Yesterday, I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and was met with a plethora of other people also on there way to the event. While some will call this just a typical rush hour, I on the other hand would call it an overloaded train! I’ve been working in London for quite sometime now, and this was so much more different to a typical rush hour. There were queues leading all the way out of the station with people pushing to get onto the train and with people being stuck inside as a result. It was a fun little night out, and the Tube ride certainly was a lot of fun. We actually started talking to other strangers at about how crowded things were etc. 😉
The story that started out with my Mandarin wasn’t too good. I was depressed, deterred, demoralized and a huge range of bad things occurred during my first tenure of learning the language. I felt no progress and perhaps I couldn’t possibly progress. I felt stupid and generally I wanted to give up. I even made quite a few posts, especially one entitled “I have the memory of a fish when it comes to Chinese“, which depicts my attitude and how I felt when I was down in that hole.Â
Luckily now, I have changed immensely.Â
I no longer worry about having to do any tests as I score pretty high in all of them and I’m now so much more confident than before.Â
Today, I went back home to my parents place, my Auntie was around and she was testing my Mandarin. I had quite a few simple, however long conversations with her, she was quite impressed with my progress – as the last time I spoke to her… I was still in that aforementioned  hole.Â
I’ve started to climb out, though not fully out, though I’m almost out. I consider my Mandarin still to be not that good, but I can now kind of hold conversations.Â
I still have a fear of talking to others of whom I do not know well enough, or of those who I do know well enough, but I however do not want to lose face.Â
Whatever the case, things are going OK when it comes to Mandarin for me, so I’m not worrying about that at the moment. All I’m worrying about is what happens next, and the great mystery which unfolds, called the future. :p
The best argument for an atheist when he makes the following statement:
"God doesn't exist."
… and a religious person replies:
"Can you prove he doesn't exist?"
You say:
The onus is not on me to prove whether he exists or not. It is you that has to provide the evidence for the existence for such entity since you claim it exists. I do not claim it exists, I purely dismiss having any knowledge of claimed higher being in the case of a human-made idea of such an entity. I merely state the fact that it doesn't exist on the same basis a wooden donkey isn't floating around in space right now talking to other aliens.
If I say there is a military type-war taking place in Switzerland, I made the claim, so I have to prove that. If no news agencies are reporting that or if no one is talking about it, then no one is going to believe me, right? But because there are so many religious people around, people will believe religion, supported by the fact that there are so many others that also believe that religion. However the Muslim religion is the largest in the world, yet if you were brought up in a Christian country, you aren't likely to become Muslim though very likely to become Christian. That is how the religions we see today have grown to what they have now become.
Yet, if I said, "There isn't a war taking place in Switzerland", that is more believable. It is more logical and considering the news haven't reported of the war taking place or there aren't others talking about it, It is totally more believable. My point is that it can actually work both ways. So while the majority of the worlds population supposedly believe in a higher deity or "God", just because the majority claim it to be true, doesn't mean it is. But this all turns to one point, if you have evidence that there is a war taking place and that you have evidence of such a thing taking place (Citing sources that the evidence is totally credible), then it is more believable. However religion relies on one thing only and that is a huge amount of faith and belief in something which equates to the same as believing a 't-shirt' created everything. Arguments set out by those who debate atheists, sound totally outlandish to those who do not believe.
However by the same token, because of how rapidly religion has grown through the past, through hate, love, the joining together of a group and the teaching of younger people who then spread that teaching to their children and so forth, religion has grown excessively with people believing mindlessly. – They haven't been taught anything else and to believe otherwise would be totally absurd in their minds. I can understand this considering I had the same upbringing. Though if you know me, I had a 6 month gap period where I stepped away from all that and looked at it more objectively. Otherwise I would probably be praising good old 'Jesus' right now.
Although I wish for there to be an after life or heaven where I'll be able to see those who died and make new friends, it doesn't make it real. I really wish I could have more evidence, my life would be more endearing knowing that there is something out there waiting for me. But I cannot believe in something which cannot be proven. I stick to my principals on this issue as I know others can easily be influenced by fear of dying and going to hell by not believing.
I can offer a story of when I was younger. — I went to a Christian school and at the moment of my last year at the school, I was the only person in my class who was atheist or I just didn't believe. I don't like to label myself as agnostic considering that I don't agree with the term. Although I cannot prove the existence of 'God', doesn't mean I have to. I just don't believe that such an entity exists. I was very open about this and I asked my R.E. teacher where I would go to after I'd die considering I didn't believe in God. He replied with "Hell". That is what I don't like about religion. Now if there were no such thing as hell, I wouldn't mind religion so much, but because it induces fear in the sense "You don't believe? Well guess what, you are going to Hell!"
That makes more people want to become part of some religion just so they "might" be right. For me, I stuck to my principles in this case, something like that wouldn't deter me. Unless of course 'God' indeed touch me like so many people say, I would probably have the same belief, however 'God' has never touched me throughout the years I was exposed to Christiniaty at a young age and up until I was a teenager. I am sure if 'God' as those who claim him to be almighty and all-powerful; if he did indeed touch me, I would be Christian right now. Therefore I cannot relate to those who say "'God' touched me". I wouldn't call them a liar, but at times 'misguided', 'confused' or any other amount of reasons that one could come up with fit perfectly.
Atheist
Purely atheist to me means: I don't believe that God exists. Simple. Just in the same way, I don't believe that father Christmas exists or the tooth fairy.
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.
I've find my motivation. In fact I don't need any motivation to learn Chinese. – That is my motivation. I feel that if you need to be motivated into doing something, you are going to do it "half-assed". Doing it properly, means you have to like the subject you are doing and you will have to be serious about learning but also find it fun to keep you motivated. (Although I said previously you don't need to be motivated to learn the language for a reason, but you do need to be motivated to study the language, but also enjoy the language) – Now I feel I am talking out of my but-hole, but that doesn't matter, because I'm just spewing whatever is coming out of head.
Although I'm finding Chinese difficult I'm trying hard enough. But is that enough? I hope so. But also gaining proper understanding of Chinese is paramount. You may work your butt off and you may work the hardest you have ever worked, but that still might not make you understand. – I guess that is the stage of where I'm at. But I talked to my good American friend who has studied for a year and he said that the Chinese in the end will just "click" into your head. I guess it's like how I can type so fast and accurately. I couldn't do it before, but after a lot of practice and usage I'm now able to fluently type and as they say practice makes perfect.
Although I haven't been to sleep for the past 24 hours continuing onto now, I feel my drive to learn Chinese at night now for some reason. The only problem is that I don't get any sleep, but I find I'm more concentrated at night, so it's all good.
