Macao was awesome. I got a package deal from a travel agent here that included 2 days 1 night at the hotel plus airfare for 350 US. The original quote was for 200 US but they taxed the hell out of me in airport taxes. They do that to everyone, but I thought it was pretty ridiculous that the airport taxes were almost as much as base cost for the plane ticket.
There was also an issue with Immigration leaving the country. I left on the 60th day (or 61st) depending how you counted. The immigration guy counted on his fingers a couple times before realizing I didn't overstay and then just gave me an exit stamp.
Flying to Macao was easy. It was about an hour and a half flight and then I landed. Immigration gave me no trouble and neither did Customs. The cab took me straight to my hotel (supposedly a 5 star hotel) and I got checked in. The cab fare was about triple what I expected and this was foreboding of what was to come. On the weekends, Macao institutes a "tourist tax" where everything increases in price dramatically.
I took a shower at the hotel and went exploring. Unbeknown to me, my tourist map was incorrect. It showed streets as running straight when really they all went in circles. I got lost and found myself a couple of times before ending up downtown. I saw the casinos there and then walked up to the San Leonardo square. After figuring out where I was and taking some pictures, I went to the Saint Paul Cathedral. Right as I was going to take a picture, my camera battery died. I trekked back to 7-11 and bought a disposable camera. Took some pictures of the Saint Paul Cathedral and then the fort protecting the Cathedral.
Walking around for 2 or 3 hours really tired me out so I went back to the hotel to shower and sleep. I got up in the morning and walked around some more. I was looking for a bakery that opened up early to buy some Portuguese egg tarts. I found one but it wasn't very close. I walked to the store, bought a box and took a cab to the airport.
Customs and Immigration were easy, and the boarding didn't take very long. They started boarding passengers late but we still took off on time. Boarding looked like it was out of the 40's, walking up a gangway to get into the plane. 2 hours later I was back in Taiwan, and shortly after that on a bus back to Taipei.
Here are the pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/67kjnz
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
School and Work Situation
Due to my complications with work and school here I had to go on a quick trip out of the country to renew my visa. Normally all I would have to do is go to the police department and get my visa stamped again for another 60 days. The reason that didn't work for me is because my grades in school have been pretty poor.
There are several reasons for this, including lack of effort on my end, but the major reason was out of my control. The wonderful Chinese Department at my Alma Mater decided to update to the brand new edition of the Chinese 301 textbook. While I would normally have been happy to hear this, due to the old version being 15 years old, I was furious. I spent 6 months translating the first half of the book for Anthony, the visually impaired student at CSULB who is studying Chinese.
When the book finally arrived near the end of September, I had to glance through it to see what the changes were and how severe they were. I was hoping that the changes would be minor, take a week at most to fix and I could continue with on schedule. This turned out not to be possible.
This edition has significant changes from the previous one, enough that I have to type it all over again. This is a serious problem since I didn't receive the new book until the 3rd week of September. I lost a month and a half from my schedule and have to start from the beginning. I hoped that I could still study and work but that turned out to be too naive of me.
If all I had to do was work, attend school and study, that would be challenging but attainable. Having to play catch up with work meant something was going to fall by the wayside. First it was sleep, then came homework and finally school. I skipped school the week of the 13th to type. I was able to get a lot done that week and the next. In fact, working 10 hour days I was able to get about a month's worth of work done in two weeks. I was able to get two weeks closer to my deadline, but at the cost of not studying.
It came down to a very difficult decision, but I dropped out of school. By missing so many days of class, they weren't going to renew my visa. My grades were also extremely low from trying to juggle all those balls in the air. My classmates were starting to get aggravated that I wasn't studying, and I just didn't care. Scholarship or not, MTC was not what I expected. The extra hour of class a day didn't help when we had 8 students in the class. Their materials all state that the average class size is 5 to 6 students. I later found this to be a lie. They will only open a class if they have at least 5 students. The average class size is 7 which is not too bad compared to my college class sizes. However here they don't separate students in the manner they should.
Western students have different strengths and weaknesses than Japanese or Korean students. My class had three Japanese students who scored upper 90's or perfect on every test. They had no difficulty writing, but major difficulty pronouncing the characters correctly. My pronunciation is much clearer than theirs, however I couldn't write very well. Since the tests are written, with only a small token section towards listening comprehension, I did poorly. As time went on, with less chance to study, I did worse. I finally made the decision not to return to NTNU.
I don't plan on stopping my study of Chinese though. I still plan on studying albeit at a different school. Its called Taipei Language Institute, and they have reasonable class rates for 1 on 1 instruction. That should help me work on my pronunciation and listening (which need some work) and a pace that will work for me. Most importantly though, I don't care about writing. Recognition is fine, I don't need to waste time writing characters.
There are several reasons for this, including lack of effort on my end, but the major reason was out of my control. The wonderful Chinese Department at my Alma Mater decided to update to the brand new edition of the Chinese 301 textbook. While I would normally have been happy to hear this, due to the old version being 15 years old, I was furious. I spent 6 months translating the first half of the book for Anthony, the visually impaired student at CSULB who is studying Chinese.
When the book finally arrived near the end of September, I had to glance through it to see what the changes were and how severe they were. I was hoping that the changes would be minor, take a week at most to fix and I could continue with on schedule. This turned out not to be possible.
This edition has significant changes from the previous one, enough that I have to type it all over again. This is a serious problem since I didn't receive the new book until the 3rd week of September. I lost a month and a half from my schedule and have to start from the beginning. I hoped that I could still study and work but that turned out to be too naive of me.
If all I had to do was work, attend school and study, that would be challenging but attainable. Having to play catch up with work meant something was going to fall by the wayside. First it was sleep, then came homework and finally school. I skipped school the week of the 13th to type. I was able to get a lot done that week and the next. In fact, working 10 hour days I was able to get about a month's worth of work done in two weeks. I was able to get two weeks closer to my deadline, but at the cost of not studying.
It came down to a very difficult decision, but I dropped out of school. By missing so many days of class, they weren't going to renew my visa. My grades were also extremely low from trying to juggle all those balls in the air. My classmates were starting to get aggravated that I wasn't studying, and I just didn't care. Scholarship or not, MTC was not what I expected. The extra hour of class a day didn't help when we had 8 students in the class. Their materials all state that the average class size is 5 to 6 students. I later found this to be a lie. They will only open a class if they have at least 5 students. The average class size is 7 which is not too bad compared to my college class sizes. However here they don't separate students in the manner they should.
Western students have different strengths and weaknesses than Japanese or Korean students. My class had three Japanese students who scored upper 90's or perfect on every test. They had no difficulty writing, but major difficulty pronouncing the characters correctly. My pronunciation is much clearer than theirs, however I couldn't write very well. Since the tests are written, with only a small token section towards listening comprehension, I did poorly. As time went on, with less chance to study, I did worse. I finally made the decision not to return to NTNU.
I don't plan on stopping my study of Chinese though. I still plan on studying albeit at a different school. Its called Taipei Language Institute, and they have reasonable class rates for 1 on 1 instruction. That should help me work on my pronunciation and listening (which need some work) and a pace that will work for me. Most importantly though, I don't care about writing. Recognition is fine, I don't need to waste time writing characters.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Long overdue update
Due to internet problems at my apartment, I haven't been able to access the internet unless I run over to Starbucks or KFC and use their WiFi system. The problem was fixed recently but I've just been too busy to sit down and type. That, or when I sit down to type, I get a mental block. I'll try to keep the updates coming more frequently in the future.
My apartment: I like it here. The building is nice, area is convenient and my neighbors don't seem to bother me too much. Except for the sewage leak two weeks ago there haven't been any major problems yet. The two typhoons that hit Taiwan didn't do much more than blow a lot of wind and rain. The one lightning strike that was nearby flashed out my window and the thunder left my ears ringing, but no major damage.
As for the sewage spill... Even though we have a new building, with new pipes, it is connected to the old waste lines that the city built 50 years ago. As such, there is a problem with the size of the pipes and how easy they can get clogged. The issue happened on the 2nd floor and caused the 1st floor toilet to overflow on one of the hottest days of the year. That was a horrible horrible stench that is burned into my sinuses forever.
The neighborhood: It's very convenient. I have the MRT station less than 10 minutes away by foot and right next to it is a bus stop that goes to my school. I can get from my apartment to school by bus in about 15 minutes without traffic. The odd thing about my block is that the restaurants are all soup and noodle places. It has been pretty hot lately, and everything close by is really hot food. It will be nice in the winter, but I don't want to eat hot pot when its 90 outside. I also don't want to eat beef noodles in a soup broth, boiled vegetables in a Korean broth, shaved noodles in a beef/pork/chicken broth, etc etc etc. The nice thing is that by the MRT (subway) station is Ximending. It's a very trendy area with lots of restaurants, food stalls and (illegal) street vendors. Whenever the police come, the street vendors go running, but they serve cheap snacks that are tasty.
School: NTNU's Mandarin Training Center hasn't lived up to what I expected it to be. We have currently have 8 students (the max), at one point had 10 students in our class, and all of their literature says that 5-6 students is average size for the intensive classes. The difference between their regular and intensive classes are two students and one extra hour of class a day. That is, there are 10 students in a normal class and they only meet for 2 hours a day instead of 3.
I'm also disappointed in MTC's teaching methodology. It's focused mostly on writing. We also have to do a lot of homework outside of class. My issue with that is that writing is my weakest area. I haven't written characters for three years now. I always use computers to do my homework, and as such have practically forgotten how to write. My classmates are 2 americans, a Chinese-Indonesian guy, 2 Japanese guys, a Japanese girl and a 16 year old Mongolian girl. I joke that the Japanese girl is a walking character dictionary. She always knows how to write whatever character we are studying.
I don't care much for writing characters. It wastes a lot of time and I'm poor at it. I don't have years in which to dedicate myself to writing a single character hundreds of times until it is correct. I want to work on speaking and recognizing characters. To me, being able to communicate with other people in Chinese is why I'm here. Squiggly lines don't interest me. If it isn't clear, I'm very unhappy with my current school situation. Of our tests and everything else we do, 20% is speaking, 20% is reading recognition and the last 60% is writing. This is opposite of what I want for myself and is making me less and less happy as time goes on. I keep scoring poorly on the tests because I write the characters wrong. Its frustrating always asking the teacher for more time while my Japanese classmates have finished their tests and are napping while waiting for us to finish. Even though I have a scholarship from NTNU, I can't see myself staying there in the future if the situation doesn't improve.
On that note, in about two weeks I'm planning my first trip out of the country. I'm planning on going to Macau! It will be fun to get another stamp in my passport and allow me to relax a bit. The promo rate I found is pretty fantastic. 250 US for round trip airfare tickets and either 2 days 1 night at a 4/5 star hotel or 3 days 2 nights at a 3 star hotel. I'm excited and need to book the ticket on Monday.
My apartment: I like it here. The building is nice, area is convenient and my neighbors don't seem to bother me too much. Except for the sewage leak two weeks ago there haven't been any major problems yet. The two typhoons that hit Taiwan didn't do much more than blow a lot of wind and rain. The one lightning strike that was nearby flashed out my window and the thunder left my ears ringing, but no major damage.
As for the sewage spill... Even though we have a new building, with new pipes, it is connected to the old waste lines that the city built 50 years ago. As such, there is a problem with the size of the pipes and how easy they can get clogged. The issue happened on the 2nd floor and caused the 1st floor toilet to overflow on one of the hottest days of the year. That was a horrible horrible stench that is burned into my sinuses forever.
The neighborhood: It's very convenient. I have the MRT station less than 10 minutes away by foot and right next to it is a bus stop that goes to my school. I can get from my apartment to school by bus in about 15 minutes without traffic. The odd thing about my block is that the restaurants are all soup and noodle places. It has been pretty hot lately, and everything close by is really hot food. It will be nice in the winter, but I don't want to eat hot pot when its 90 outside. I also don't want to eat beef noodles in a soup broth, boiled vegetables in a Korean broth, shaved noodles in a beef/pork/chicken broth, etc etc etc. The nice thing is that by the MRT (subway) station is Ximending. It's a very trendy area with lots of restaurants, food stalls and (illegal) street vendors. Whenever the police come, the street vendors go running, but they serve cheap snacks that are tasty.
School: NTNU's Mandarin Training Center hasn't lived up to what I expected it to be. We have currently have 8 students (the max), at one point had 10 students in our class, and all of their literature says that 5-6 students is average size for the intensive classes. The difference between their regular and intensive classes are two students and one extra hour of class a day. That is, there are 10 students in a normal class and they only meet for 2 hours a day instead of 3.
I'm also disappointed in MTC's teaching methodology. It's focused mostly on writing. We also have to do a lot of homework outside of class. My issue with that is that writing is my weakest area. I haven't written characters for three years now. I always use computers to do my homework, and as such have practically forgotten how to write. My classmates are 2 americans, a Chinese-Indonesian guy, 2 Japanese guys, a Japanese girl and a 16 year old Mongolian girl. I joke that the Japanese girl is a walking character dictionary. She always knows how to write whatever character we are studying.
I don't care much for writing characters. It wastes a lot of time and I'm poor at it. I don't have years in which to dedicate myself to writing a single character hundreds of times until it is correct. I want to work on speaking and recognizing characters. To me, being able to communicate with other people in Chinese is why I'm here. Squiggly lines don't interest me. If it isn't clear, I'm very unhappy with my current school situation. Of our tests and everything else we do, 20% is speaking, 20% is reading recognition and the last 60% is writing. This is opposite of what I want for myself and is making me less and less happy as time goes on. I keep scoring poorly on the tests because I write the characters wrong. Its frustrating always asking the teacher for more time while my Japanese classmates have finished their tests and are napping while waiting for us to finish. Even though I have a scholarship from NTNU, I can't see myself staying there in the future if the situation doesn't improve.
On that note, in about two weeks I'm planning my first trip out of the country. I'm planning on going to Macau! It will be fun to get another stamp in my passport and allow me to relax a bit. The promo rate I found is pretty fantastic. 250 US for round trip airfare tickets and either 2 days 1 night at a 4/5 star hotel or 3 days 2 nights at a 3 star hotel. I'm excited and need to book the ticket on Monday.
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