I'm sleepily. I mean, sleepy. Or, sleepily...typing. Since I claim to be an Inglish Teechur, I suppose I ought to use my adverbs correctly.
I'm sleepy because I just work up from my daily afternoon nap. Yes! I get to take daily afternoon naps! I told myself, I said "Self, you must not make this daily afternoon nap thing a habit, or you will be sad when you have to study harder and do Real Things in the afternoons". However, as it stands now, my studying is at a minimum and my class at JacksonFive hasn't started yet. This leaves me with, yes, let me say it again... afternoons free for Naps.
It's almost the end of the second week of classes, and we're just finishing "learning" (I say it like that because all the other students are learning and I am "learning". "Reviewing" is better.) the phonics system that Taiwan uses to learn Mandarin. It's commonly referred to as "b, p, m, f" after the first four sounds of the system. It consists of a total of 37 simple characters (not to be confused with Actual Chinese Characters that make Real Words), that symbolize the various tongue twisting sounds involved in speaking Mandarin. When the b, p, m, f symbols are combined, they form the sounds for the words, thus helping early learners to read Chinese characters, or foreingers to pronounce more accurately, or typing. The computers here also include b,p, m,f symbols on the keyboard for typing in Chinese. So, it's a great thing to learn, but I have already learned it. Thus, I haven't had to study very much yet and I also know all the answers in class.
I have learned correct pronounciation of many words I already knew but was saying in the wrong tones, which is actually saying completely a different word. So for that, I'm grateful I'm starting in the beginner level class.
Not too much else to blog about today. Here is a list of Things I have found interesting lately:
1.) 7-11 started selling new flavors of cartons of tea! I'm sipping on a big carton of passion fruit yogurt green tea. They also started selling Mango Oolong tea. I like Mango, not so much Oolong, but combined it might not be bad.
2.) I discovered the tastiest (also known as "the most MSG laden") fried chicken lunchbox on our block. Within a two blocks of our house, there are at least ten options for lunches that I have thus discovered, all cheap and good and filling. So I'm trying to branch out.
3.) The teas that I have been enjoying at a tea house we affectionately call "The Giant Tea Place", are larger than the average human stomach capacity. See photos to follow.
4.) The huge, cheap clothing store that I like to go to at the Feng Chia night marker (which surrounds Feng Chia university where I go), opens at 11:30 in the morning! which means that when I go home at 12:00 I pass right by it, thus making it very easy for me to buy new clothes and spend money that I shouldn't. ooooo temptation..
5.) Being organized is overrated.
Tomorrow is my roommate Jaime's birthday and so we're going to go to Coldstone late after she gets done teacher her night class, and catch a late showing of the new Asian film "Seediq Bale". And then on Saturday, a Mexican themed party! Let the weekend begin! :)
This is a Tea from the "Giant Tea Place". I use my adjectives appropriately, as you can see from the next photo, which puts the Giant Tea into better perspective.
