Hello Sunshine!
The weather's finally beginning to pick up! It's been getting warmer and warmer and today's a beautiful sunny day here in Hsinchu! I'll be heading out in a bit to top up on some seriously-needed Vitamin D (and hopefully lose my ghostly appearance). =)
Also loving listening to ICRT online, possibly the best radio station on this island. It's an English-language station (one needs a break from Chinese once in a while!) and is one of the few places you can hear current Western music. MTV and that other music channel we have on TV only dedicate like 10 minutes a day to non-Asian pop music so this station is a life-saver. I feel so out of touch with music back home...I had the same feeling after I got back from China all those years ago.
I'm also trying to improve upon my terrible Chinese by checking out the MP3s at ChinesePod.Com. It's amazing how I can read texts and translate them but cannot order a pizza in Chinese or remember the word for 'microwave oven'. I really admire people who can pick up a language just by listening to it and speaking with native speakers....I just can't do that as my brain mangles it all and there's also the issue of shyness (I am *terrible* at socialising). I can also learn to read a language way faster than speak it...heck, even my Spanish is bad and that was one of the languages I was brought up with! Maybe I'm just bad with languages, despite what anyone else says...
Anyway, not a big concern for me now. I think I'll brave the scary outdoors and bask in the sun a bit. Sunshine apparently makes people cheer up and after this week of ups-and-downs, I can really use that.
Cheerio.. :)
Also loving listening to ICRT online, possibly the best radio station on this island. It's an English-language station (one needs a break from Chinese once in a while!) and is one of the few places you can hear current Western music. MTV and that other music channel we have on TV only dedicate like 10 minutes a day to non-Asian pop music so this station is a life-saver. I feel so out of touch with music back home...I had the same feeling after I got back from China all those years ago.
I'm also trying to improve upon my terrible Chinese by checking out the MP3s at ChinesePod.Com. It's amazing how I can read texts and translate them but cannot order a pizza in Chinese or remember the word for 'microwave oven'. I really admire people who can pick up a language just by listening to it and speaking with native speakers....I just can't do that as my brain mangles it all and there's also the issue of shyness (I am *terrible* at socialising). I can also learn to read a language way faster than speak it...heck, even my Spanish is bad and that was one of the languages I was brought up with! Maybe I'm just bad with languages, despite what anyone else says...
Anyway, not a big concern for me now. I think I'll brave the scary outdoors and bask in the sun a bit. Sunshine apparently makes people cheer up and after this week of ups-and-downs, I can really use that.
Cheerio.. :)