I went into class thinking I would be in a pissed off mood or not pissed of but a sad and gloomy mood. (Depression would describe it well I guess) However that wasn't the case, I guess the fact that I didn't get my test results today was the reason I was happy. Plus I did not study on Saturday and Sunday; while still doing fine in class.
I'm off my Ritalin at the moment, as I need to go buy more, which is the reason why I've not been so dedicated to studying anymore. Although the bad thing with this is that I am now eating in Burger King to please myself and make myself indulge in what I think I need to eat just to keep me happy. Where with the Ritalin before I didn't even feel the need to eat.
Just had a hair cut today. I was getting bored of having to comb down a crap load of hair so I decided to get it trimmed a little. It looks OK. I got the sides trimmed to around a size 2 and the top is like a 4. It looks good in my opinion and makes me ‘stand out’. 😀
As for the cost of the hair cut, it cost me $500NT which is around 10 pounds. That is quite cheap in terms of a UK comparison since I got the following:
A ten minute back massage
They washed my hair twice (Before and after)
A stylist recommended me a few hair designs
The girls who were cutting my hair were pretty hot XD (<3 Taiwanese girls)
I really don’t know why they gave me a back massage, but hey, I’m not complaining haha. I guess that is covered in the price, since $500NT over here can buy you a lot more in for example the UK with just 10 pounds. So I guess in that sense it covered everything I got.
There was this really hot chick who kept staring at me as if I didn’t notice lol! She kept talking to her colleague and looking at me, so I felt a little nervous while getting my hair cut. But that same chick came to wash my hair after my hair cut was done, so it was all good. I just wish I could speak a little more conversational Mandarin.
Hopefully I won’t get too many bad reactions in class tomorrow about my hair lol!
Anyway’s, I didn’t go to Nantou with my friends today to the Tea Festival. I couldn’t find it in me to go and I was too depressed. I didn’t want to make my friends and the others there depressed as well. So I just stayed in by myself and slept most of today. I should have gone for a run … and I should have studied, but I wanted to take a break. The test I had on Friday was very demotivating and demoralised any sense in wanting to learn Chinese.
Site update
I screwed up the commenting system, so I turned it off altogether. In fact I didn’t turn it off, I just completely deleted the ‘commenting’ code, so it doesn’t exist anymore. I guess I also had enough of people spamming my blog with spam comments. (I had 3,000 comments on my comment queue with most of them being spam comments. (I haven’t installed Askimet yet)
I also am testing a few plugins for WordPress to see how they play out. Or I’m actually trying to find a decent community plugin for my website over at “armour.ws” to fully replace my web-forum which isn’t doing so well. So it is pointless having it there altogether. I really am not good at building up forums and in this day and age forums have literally become obsolete, with only a few of the big forums surviving the wave of social networking biggies such as Facebook and Twitter.
Test results tomorrow
I am dreading my test results tomorrow.
I already know I didn’t do so well in the speaking test and I already know I didn’t do so well in the writing test. However I don’t know to which degree how badly I did in the writing test. Kind of like a ‘fingers crossed’ and whatever result I get … well I just hope it is higher than 70%. If it is around 70% I will be mildy happy. 😀
It is making me feel really bad and I really don’t want to go in tomorrow. I just feel I am not learning much when going in. I just wish I had a different teacher. Next semester I should have a change in terms of teacher. If that doesn’t work out, then I can only contemplate that there is something wrong with me and I’ll have no excuse in blaming a teacher…. teaching style.
To also demotivate me even more my teacher said “You are not going to be studying next semester?”. This was after completely decimating and ruining my speaking test. She asked me that question straight after I fucked up in my test. I was like… umm no, I’ll be studying next semester as well. Then she explained that one of the teachers had told her that I was joining the military. Though I corrected that, I said in Mandarin I have to go into the military next year. But fuck me did her saying that demotivate the fuck out of me, it felt to me as she was saying, “You suck, you won’t be coming back next semester, will you? Or… “We don’t want you here next semester.” – I mean even before I answered her fucking question, she crossed me off as not joining next semesters class, I had not even answered her, so she had to correct her mistake. (Sorry for the bad language if you are reading this, I don’t usually swear… I am just frustrated over this) So yeah, that kind of sucked.
What do I mean by not learning much?
I feel if I go to the library, I can learn a lot more Mandarin within the 2 hour period of I time if I had gone to study instead in class. When I am in class the teacher fucking talks using Mandarin in vocabulary we haven’t even learned in the book. I mean I appreciate she is trying to teach us Mandarin and broaden our vocabulary, but even when I ask my classmates WTF she is talking about they are as equally confused or are not even 60% sure of what she is saying.
I mean if I got the grammar which I admittedly suck at, my test score would be a lot higher than currently is. That is kind of what is screwing me up at the moment. Where with English I know the grammar off by heart. I don’t even think about subject, verbs, nouns or any other grammar placements. I am used to writing in English without having to know these grammar order.
Possibly two of my most favourite songs. I remember singing their songs in the car when my Dad used to take me out. I didn’t really care about my voice back then and just sung as loud as I possibly could. 😀 Or on the way to school I used to sing this. Good memories.
Let's just say I had an incredibly bad day today. We had our mid-term exam for Chinese and I believe I didn't do so well. The writing test I was more calm and at ease with that, although I do believe I got more than just a few questions wrong. However the oral (speaking) test was bad for me. I was really nervous and frustrated from the writing test. However the teacher couldn't have asked easier questions. My god I failed so bad in that respect. I think today I'll just stay in and chill out at home and leave Chinese for tonight to study. I have been studying nearly every single freaking day yet what I'm seemingly only remembering is the characters. The technical aspects of Chinese such as the grammar and actual understanding of the combination of words is what confuses me the most.
Another teacher from another class told me that needed to embrace the words/characters as if it were my first language. I need to throw out the English and replace it with Chinese. But this is the first language I have ever really put any thought into. Other than online scripting languages such as PHP, HTML, CSS and a few others.
I have a really good Japanese friend and she can't speak English (Only Japanese), she is also learning Chinese while also struggling nearly at the same level as me. However I think she is a little better than me considering she knows Japanese. By that viewpoint I guess she is kind of better than me as she has more of an understanding because of that. Anyway's I spoke to this good friend of mine for around an hour, considering we can't speak the same language that is a feat in itself. – I mean I can understanding her meaning even if they are a little skewed and she seems to be able to understand me and is able to respond in-kind. (Talking in simple Chinese and English; a combination of the tw0) She gave me a hug which is exactly what I needed. I'll admit I didn't know how to embrace the hug considering I haven't had a hug in quite a while. She made me feel good and she said to me "you are not alone", that really helped me.
The only complaint I could make is against my teacher, I don't think she actually cares too much as to whether or not my Chinese is good or not. Where with my speech teacher she actually gives a shit and tries to help me understand. I just wish this course was in English (Especially the grammar part) as I totally get confused when it is explained to me in Chinese.
Although my Chinese is still suffering, I'm coming to the conclusion it doesn't matter anymore. I can study Chinese for a pretty long time, so there isn't any rush in learning the language. Although I would love to excel in learning Chinese however that just might not be a possibility. I mean I can remember the characters but piecing them together so grammar-wise they are correct is a whole different story. I definitely need to work on improving my Chinese grammar, that is an area I need to work on badly if I want to pass this mid-term exam I have tomorrow morning. (It is speaking and listening … while also testing my writing abilities and my ability to move around sentences into a more organised way)
I will admit I could have committed suicide just finishing my Chinese class,- as I really didn't understand nor did I really learn anything new in class other than new vocabulary. But I really can do that myself in a more efficient manner.
However a girl called Yan Lin helped me today and she explained what I had to do etc. I am so gracious for the help she gave me and plus I had a good conversation with her friends as well as herself. So it was win-win, although I still think I'll forget everything I learned when I get into class tomorrow morning. But I am thankful as she helped me memorize this dialogue, even though it took 15 times to remember it without looking at the book. We kind of got there in the end. I also fancy her so that really didn't help as inside I was so nervous, but I tried not to show it! xD
Anyway's all is good for now. The question is… will tomorrow be as good? I would be a little devastated if I could at least get above 70% on my test tomorrow. I would be. But I have studied extremely hard in memorizing the characters and I spent two hours or so with Ya Lin, so I would have hoped I actually learned something from that. (Well I hope so… as I can only hope)
After my meeting with Yan Lin, I then went off to the library to study a little more and wrote all the questions that were in Chinese and then answered them. Actually I had to reconfigure the sentences as was written on the sheet.. just like a reconfiguration of the grammar structure. It is a little confusing to be honest for me at the moment. I don't know what the test will be like or what, but I hope it won't be as hard as my practice papers. (Which in the past have been harder than the actual tests)
Then after the library I went to a friends birthday party! That was pretty cool. We ate pizza and I talked to quite a few people! Talking is always great, even if a little unproductive, but hey at least you learn more about other people!
