by Jonny | Jan 23, 2012 | Updates
Life is literally confusing for me right now, as I thought I’d be going to do military service this month, in fact, I thought I’d be going tomorrow.
It seems that the Taiwanese government aren’t interested in actually drafting any more people into the military. My mother has told me that the Taiwanese military have drafted too many people into the military and aren’t drafting anymore people.
So, that kind of ruined my plans, as I could have continued studying Mandarin at Feng-Chia, however as I have missed the semester I can’t sign up for another and need to wait for this current semester to end. Otherwise, I’ll be behind if I sign up now as I haven’t really studied to be honest. Although, I will say that my speaking has somewhat improved, however my writing has deteriorated somewhat as I haven’t been practicing.
Seeing as I’m not studying, what am I doing?
I now I have a job. Or, not at the moment! But will soon!
Job title: Assistant Engineer
It is funny, as I don’t know jack about engineering. However I’m looking at this job moreover like an internship; except I’m getting paid. It is for a company which manufactures diagnostic tools for vehicles.
My mum knows the actual person’s wife, whose husband owns the company. So that is how I have sneaked into this job without actually having the qualifications for it. I’m hoping that they can actually find me a job that I can do and that I’ll enjoy.
One issue is the working time, apparently it is from Mon-Fri from 9 am – 6 pm. Those are some long hours and I just hope I’m actually doing something useful for this company, as opposed to doing nothing. – That would be totally unfair on the favor they’ve given me to actually have the job in the first place.
I just hope for the hours that I’ll be doing, the pay will be somewhat decent, especially under the job title of “Assistant Engineer”, which to me sounds like an impressive title. Combined with the long hours and the fact I’ll be working every weekday, I’ll probably raking in a bit of money. First thing I’ll do is save the money. I want to go to Korea to see my girlfriend and just to have a nice time there and perhaps buy her a ticket to come to Taiwan and whatnot. 🙂
Whatever the case, I hope this job turns out good for me!
by Jonny | Jan 22, 2012 | Updates
Yesterday was Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year, as my Taiwanese friends would want me to say; as they consider themselves Taiwanese as opposed to Chinese. (Although I guess I think the same way, even though on my Taiwanese passport it says “Republic of China R.O.C”)
I had a great time with my family and an American bloke, we all ate some traditional Chinese food which my mother cooked up. It was delicious as usual, and I had no complaints. I also received some red envelopes. It is traditional to give those who are not married red envelopes and since I’m not married I received a few; which usually contain money.
It’s funny… when I finished my mid-term examination last Friday my teacher gave everyone a red envelope containing $1NT. Which is worth less than a penny in terms of British money, but it is the thought that counts, no? 😀
by Jonny | Jan 19, 2012 | Updates
Today I had a test which involved reading & speaking Mandarin-Chinese. Tomorrow I’ll have a writing test.
I pretty much found the reading & speaking test to be actually quite easy.
I had no problems in answering the questions that my teacher gave me, and reading the characters was no problem for me.
Although I faltered a little when it came to the tones, as I was a little nervous and tried to read the dialogue in front of me as fast I could. However, I have a feeling that tomorrow’s test will be significantly harder than the test I did today. Considering writing in Mandarin is much harder than speaking the damned language. (Quite harder)
In essence, I wish myself luck for tomorrow’s test, but I think it will be a breeze. I should really study now, though I have a lot of time tomorrow morning and up until the afternoon to study for this test, so I have plenty of time to study! 🙂
by Jonny | Jan 17, 2012 | Updates
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.
Luckily now, I have changed immensely.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
by Jonny | Jan 15, 2012 | Updates
I’m a little late on the WordPress update as of recent to 3.3, however I’m loving the new layout and features, that I’m now discovering.
The biggest feature in the update, in my opinion, is the new media upload function. It works similar to that of Google’s online Picasa; which I use frequently. Which is originally why I used Picasa.
However with this update in mind, I feel no need to make use of Picasa. Although I’ll use a lot of webspace, uploading my own photo’s to my own server, it will be much much easier now.
Before I had to upload my pictures one by one. Now it is as simple as copy and drag into this new uploading function.
Thank you WordPress!
by Jonny | Jan 15, 2012 | Updates
Ever since my girlfriend left Taiwan to South Korea, I’ve felt lonely. It just doesn’t feel the same, and for me, it feels as if there is something missing.
I talk to my girlfriend for around one hour per day on Skype, and hopefully in the future more often since she is getting a smart-phone and she’ll be able to use Skype on there.
She’ll likely kill me, for posting these pictures, however she doesn’t look at my blog, or doesn’t know too much about blogging, so the likelihood of her seeing these are nil.
However if she did see these photo’s, then she’d have to come to Taiwan to kill me, so I’ll lose but also win.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk
I dread of what tomorrow brings. Usually after class she’d wait for me, ring me in the morning, planned what we could do on that day with me and generally was there for me. She’d come round and we would hug & kiss for several hours in my room.
I had someone’s hand to hold, my hands are now feeling the emptiness that was there previous. Hopefully she’ll come visit me as I won’t be able to go abroad as I’ll be doing my military service in Taiwan. Although after I have promised her to go to South Korea next year. I hope it is a promise I can keep by then.
