review week struggles

唷～ yo, i can't believe we just finished week 5. that means we are a third of the way through the first semester. time has been going by way too fast.

last weekend we were invited to a full moon party at a rooftop bar right by taipei 101. the theme was neon, but no one really followed it. also, strangely the bar used foreigners on all of their promotions. i really don't get why... these weekend outings are really good for getting to know my fellow classmates and students from 秋季班 (fall cohort). it's also a fantastic way to just have fun and ignore all the classwork that's coming our way just for a night.

speaking of classwork, despite it just being a review week, our preparations for final presentations are in full swing. i have so many 報告架構 (report outlines) that i'm getting a bit confused haha. the internship application period also recently closed. sadly, i got rejected from my first choice, digital diplomacy, without an interview because apparently they already have too many people with backgrounds similar to mine.😭 i still haven't heard from one, but i do have an online interview next wednesday with the 現代婦女基金會 (modern women's foundation). wish me luck!

lately, i can see that my language proficiency is sitting in the plateau between intermediate/high and high/superior even more clearly. you readers may not know but there is a general pattern of proficiency vs. time with chinese learning. it's usually a steady increase from starting until intermediate – steadily learning new vocabulary and grammar structures. but then many, including me, run into a rut because although we know a lot of vocabulary, they each have their own rules and collocations. then the last hump is right before superior/native fluency. i find collocation really hard. maybe because sometimes i'm still thinking in english and trying to output chinese. often times i'll pick a verb and the noun/object i pair with it is not ok or sounds really weird in chinese, even though the translations would be fine in english. it doesn't help that a lot of the words have the same english translation but in chinese, they just have different 感覺 (feelings). for example, 差別、差異、區別。all three of these translate to "difference", but 差別 has a feeling of "disparity" (A is in some way better than B), 差異 is like "discrepancy" and 區別 is more like "distinction". i'm also running into problems with tones. taiwan not only has its own words for things (捷運vs地鐵 for public metro), but they also pronounce words with the same characters differently than mainland china. one that i find particularly annoying (because i say it a lot) is 研究 (research). in china, it's pronounced yán jiū but in taiwan, it's yán jiù. and of course all the dictionary apps and websites seem to only provide mainland china pronunciation. just this week, i ran into a word that is the opposite issue: the tones are the same but the actual sound of the first character is different. 暫停 (to suspend, to pause) in china is zàn tíng but in taiwan, it's zhàn tíng. ah it's so tough.

and of course, there's taiwanese too. it uses the same writing system, same as any chinese dialect, but sounds different. we were able to learn about it during this month's cultural event with the Shintrun Taiwanese Opera Troupe. we went to their practice place in shilin where they introduced the common characters and their dress, hand shape/gestures and their meanings (they differ slightly from male to female characters) as well as teaching us basic steps (getting on a horse) and singing in taiwanese. two students were even able to get the whole makeup done and try on the full dress.

(enjoy this audio of us trying our best...)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f148f6_d47a2c9b417e4e1e82153e4e9210d341/480p/mp4/file.mp4

more trivial issues: standing on the bus is much harder than standing on the mrt. probably because there's the side to side movement especially when they're quickly cutting four lanes to get to the stop, whereas the mrt has forward/back motion and minimal side to side. not to mention, my balance isn't great haha

random things:

- bugs are all over the place now. there were piles of these little red ones on the boardwalk to class. giant stink bugs flip over and just lay there on their backs even though they can fly. its kind of funny

- there was a giant snail like the size of my fist on the stairs up to class. sadly, i do not have a photo

- during a humid, high 80s day, a teacher commented that the weather was general and that taiwanese think july and august are actually hot. this doesn't bode well for us....

-traffic on the road by the school's main gate (notice the mopeds weaving around in the end)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f148f6_44ec9409c5dc4b3b8be71193d572957e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

♡蘇晨