中文

sssooo...... it's like 2am on Saturday the 22nd of December in the year 2007 A.D. and I'm dead tired, but can't sleep. *shocker* ( O.O ) So yeah... I was all like totally conked out on the floor around 12:30... then got up in search of warmer/comfier/more traditional sleeping accommodations.... and then found I was in the exhausted but can't sleep mode..... for the third month in a row. It really is annoying now that I am on break ~ for an entirely too-short 3 week break that is already 1/3 over :( *bad thoughts disappear* ~ because very very very soon I'll be back to overload stress levels with approximately 20 to 21 credit hours this semester. I will be attempting to avoid most of the Int'l students on campus come Spring '08 semester. Since I have no idea how to say, "No, I'm about to self-combust, I'm up to my hair follicles in my own work, I simply cannot help you." I have to try the duck and cover method.... (加油 - 芙蓉!!) ;) lol
Anyways.... and so... here I am. At 2:30am completely unable to sleep. ~ And when one can't sleep, what would any sane person do, but write on their blog!? (Duh!)



Yay - Learning Chinese is Fun - No - Seriously!!

I'm not kidding. I'm really starting to enjoy learning Chinese again. This semester has been great if for nothing else than I'm excited about it again.

During the course of this semester, I helped an Master's in Education student complete a project she had to conduct for one of her grad classes. She had to teach me some things that would be helpful for me in Taiwan. And then gather data and a whole bunch of information then do a final presentation in front of the class. It was a lot of fun.

The first thing on our list was Taiwanese phonics, because she cannot use the Chinese pinyin that I learned in a 1 semester, slightly lackluster culture/language class that was offered at the university. So - I memorized all 32 different sounds that are presented in the Taiwanese phonics... they start off something like this... these sounds are presented more in the pinyin style than in English phonetics.... But it'll give you a small idea of what you start with.

ba - pa - ma - fa - da - ta - na - la - ga - ka - ha - gi - qi - xi - jr - qr - xr - ri ......


Okay - Well I'm glad the image worked out... this is what the actual characters of the Taiwanese phonics look like.

Frankly, you just have to memorize them - just like the Chinese characters. This is not a language for people with bad memories. I was blessed with a pretty good memory, and I still have trouble remembering everything. I sure hope this gets easier when I move to Taiwan.... If it doesn't, I'm moving to Korea, permanently instead of just temporarily.

Okay-a ~ This has been a short introduction to what I learned at the beginning of this semester. I'm still trying to figure out how to type in Traditional characters which are the ones I'm learning to write since Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and some other Chinese speaking communities persist in using versus the much easier Simplified that is used in mainland China. *cry* Anyways. Once I have mustered up a little bit of knowledge, I will continue to show you what I have been learning. :D I really am very excited about it. Especially now that it's break and I no longer feel guilty or that I'm procrastinating by working on Chinese rather than doing my other boring homework. :(

Okay - I finally begin to feel sleepy, so I will try and take advantage of this fact and go in search of "The Sandman".

~ Happy Sleeping to All - And to All a Good Sleeping ~

- Cheers

Texting in class!! >:\

Okay... so here's my rant for the day. This probably won't be too long, it's just something that's been on my mind.

Kay, so there are a few people in my classes who persist at texting while class is in session.
I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud about it since I've been forced to respond to a person in class via text, but it was under rather extreme circumstances. Not to mention the frantic texts and calls were making my phone vibrate like crazy, which was also noticeable... So I was forced to type a quick response. I also apologized to the teacher afterwards, so I understand emergencies. However there are a few people in some of my classes who proceed to completely ignore the teacher and text the entire way through the class. *shrug* I don't know about you, but if I were the teacher and this one student did this in like every class, then my opinion of them would be seriously altered.

too be continued....

*Like 15 weeks later.... literally.... xD .... ooops.... sorry... he he....

okie-dokie.... picking up where I left off.....

I really don't see how the teacher would be able to really think well of any student who does this. No matter how much I like the person outside of class, or what my opinion of them was at the beginning of the year.... my opinion of them has changed.... What really gets me though, is that after going through all of this, the whole texting thing. One particular student then has the gall to complain that the teacher doesn't like them, and that they won't be able to make up an assignment that they missed in class.... Now I don't know about you. But that kinda seems like a no-brainer to me. I obviously appear to be wrong though.........

Anyways - I really can't believe it reeaaally took me this long to get back to finish this post. Gadzooks but I'm a rather terrible blogger. Lol. :D

- Cheers

???

Frankly, this is a test... I've been out of the magic-blogging-circle for a long time... so I'm back to the skill level of my loverly 84-year-old granny.... who is sweet.... but completely technology impaired...
Anyways, so here goes....

*Testing - Testing....

1...2....3.... TESTING!!?!?!??!

Anyone out there!?!?!!?

Anyone!?!?!


someone???



hello??? ......... HELLO!???!?!?!?!?

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?????!!!!!!???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????!!!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!! AAHAHhHHHHH!!!!!!!!
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"So alone.... ... so alone!!! *whimper*..."

^^ My movie quote of the day...

So, anyway... just wanted to see what a real-actual-post would look like length wise... (We'll just have to imagine the substantial* parts of the post our self...)

I like the idea of adding pics/vids/substance/changing fonts/changing sizes/changing color/changing clothes/changing hair colors/changing eye colors.......... okay, this just got ridiculous...

- Cheers

p.s. Ratatouille the movie was hilarious... kinda creepy sometimes just cuz there are a few scenes with large amounts of rats scurrying round.... one cute little rat as the main character is hilarious, but the scenes of the rats running in droves, is all too realistic, and kinda gross.... *shudder* BUT... needless to say, it really is a cute little movie... ;)

*please insert some dissertation on Plato.... or rather Archimedes since I still have a grudge** against my Western Civ professor for making me read large sections of The Republic... :(

**I much preferred Aristotle's The Polis.... about 100 times more than The Republic...