Rain and Class
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, It’s Taiwan
Before coming here I read my Lonely Planet guide to Taiwan many times over. There was one part, among many, that really stuck at out me. It said, “Many people hate Taipei, but they hate it so much they end up saying years on end.” I would completely agree with that, at least right now. I was just laying in my bed listening to some music waiting for it to stop raining so I could go to the grocery store. I was thinking about how horrible it is here, but how I do not want to leave one bit. It’s really hard to explain. Like, when a day goes by and it doesn’t rain, I feel a little off - like I forgot to do something and then it will occur to me that there hadn’t been a torrential downpour yet. And even though it sucks that it rains so much, like right now I don’t want to go to get food at the grocery store because it’s raining so hard, I have gotten used to it to the point that I have almost forgotten what it’s like to live somewhere that it doesn’t rain everyday. While I’m talking about the rain, I’ll tell you guys (and I mean guys in the non-gender way, cough Uncle Murray) a little more about just how much it rains here. Every convenience store sells umbrellas. Every store has a rack at the door to put your umbrella before you walk in. Upscale restaurants have umbrella cover bag dispensers at the door. Nearly everyone walks around with an umbrella up, whether it is raining or not. People have waterproof hand guards on their motorcycles and scooters. Full body rain suits (in all ranges of hideous colors) are worn by everyone from little kids, to trendy teenagers, to the old folks who can barely walk. Most people own a whole arsenal of umbrellas and keep them in gun-rack type constructions in their bathrooms. I even have a bucket next to my door with three umbrellas sitting in it. Yes. It rains that much. If any of you come to visit me, the first thing we will be doing is buying an umbrella, and possibly two, because they have a tendency to “explode” as I call it. I was walking down the street two days ago, when someone just flicked the rain switch and all the water of the Pacific Ocean began to fall on the city of Taipei. I whipped my umbrella (which I have down to an art - I feel like a cop whipping his gun out), and started walking no problem. Then the wind picked up and my umbrella turned inside out, the handle fell off and it went blowing off into oblivion. I got to class soaked from head to toe. Hmm, this paragraph, which should probably cut up into more than one, started out with me talking about Taipei and ended with umbrella 101, funny how that works out sometimes.
Class Update
There is this funny thing that happens all the time with Simon’s Rock students who transfer or visit other colleges. So many of them end up complaining about how much easier the place they are at now is compared to Simon’s Rock. Today, my friends, I get to join the ranks of them.
The teaching style here is amazing because they are able to give so many real life examples and using what I learned that day in class is very likely to happen. The annoying part is that the class is very “hand-holding”. At Simon’s Rock it was like “work your butt off, or get your butt kicked”, whereas here it’s more like “let me powder your butt.” Everyday we have a quiz of about five new vocabulary words. At Simon’s Rock, it was like ten to fifteen new words each day - and they really were all new - basically all of the words that have been assigned here so far I already know. I don’t think I have studied for class once so far and I haven’t received a grade below 98. We had our first test today. It was four pages, and had basically the same types of sections a test back at Simon’s Rock would have, except they were simpler. At Simon’s Rock, my professor would read a paragraph, and then there would be a series of three to five questions to answer after listening. Today on the test, she would read one sentence, and we would have to answer the question, and there were only like four of those. The rest was fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice, and then a mini-essay at the end. The mini-essay is also something I had at Simon’s Rock, but the required length today was half of what it was at the Rock. I am starting to wonder again if I am at the appropriate level because I finished first and sat in the lounge until everyone else finished, and when I came back a lot of people (not everyone) were complaining about how difficult it was.
So, once again, I find myself wanting to thank John Weinstein for making me work so hard, because I have it so easy compared to the other Americans who had very lax Chinese programs back at their colleges. Thank you thank you thank you thank you John!
I might as well give the update about my Chinese speaking abilities now. They are coming along fantastically! I have found myself more and more understanding what people say to me, which is great because I am getting more confidence to go buy things I need for my apartment. Like, just tonight I went to get a rice cooker. I went down to where they were, a salesperson hesitantly came over to me, and I said, (in Chinese) “Hi, I am looking for the cheapest and smallest rice cooker” and started laughing. He started laughing to and began explaining the differences in them to me. Normally I would bob my head and pretend to get what was going on, and then get caught when they would ask a question and I would still be bobbing my head. Not tonight though! He was saying how the really cheap ones (the ones I had been looking at) would probably not work at my apartment because they use 220v outlets, and most new apartments have 110v. In the end, I had to spend a little more, but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I was able to understand why I had to spend more, haha.
Before coming here I read my Lonely Planet guide to Taiwan many times over. There was one part, among many, that really stuck at out me. It said, “Many people hate Taipei, but they hate it so much they end up saying years on end.” I would completely agree with that, at least right now. I was just laying in my bed listening to some music waiting for it to stop raining so I could go to the grocery store. I was thinking about how horrible it is here, but how I do not want to leave one bit. It’s really hard to explain. Like, when a day goes by and it doesn’t rain, I feel a little off - like I forgot to do something and then it will occur to me that there hadn’t been a torrential downpour yet. And even though it sucks that it rains so much, like right now I don’t want to go to get food at the grocery store because it’s raining so hard, I have gotten used to it to the point that I have almost forgotten what it’s like to live somewhere that it doesn’t rain everyday. While I’m talking about the rain, I’ll tell you guys (and I mean guys in the non-gender way, cough Uncle Murray) a little more about just how much it rains here. Every convenience store sells umbrellas. Every store has a rack at the door to put your umbrella before you walk in. Upscale restaurants have umbrella cover bag dispensers at the door. Nearly everyone walks around with an umbrella up, whether it is raining or not. People have waterproof hand guards on their motorcycles and scooters. Full body rain suits (in all ranges of hideous colors) are worn by everyone from little kids, to trendy teenagers, to the old folks who can barely walk. Most people own a whole arsenal of umbrellas and keep them in gun-rack type constructions in their bathrooms. I even have a bucket next to my door with three umbrellas sitting in it. Yes. It rains that much. If any of you come to visit me, the first thing we will be doing is buying an umbrella, and possibly two, because they have a tendency to “explode” as I call it. I was walking down the street two days ago, when someone just flicked the rain switch and all the water of the Pacific Ocean began to fall on the city of Taipei. I whipped my umbrella (which I have down to an art - I feel like a cop whipping his gun out), and started walking no problem. Then the wind picked up and my umbrella turned inside out, the handle fell off and it went blowing off into oblivion. I got to class soaked from head to toe. Hmm, this paragraph, which should probably cut up into more than one, started out with me talking about Taipei and ended with umbrella 101, funny how that works out sometimes.
Class Update
There is this funny thing that happens all the time with Simon’s Rock students who transfer or visit other colleges. So many of them end up complaining about how much easier the place they are at now is compared to Simon’s Rock. Today, my friends, I get to join the ranks of them.
The teaching style here is amazing because they are able to give so many real life examples and using what I learned that day in class is very likely to happen. The annoying part is that the class is very “hand-holding”. At Simon’s Rock it was like “work your butt off, or get your butt kicked”, whereas here it’s more like “let me powder your butt.” Everyday we have a quiz of about five new vocabulary words. At Simon’s Rock, it was like ten to fifteen new words each day - and they really were all new - basically all of the words that have been assigned here so far I already know. I don’t think I have studied for class once so far and I haven’t received a grade below 98. We had our first test today. It was four pages, and had basically the same types of sections a test back at Simon’s Rock would have, except they were simpler. At Simon’s Rock, my professor would read a paragraph, and then there would be a series of three to five questions to answer after listening. Today on the test, she would read one sentence, and we would have to answer the question, and there were only like four of those. The rest was fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice, and then a mini-essay at the end. The mini-essay is also something I had at Simon’s Rock, but the required length today was half of what it was at the Rock. I am starting to wonder again if I am at the appropriate level because I finished first and sat in the lounge until everyone else finished, and when I came back a lot of people (not everyone) were complaining about how difficult it was.
So, once again, I find myself wanting to thank John Weinstein for making me work so hard, because I have it so easy compared to the other Americans who had very lax Chinese programs back at their colleges. Thank you thank you thank you thank you John!
I might as well give the update about my Chinese speaking abilities now. They are coming along fantastically! I have found myself more and more understanding what people say to me, which is great because I am getting more confidence to go buy things I need for my apartment. Like, just tonight I went to get a rice cooker. I went down to where they were, a salesperson hesitantly came over to me, and I said, (in Chinese) “Hi, I am looking for the cheapest and smallest rice cooker” and started laughing. He started laughing to and began explaining the differences in them to me. Normally I would bob my head and pretend to get what was going on, and then get caught when they would ask a question and I would still be bobbing my head. Not tonight though! He was saying how the really cheap ones (the ones I had been looking at) would probably not work at my apartment because they use 220v outlets, and most new apartments have 110v. In the end, I had to spend a little more, but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I was able to understand why I had to spend more, haha.