Last week was full of final exams - four, to be exact. Two oral exams, and two written ones. Whee....
Last Friday was my last day of classes, for a while. I've decided to take a semester's break to be available to sub at Jackson5, since the probability of my co-worker needing surgery in a couple of months is high. The decision was based on my desire to maintain my sanity.
It was surprisingly sad to say goodbye to my classmates, since I'd seen them every morning for three months, I'd gotten rather used to them. We went to Burger King for lunch after our exam on Friday (where I used a coupon and got some kind of barbecue burger that was not tasty and came with a fried chicken drumstick... Asian Burger King is strange) , and walking back onto the Feng Chia campus, I was feeling kind of bummed that they were all moving up and I had decided to wait until March to move into the next class level. For the next month, at least, I'll busy myself with holiday things and Chinese New Year. Hopefully I can fit in some study time and take an advancement test in March so I can catch up with my classmates.
Here are some photos:
I only know their Chinese names, which I can't type in characters. I think it's probably more interesting to list their nationanities rather than names.
Left to right: Girl from Indonesia, Me, Teacher from Taiwan, Girl from Italy, Guy from the States, Girl from Japan, Girl from Burkina Faso, Man from the States, Mr. and Mrs. from the Phillipines, and Boy from Panama (who looks angry and also is fun to listen to him speak Chinese with his very thick Spanish accent).
How's that for international?
Everyone except Girl from Indonesia and Girl from Japan spoke English. However, Couple from the Phillipines also spoke Tagalog as well as Indonesian, so they could speak to Girl from Indonesia. Nobody could speak to Girl from Japan except in our limited Chinese.
At Burger King. Same people as in the previous photo, except way in the back across from me is Boy from Panama's girlfriend who is half from Panama and half from Taiwan. She's in another class but went to lunch with us.
Me and Girl from Burkina Faso, who took all these photos and emailed them to us. Her English name, I think, is Martinique. She also speaks French. She makes me look incredibly white. And sleepy. Although I suspect the sleepy look is because I woke up at 5 am that morning to study for the final exam we all had just finished.
So in our class, people spoke English, Japanese, Indonesian, French, Spanish, Italian, and Tagalog. And we were all learning Chinese. Crazy!
So, in any case, it was a great three month experience, and I greatly look forward to getting back into classes in March. My Chinese has defintely improved leaps and bounds over what it was before I started classes, and I also have learned about 120 Characters, reading and writing. That's no puny achievement! I still need to somehow actively look for opportunities to practice my Chinese, however, since it's so easy to get by with English here I find myself just reverting to speaking to the Taiwanese locals in English because they understand me.
Umm. Ok. More posts to come, on holiday happiness. Goodbye to classes, hello Holidays!!
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