I was only making it for me and not to serve at the party!
Let's see, anything else? Well, DZ has gotten a bit chubby since her operation. I guess it's partially being spayed and partially bulking up for winter. Not that we actually have winter.....the temperature has been quite nice, around 68-75 during the day, but a bit chilly at night. It's still not as cold as last year was, and some days I don't even wear my jacket in the afternoons. The Taiwan folks are all bundled up in ski jackets, and I'm in shirtsleeves. They must think I'm nuts. But I have a nice big layer of fat to keep me warm, and they don't.
The Taiwan postal service is pretty good. My dad sent a Christmas card, and he didn't write my actual street on the envelope, but they found me anyway. Probably not that many foreigners living in Zhuwei, they could figure out the street from the alley and lane numbers.
Last week I had a notice in my box that I had a parcel at the post office. I was all excited, thinking "Christmas present!" so I headed to Danshui Sunday morning to pick it up (yeah, they're open on Sunday, can you believe it?). The weather was beautiful, so I walked along the river to the post office. Sadly, it was not a Christmas present. It was a free gift from Hinet for upgrading my ADSL service. Unfortunately, it was a handy little device to help one learn English. Not exactly what I need. I think I'll give it to one of my friends - regift!
Yesterday I needed to apply for the next semester of school in order to get my visa extension. My visa is only good until January 2, so I have to go to the police station next week for sure. The school told me I had to wait until 12/21 to apply, so in the morning I picked up the forms. The assistants at this school aren't nearly as friendly and helpful as the gals at CLD were. The one who gave me the forms yesterday never smiles at all, always looks like she's sucking on a lemon. I told her I'd bring the forms back in the afternoon, so Ye Ying and I stopped at the counter after lunch, before our language exchange. That little bitch looked at my form and said, "The teacher needs to fill out this part." Well, you twit, why the hell didn't you tell me that this morning??? It was too late to catch my teacher, she was teaching another class, so I had to wait for this morning. Now I have to wait until Wednesday to get the confirmation letter from the school. That's just cutting it too close for me, and there had better not be any problems, or I'm gonna strangle that twerp.
I guess I've rambled enough now. Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Freedom Ends Monday
It's my last weekend of being a lazy bum, because Monday I start my Chinese classes again. I'm looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends, and also to probably spending more time with the friends I already have, as I'll be in their area every day now. So, hey, maybe next week I'll have some interesting stuff to write, provided I can find the time to blog in between homework and teaching.
Originally, my Mon-Wed-Thurs student had asked me to start a daily routine with her, cutting our two-hour lessons to 1.5 hours. But since she also wants me to spend time correcting the practice work she does, and she doesn't want to pay over a certain amount per month, we're sticking to the three days per week, and then I'll spend two afternoons at home working on her compositions and sentences. She sent me a couple Thursday - 18 pages of sentences in one, and 6 pages in the other. Took me four hours to do. Her compositions are worse, because her English writing skills are pretty weak, and sometimes I can't even figure out what she's trying to say. I think she's asking too much of herself, trying to cram five years of English study into a half a year to prepare for a test that I'd find difficult! The GRE Test is a very advanced test of English, requiring students to discuss issues and present arguments, and I doubt that many ESL speakers do well in it unless they have studied for a long, long time. We'll do the best we can, but at this point I'm not very optimistic about her chances.
The weather is bizarre. It started to get nice and fall-like, with cool (and even cold) days, but now it's back to being hot. I never know what to wear, or if I should bring a jacket or an umbrella with me when I leave in the morning. I'm still sleeping with the fan on at night. If I use the covers, I'm too hot. If I don't, I'm too cold. ARGH! So, I spend a lot of time tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable.
My house is a pigsty, so hopefully I'll muster up the urge to clean today. I truly hate mopping floors, but just vacuuming doesn't do the trick when one has tile and wooden floors. I think they're overdue for a good scrub.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and I do so miss the huge turkey dinners of the past. I'm trying to decide if I want to find a turkey breast and do up a little dinner of my own. I know I can buy all the ingredients for pumpkin pie, too. However, is it worth the effort? Dunno. Some of the restaurants here offer Thanksgiving dinners, but they're very expensive, and from what I've read on the message board, not really all that tasty. Maybe I'll make some Hainan Chicken Rice instead :) Or have hotpot at home, since I bought the pot and still haven't used it.
And of course after Thanksgiving comes Giftmas (Nicole's very apt word). I just want to forget about that particulary holiday. I don't have the extra money to buy gifts for my friends, and I don't want my friends to spend their money on me. I have everything I need, and I don't need a present to prove that my friends love me! I know that already. Christmas cards would certainly be welcomed with a smile, because knowing that my friends are thinking about me makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Gosh, I suppose I should start looking for my own cards here, too.
Well, the dirty house is crying out for attention, so I suppose I should tear myself away from the computer and get started before it gets much warmer.
Originally, my Mon-Wed-Thurs student had asked me to start a daily routine with her, cutting our two-hour lessons to 1.5 hours. But since she also wants me to spend time correcting the practice work she does, and she doesn't want to pay over a certain amount per month, we're sticking to the three days per week, and then I'll spend two afternoons at home working on her compositions and sentences. She sent me a couple Thursday - 18 pages of sentences in one, and 6 pages in the other. Took me four hours to do. Her compositions are worse, because her English writing skills are pretty weak, and sometimes I can't even figure out what she's trying to say. I think she's asking too much of herself, trying to cram five years of English study into a half a year to prepare for a test that I'd find difficult! The GRE Test is a very advanced test of English, requiring students to discuss issues and present arguments, and I doubt that many ESL speakers do well in it unless they have studied for a long, long time. We'll do the best we can, but at this point I'm not very optimistic about her chances.
The weather is bizarre. It started to get nice and fall-like, with cool (and even cold) days, but now it's back to being hot. I never know what to wear, or if I should bring a jacket or an umbrella with me when I leave in the morning. I'm still sleeping with the fan on at night. If I use the covers, I'm too hot. If I don't, I'm too cold. ARGH! So, I spend a lot of time tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable.
My house is a pigsty, so hopefully I'll muster up the urge to clean today. I truly hate mopping floors, but just vacuuming doesn't do the trick when one has tile and wooden floors. I think they're overdue for a good scrub.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and I do so miss the huge turkey dinners of the past. I'm trying to decide if I want to find a turkey breast and do up a little dinner of my own. I know I can buy all the ingredients for pumpkin pie, too. However, is it worth the effort? Dunno. Some of the restaurants here offer Thanksgiving dinners, but they're very expensive, and from what I've read on the message board, not really all that tasty. Maybe I'll make some Hainan Chicken Rice instead :) Or have hotpot at home, since I bought the pot and still haven't used it.
And of course after Thanksgiving comes Giftmas (Nicole's very apt word). I just want to forget about that particulary holiday. I don't have the extra money to buy gifts for my friends, and I don't want my friends to spend their money on me. I have everything I need, and I don't need a present to prove that my friends love me! I know that already. Christmas cards would certainly be welcomed with a smile, because knowing that my friends are thinking about me makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Gosh, I suppose I should start looking for my own cards here, too.
Well, the dirty house is crying out for attention, so I suppose I should tear myself away from the computer and get started before it gets much warmer.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Nag, nag, nag
Awright, awright. I'll write something! I've been getting a little nagging from friends who haven't seen anything new here in awhile. Sorry, but on top of still teaching English every day, I haven't had much excitement in my life to write about! But I can muster up a little bit now.
Best this is that this week, due to a visit from Singaporean friend, David, I got to have dinner with some of my favorite people: Natari, Charlene, Dino, Carrie, and another friend who must remain un-named for the time being. The bonus guest was Dino's son, Alex, who is here visiting from California. Nice kid, 18 years old, looks so much like his dad (despite the bleached blonde hair), and has eyelashes so long and thick that women everywhere (including Carried) were trying to figure out how to steal them. I won't be posting any photos of Alex, because I don't think it's a good idea to put the children of stars into the public eye, but here's a cute pic of David with 
Dino. Dino is demonstrating how he copes with frustration.
David is a huge fan of Dino's and is currently studying drumming. He was able to pick up a few tips from Dino during our evening out. He also scored a pair of Dino's drumsticks, the ones he used during the Singapore concert at the beginning of the month. As you see, Dino must have suffered a lot of frustration to leave the sticks in this condition!
After eating a little bit at Din Tai Feng, famous for their xiao long bao, we moved over to one of the whackiest restaurants I've ever seen: Indian Jurassic Park. You have to check out the photos of this place: Indian Jurassic Restaurant
It was a very noisy place, and rather smoky, but lots of fun. We had some tasty food there, including fried rice, deep-fried squid, Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞), some clams in a yummy sauce (炒海瓜子), some veggie (空心菜), and some fish. The fish was beautifully presented that I had to take a photo. If you can work your way through the Chinese at the above link, you can see some photos of other food. We of course also had beer.
I was happy to have some time to spend chatting with Dino's son. He was a little jet lagged, so he wasn't too lively, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. We share some of the same heritage, American Indian and Italian. And we've both lived in Wyoming, him in Laramie and me in Cheyenne. He's not too interested in becoming a drummer, but he might want to be an equestrian veterinarian when he grows up. He just graduated from high school, and now he's trying to figure out what he should study in college.
Anyway, that's about the only really fun thing I've done. My Korean friend, Kayun, has begun studying English with me and is coming twice a week. After class sometimes we watch movies, which is fun, especially now that I have the new Pioneer DVD player and surround-sound system. This week we watched a great Korean movie called "Welcome to Dongmakgol." A big thank-you to Cheryl for passing that one along to me. And last week I finally got to see "Old Boy," a movie I've had for over a year and a half but never watched. It was just as intense as all the reviews had said.
Let's see, what else? Well, my friend/student, Aaron, left for his year of study in the UK. His family invited me to a goodbye dinner, and the food was excellent. His mom and dad are both fantastic cooks, and I really appreciated them asking me to join the rest of the family that evening. I'm going to miss Aaron, and I hope he adapts well to life in England. At the end he said he really didn't want to go, but it was too late to change his mind.
I've started trading English lessons for Chinese ones. Ye Ying, one of the teachers who had been at CLD while I was there, is planning on going to Holland to study Chinese culture. Personally, I think that's a bit weird, going to a European country for Asian studies, but she said the school is famous for it's courses. She wants to improve her English, and my Chinese has been regressing, so we're doing a trade. It will be good for me to get back into the study habit before I start at Shi Da in December.
I'll be heading back to Singapore on October 2 for a three-day, four-night stay. I spent some time yesterday online making a list of places I want to see, and I'll mostly be alone on my journeys. But, that's how I like it! I was able to find a very inexpensive hotel (only $156US for four nights), so I won't be spending too much. However, I am a little miffed that I didn't know earlier that Wu Bai & China Blue would be in Macau for a show on 9/30, because I would have gone there instead! Dammit, they never make these announcements early enough. Also, my friend Maddy from Florida will be in Hong Kong while I'm in Singapore! Again, had she told me sooner, I would have gone back to Hong Kong so I could see her. Rats rats rats!
I've completely avoided discussing the political situation here in Taiwan, because I really do hate politics and politicians. I'll briefly say that a bunch of people who have their heads up their collective ass are currently doing a sit-in protest to try to convince the president, Chen Shui Bian, to step down. They're all riled up because of alleged corruption. I think they should read this informative editorial in the Taipei Times: Taiwan's Color-Coded View of Corruption
If I have to choose between two evils, I'll take the lesser, and Ah Bian certainly qualifies as that. No, he's not perfect, but he at least wants Taiwan to be an independent, democrat country, while the Kuomintang would rather give it back to China and lose all the freedom we have. Idiots. And I can't even begin to explain how incredibly stupid Taiwan's vice president is. Root around in the editorial archives of the Times for some interesting stuff, if you have the time.
I'm done now. I have to prepare for my afternoon class now. I'll try to be better about posting, but no promises!
Best this is that this week, due to a visit from Singaporean friend, David, I got to have dinner with some of my favorite people: Natari, Charlene, Dino, Carrie, and another friend who must remain un-named for the time being. The bonus guest was Dino's son, Alex, who is here visiting from California. Nice kid, 18 years old, looks so much like his dad (despite the bleached blonde hair), and has eyelashes so long and thick that women everywhere (including Carried) were trying to figure out how to steal them. I won't be posting any photos of Alex, because I don't think it's a good idea to put the children of stars into the public eye, but here's a cute pic of David with 
Dino. Dino is demonstrating how he copes with frustration.David is a huge fan of Dino's and is currently studying drumming. He was able to pick up a few tips from Dino during our evening out. He also scored a pair of Dino's drumsticks, the ones he used during the Singapore concert at the beginning of the month. As you see, Dino must have suffered a lot of frustration to leave the sticks in this condition!
After eating a little bit at Din Tai Feng, famous for their xiao long bao, we moved over to one of the whackiest restaurants I've ever seen: Indian Jurassic Park. You have to check out the photos of this place: Indian Jurassic Restaurant
It was a very noisy place, and rather smoky, but lots of fun. We had some tasty food there, including fried rice, deep-fried squid, Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞), some clams in a yummy sauce (炒海瓜子), some veggie (空心菜), and some fish. The fish was beautifully presented that I had to take a photo. If you can work your way through the Chinese at the above link, you can see some photos of other food. We of course also had beer.
I was happy to have some time to spend chatting with Dino's son. He was a little jet lagged, so he wasn't too lively, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. We share some of the same heritage, American Indian and Italian. And we've both lived in Wyoming, him in Laramie and me in Cheyenne. He's not too interested in becoming a drummer, but he might want to be an equestrian veterinarian when he grows up. He just graduated from high school, and now he's trying to figure out what he should study in college.
Anyway, that's about the only really fun thing I've done. My Korean friend, Kayun, has begun studying English with me and is coming twice a week. After class sometimes we watch movies, which is fun, especially now that I have the new Pioneer DVD player and surround-sound system. This week we watched a great Korean movie called "Welcome to Dongmakgol." A big thank-you to Cheryl for passing that one along to me. And last week I finally got to see "Old Boy," a movie I've had for over a year and a half but never watched. It was just as intense as all the reviews had said.
Let's see, what else? Well, my friend/student, Aaron, left for his year of study in the UK. His family invited me to a goodbye dinner, and the food was excellent. His mom and dad are both fantastic cooks, and I really appreciated them asking me to join the rest of the family that evening. I'm going to miss Aaron, and I hope he adapts well to life in England. At the end he said he really didn't want to go, but it was too late to change his mind.
I've started trading English lessons for Chinese ones. Ye Ying, one of the teachers who had been at CLD while I was there, is planning on going to Holland to study Chinese culture. Personally, I think that's a bit weird, going to a European country for Asian studies, but she said the school is famous for it's courses. She wants to improve her English, and my Chinese has been regressing, so we're doing a trade. It will be good for me to get back into the study habit before I start at Shi Da in December.
I'll be heading back to Singapore on October 2 for a three-day, four-night stay. I spent some time yesterday online making a list of places I want to see, and I'll mostly be alone on my journeys. But, that's how I like it! I was able to find a very inexpensive hotel (only $156US for four nights), so I won't be spending too much. However, I am a little miffed that I didn't know earlier that Wu Bai & China Blue would be in Macau for a show on 9/30, because I would have gone there instead! Dammit, they never make these announcements early enough. Also, my friend Maddy from Florida will be in Hong Kong while I'm in Singapore! Again, had she told me sooner, I would have gone back to Hong Kong so I could see her. Rats rats rats!
I've completely avoided discussing the political situation here in Taiwan, because I really do hate politics and politicians. I'll briefly say that a bunch of people who have their heads up their collective ass are currently doing a sit-in protest to try to convince the president, Chen Shui Bian, to step down. They're all riled up because of alleged corruption. I think they should read this informative editorial in the Taipei Times: Taiwan's Color-Coded View of Corruption
If I have to choose between two evils, I'll take the lesser, and Ah Bian certainly qualifies as that. No, he's not perfect, but he at least wants Taiwan to be an independent, democrat country, while the Kuomintang would rather give it back to China and lose all the freedom we have. Idiots. And I can't even begin to explain how incredibly stupid Taiwan's vice president is. Root around in the editorial archives of the Times for some interesting stuff, if you have the time.
I'm done now. I have to prepare for my afternoon class now. I'll try to be better about posting, but no promises!
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Farewell to Another Friend
Went to a farewell party for Luke last night. He's leaving on Wednesday for Japan, where he'll spend a year teaching English. It's been nice knowing him for the last three months, hope he stays in touch.
The party was held at a restaurant called A Plus, which featured California-style Japanese food. It was exceptionally good, but expensive. The food cost me $14US and the one beer I had (a bottle of Kirin) was $5. I guess for a special occasion I don't mind spending so much, but I wouldn't go there on a regular basis, at least not until I get a real job!
I'm going to be ultra busy this next week, teaching and getting stuff ready for the trip to Singapore on Friday. I've been teaching seven days a week, and although the hours are short, it's still a lot of work, because I also have to prepare for lessons and correct compostions and such. The money is nice, I'll say that! I've made about $700US this month, and that was only about 45 hours in three weeks' time. That's more than some of the Taiwan people make in a whole month of working 40+ hours per week. I'll pick up about another $165 next week. I have six students now, but Aaron is leaving for the UK next month, so I'll be down to five. One gal wants to add another day, for a total of three times a week. Everyone else is only one time per week. That should be fine for me, since once I start classes at Shi Da in December, I'll need time for my own homework.
Here's some fun for you, courtesy of Mary, one of my former co-workers. She keeps me supplied with good stuff to make me laugh.
DEEP THOUGHTS FOR THOSE WHO TAKE LIFE WAY TOO SERIOUSLY:
1. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
2. A day without sunshine is like, well . . . night.
3. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
4. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
5. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
6. Remember, half the people you know are below average.
7. He who laughs last thinks slowest.
8. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
9. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.
10. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
11. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
12. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
13. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
14. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.
15. OK, so what's the speed of dark?
16. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
18. Every one has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
19. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
20. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
21. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
22. I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
23. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
24. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.
25. Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
The party was held at a restaurant called A Plus, which featured California-style Japanese food. It was exceptionally good, but expensive. The food cost me $14US and the one beer I had (a bottle of Kirin) was $5. I guess for a special occasion I don't mind spending so much, but I wouldn't go there on a regular basis, at least not until I get a real job!
I'm going to be ultra busy this next week, teaching and getting stuff ready for the trip to Singapore on Friday. I've been teaching seven days a week, and although the hours are short, it's still a lot of work, because I also have to prepare for lessons and correct compostions and such. The money is nice, I'll say that! I've made about $700US this month, and that was only about 45 hours in three weeks' time. That's more than some of the Taiwan people make in a whole month of working 40+ hours per week. I'll pick up about another $165 next week. I have six students now, but Aaron is leaving for the UK next month, so I'll be down to five. One gal wants to add another day, for a total of three times a week. Everyone else is only one time per week. That should be fine for me, since once I start classes at Shi Da in December, I'll need time for my own homework.
Here's some fun for you, courtesy of Mary, one of my former co-workers. She keeps me supplied with good stuff to make me laugh.
DEEP THOUGHTS FOR THOSE WHO TAKE LIFE WAY TOO SERIOUSLY:
1. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
2. A day without sunshine is like, well . . . night.
3. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
4. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
5. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
6. Remember, half the people you know are below average.
7. He who laughs last thinks slowest.
8. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
9. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.
10. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
11. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
12. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
13. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
14. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.
15. OK, so what's the speed of dark?
16. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
18. Every one has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
19. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
20. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
21. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
22. I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
23. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
24. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.
25. Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Lerning Inglish in Tiewan
I was asked to prepare a short demo of my teaching abilities by a local cram school which helps prepare students for their Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) tests prior to their entering universities in English-speaking countries. The assistant at the school copied twelve pages from one of their textbooks regarding the speaking section of the test to help me familiarize myself with it. I was shocked to see how many errors were contained in just these few pages, and I'm here to share my dismay with all of you. I shudder to think what the remaining text looks like.
1. "Raters look criteria including of delivery..." - should be "Raters look at criteria, including delivery...
2. "That said, all most all....." - should be "That said, almost all...."
3. "The characteristic deference's between English...." - should be "The characteristic differences between English...." - Ding 'em twice for misspelling as well as an apostrophe where there is no possession.
4. The word "General" as a heading at the top of one page was spelled "Gernal."
5. "...has some of the best and lest expensive message theorists....." - should be "...has some of the best and least expensive massage therapists....." Well, OK, maybe Thailand does have something called message theorists, but why the hell would that make one wish to go there for vacation?
6. "Its got relaxation..." - should be "It's got relaxation..." (This error is a pet peeve of mine.)
7. "The supporting details prove the topic sentence stratifies the criterion." Huh? I think they mean "satisfies the criterion." But that's just me....
8. "....beaches are the prefect place...." - Now, me, I prefer perfect places. How about you?
9. "...they rent equipment of a variety of activities,...." - should be "...they rent equipment for a variety of activities,...."
10. "Form C strength is that it offers examples." - should be "Form C's strength is that it offers examples."
11. "That is because shrine houses a ghost that...." - should be "That is because the shrine houses a ghost that...." (Those pesky articles are almost as bad as prepositions for speakers of an Asian language.) Here's another:
12. "Therefore, it is duty of every...." - "...the duty".
13. "....travel to....Shrine at least one during our lifetime." - should be "...at least once during our lifetime."
14. "The key to doing the successfully is..." - should be "The key to doing this successfully is..."
15. The word "delivery" was misspelled as "delievery" a total of four times, three of which were section headings.
16. The word "cohesive" was misspelled as "cohesvie" twice.
17. When providing lists of words and phrases the student could use in sentences as transitional devices, some were duplicated (another pet peeve, sorry, it just bugs me).
18. The word "identified" was misspelled as "idenified" once.
19. The word "more" was misspelled as "morer" twice.
20. The paragraph discussing subordinating clauses stated, "Link two related sentences to each other so that one carries the main idea and the other is no longer a complete sentence." However, in both examples given, the sentences were composed of two independent clauses - if the subordinating conjunction were removed, both were complete sentences. Big help, huh?
21. The word "manufacturing" was misspelled as "manufcaturing" twice.
22. In two places two words had been crammed together without the required space: "Taiwanlast" and "wooditems."
23. The word "sightsee" was misspelled as "sight see" right next to "sightseeing," which should have given them a clue how to spell the first one.
24. The word "opportunities" was misspelled as "opertunities."
This list does not include the multiple errors in punctuation, such as missing commas and the like, which also adorned almost every page. This was just a cursory exam on my part, since my main goal in reading it was not to proofread but to prepare for my demo, so perhaps there are even more gems that I've not yet discovered.
Sadly, I am unable to obtain a job as a teacher at this school, as I do not possess the required BA degree (although they were quite happy with the first demo I gave them last week and would have hired me if the Taiwan government had given the official okey-dokey). Perhaps the materials are written by a qualified person who does have that little piece of paper that makes government officials jump and down for joy. Gosh, I wonder if I can get a job as a proofreader......
1. "Raters look criteria including of delivery..." - should be "Raters look at criteria, including delivery...
2. "That said, all most all....." - should be "That said, almost all...."
3. "The characteristic deference's between English...." - should be "The characteristic differences between English...." - Ding 'em twice for misspelling as well as an apostrophe where there is no possession.
4. The word "General" as a heading at the top of one page was spelled "Gernal."
5. "...has some of the best and lest expensive message theorists....." - should be "...has some of the best and least expensive massage therapists....." Well, OK, maybe Thailand does have something called message theorists, but why the hell would that make one wish to go there for vacation?
6. "Its got relaxation..." - should be "It's got relaxation..." (This error is a pet peeve of mine.)
7. "The supporting details prove the topic sentence stratifies the criterion." Huh? I think they mean "satisfies the criterion." But that's just me....
8. "....beaches are the prefect place...." - Now, me, I prefer perfect places. How about you?
9. "...they rent equipment of a variety of activities,...." - should be "...they rent equipment for a variety of activities,...."
10. "Form C strength is that it offers examples." - should be "Form C's strength is that it offers examples."
11. "That is because shrine houses a ghost that...." - should be "That is because the shrine houses a ghost that...." (Those pesky articles are almost as bad as prepositions for speakers of an Asian language.) Here's another:
12. "Therefore, it is duty of every...." - "...the duty".
13. "....travel to....Shrine at least one during our lifetime." - should be "...at least once during our lifetime."
14. "The key to doing the successfully is..." - should be "The key to doing this successfully is..."
15. The word "delivery" was misspelled as "delievery" a total of four times, three of which were section headings.
16. The word "cohesive" was misspelled as "cohesvie" twice.
17. When providing lists of words and phrases the student could use in sentences as transitional devices, some were duplicated (another pet peeve, sorry, it just bugs me).
18. The word "identified" was misspelled as "idenified" once.
19. The word "more" was misspelled as "morer" twice.
20. The paragraph discussing subordinating clauses stated, "Link two related sentences to each other so that one carries the main idea and the other is no longer a complete sentence." However, in both examples given, the sentences were composed of two independent clauses - if the subordinating conjunction were removed, both were complete sentences. Big help, huh?
21. The word "manufacturing" was misspelled as "manufcaturing" twice.
22. In two places two words had been crammed together without the required space: "Taiwanlast" and "wooditems."
23. The word "sightsee" was misspelled as "sight see" right next to "sightseeing," which should have given them a clue how to spell the first one.
24. The word "opportunities" was misspelled as "opertunities."
This list does not include the multiple errors in punctuation, such as missing commas and the like, which also adorned almost every page. This was just a cursory exam on my part, since my main goal in reading it was not to proofread but to prepare for my demo, so perhaps there are even more gems that I've not yet discovered.
Sadly, I am unable to obtain a job as a teacher at this school, as I do not possess the required BA degree (although they were quite happy with the first demo I gave them last week and would have hired me if the Taiwan government had given the official okey-dokey). Perhaps the materials are written by a qualified person who does have that little piece of paper that makes government officials jump and down for joy. Gosh, I wonder if I can get a job as a proofreader......
Friday, May 19, 2006
Ah, the pain of being unwanted.....
Taiwan is a very small island. So small that it would fit right in the space between my old home in Magalia, California and the big city of San Francisco. Yup, that small. Consequently, the Taiwan government isn't too keen on people moving over here and taking up space; and so they have adopted some rules.
If one wishes to stay in Taiwan more than one month, one must have a visa. How does one get this? Well, one must either have a confirmed job here and a work permit to go with it, or one must obtain a special student visa. The catch is that only certain schools are on the government-approved list, and if one does not attend one of those schools, one is S.O.L. Hey, no worries, my school is on that list.
Let me rephrase: my school was on that list. In April the government revised their list, and for reasons completely unknown to us normal people, they removed two of the language centers which have been popular for years. Right, you know it, one of those was mine. I think about 95% of the students at my school are here on student visas. They are not people with jobs who are studying Chinese in their free time, not foreign spouses of people who are here working in Taiwan for a long term. Granted, there are a few of those, but the school makes its living from those of us who need student visas.
We knew there was a problem, but the gals at the desk kept assuring us that the boss was in negotiations with the government, and the issues would all be resolved in May. Some students decided to play it safe and transferred to other schools that had the big thumbs up from the government. Other, more optimistic sorts (like me!), decided to wait and see. And last week I got the news: there is absolutely no way to extend my visa if I continue to study at this school.
Wah! I like my school. The tuition is lower than at other schools, the staff is great, the teachers (well, most of them) are wonderful, and I've made a lot of friends there. I'm comfortable there, and I don't want to change. Crap.
Never mind, I must make some choices. What will I do? I will have to leave Taiwan temporarily, because I can't overstay my current visa. No problem, I had already been planning a summer trip back to California for visiting and shopping. But how can I come back? I have to make some decisions.
I'm in a much better position than some of the students, because I already have money. So, if I choose, I can come back to Taiwan on my passport for a 30-day visit, and at the end of 30 days I just make a short hop over to Hong Kong for a day or two (and I don't even need to leave the airport; I can just wait there a couple of hours and catch a flight back). If I take the passport-only route, I must leave Taiwan every 30 days, and every time I go out of the country, I have to have already purchased the next plane ticket out, because you don't get back in unless you show proof that you have a reservation to leave again!
Second choice: I could hurry up and switch to another language center, getting my current school to give me a referral. New adventures with new classmates. But, my current Alien Residency Certificate is tied to my current school, so I have to start the process all over: be in Taiwan for four months without leaving, and consistently attending class. That would shoot my planned US trip right in the heart and kill it dead.
Third choice: attend university now, instead of a year from now, as I had planned. But, I still feel my ability to listen to and understand Chinese is quite lacking. I'm not sure I'd be able to pass my courses if I enter university now, and I wanted another year of language study first.
After much mulling it over, I have made my decision. I will, at least for a time, use only my passport to come back from my US visit, and I will go to Hong Kong once a month. Hey, I have friends there, it's a good excuse to visit them. Or I might even go to Singapore or Japan and see some places I've never seen. Thailand and Vietnam are also popular spots for the folks who make the regular trips out. I figure if I'm not paying tuition (which would be around $18,000NT at a new school), I can use that money for plane tickets. The price varies - in June one can go to Hong Kong for $4,100NT, but on July 1 the price leaps to $8,100. But that's just one airline, and there are always travel packages available.
Also, if I'm not going to school every morning, I can teach more English. Right now I have a lot of students! And they all like me so much that they keep telling their friends, and more people are asking me about sessions. It's been difficult juggling some of them, but I'd have a lot more flexibility if I didn't have a two-hour class every day.
Finally, the school I've been doing recording for has asked me if I want a job teaching conversational English. I gave a demo lesson yesterday, which went so well that they asked me if I would consider teaching TOEFL classes as well, which are more difficult that the conversation classes. They said if I get a job with them, they can apply for a work permit and ARC for me. Now, this would be absolutely wonderful, but since I've been consistently told that if one has no BA degree, one cannot teach (legally) in Taiwan. The government will not authorize work permits for teachers without degrees. The woman at the school did not seem to know this. I asked her to please check before either of us wasted any more of our time. This is Taiwan, and many times the "official" government regs don't seem to apply, and there are stories of work permits being issued to those sans that little piece of paper, but I certainly won't hold my breath. But I will do a happy dance if I get a thumbs up from the government! Easy job, only one day a week to start, three-hour class, $600NT per hour. The TOEFL class pays $700NT per hour. And, they are evening classes, which leaves the day free for more English tutoring :)
I spent five years getting to Taiwan, and I'm not leaving. Where there's a will, there's a way, right? However much I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends when I head back for the visit, there's no way I ever want to live in the US again. This bullheaded Irish/Italian/American Indian chick won't go down without a fight!
I'll keep ya'll posted on happenings, plans, etc.
If one wishes to stay in Taiwan more than one month, one must have a visa. How does one get this? Well, one must either have a confirmed job here and a work permit to go with it, or one must obtain a special student visa. The catch is that only certain schools are on the government-approved list, and if one does not attend one of those schools, one is S.O.L. Hey, no worries, my school is on that list.
Let me rephrase: my school was on that list. In April the government revised their list, and for reasons completely unknown to us normal people, they removed two of the language centers which have been popular for years. Right, you know it, one of those was mine. I think about 95% of the students at my school are here on student visas. They are not people with jobs who are studying Chinese in their free time, not foreign spouses of people who are here working in Taiwan for a long term. Granted, there are a few of those, but the school makes its living from those of us who need student visas.
We knew there was a problem, but the gals at the desk kept assuring us that the boss was in negotiations with the government, and the issues would all be resolved in May. Some students decided to play it safe and transferred to other schools that had the big thumbs up from the government. Other, more optimistic sorts (like me!), decided to wait and see. And last week I got the news: there is absolutely no way to extend my visa if I continue to study at this school.
Wah! I like my school. The tuition is lower than at other schools, the staff is great, the teachers (well, most of them) are wonderful, and I've made a lot of friends there. I'm comfortable there, and I don't want to change. Crap.
Never mind, I must make some choices. What will I do? I will have to leave Taiwan temporarily, because I can't overstay my current visa. No problem, I had already been planning a summer trip back to California for visiting and shopping. But how can I come back? I have to make some decisions.
I'm in a much better position than some of the students, because I already have money. So, if I choose, I can come back to Taiwan on my passport for a 30-day visit, and at the end of 30 days I just make a short hop over to Hong Kong for a day or two (and I don't even need to leave the airport; I can just wait there a couple of hours and catch a flight back). If I take the passport-only route, I must leave Taiwan every 30 days, and every time I go out of the country, I have to have already purchased the next plane ticket out, because you don't get back in unless you show proof that you have a reservation to leave again!
Second choice: I could hurry up and switch to another language center, getting my current school to give me a referral. New adventures with new classmates. But, my current Alien Residency Certificate is tied to my current school, so I have to start the process all over: be in Taiwan for four months without leaving, and consistently attending class. That would shoot my planned US trip right in the heart and kill it dead.
Third choice: attend university now, instead of a year from now, as I had planned. But, I still feel my ability to listen to and understand Chinese is quite lacking. I'm not sure I'd be able to pass my courses if I enter university now, and I wanted another year of language study first.
After much mulling it over, I have made my decision. I will, at least for a time, use only my passport to come back from my US visit, and I will go to Hong Kong once a month. Hey, I have friends there, it's a good excuse to visit them. Or I might even go to Singapore or Japan and see some places I've never seen. Thailand and Vietnam are also popular spots for the folks who make the regular trips out. I figure if I'm not paying tuition (which would be around $18,000NT at a new school), I can use that money for plane tickets. The price varies - in June one can go to Hong Kong for $4,100NT, but on July 1 the price leaps to $8,100. But that's just one airline, and there are always travel packages available.
Also, if I'm not going to school every morning, I can teach more English. Right now I have a lot of students! And they all like me so much that they keep telling their friends, and more people are asking me about sessions. It's been difficult juggling some of them, but I'd have a lot more flexibility if I didn't have a two-hour class every day.
Finally, the school I've been doing recording for has asked me if I want a job teaching conversational English. I gave a demo lesson yesterday, which went so well that they asked me if I would consider teaching TOEFL classes as well, which are more difficult that the conversation classes. They said if I get a job with them, they can apply for a work permit and ARC for me. Now, this would be absolutely wonderful, but since I've been consistently told that if one has no BA degree, one cannot teach (legally) in Taiwan. The government will not authorize work permits for teachers without degrees. The woman at the school did not seem to know this. I asked her to please check before either of us wasted any more of our time. This is Taiwan, and many times the "official" government regs don't seem to apply, and there are stories of work permits being issued to those sans that little piece of paper, but I certainly won't hold my breath. But I will do a happy dance if I get a thumbs up from the government! Easy job, only one day a week to start, three-hour class, $600NT per hour. The TOEFL class pays $700NT per hour. And, they are evening classes, which leaves the day free for more English tutoring :)
I spent five years getting to Taiwan, and I'm not leaving. Where there's a will, there's a way, right? However much I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends when I head back for the visit, there's no way I ever want to live in the US again. This bullheaded Irish/Italian/American Indian chick won't go down without a fight!
I'll keep ya'll posted on happenings, plans, etc.
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