Learning and Still "Teaching"

Today I'm back online in blog land. It's been way too long, and though I've thought often of updating my blog with my current whereabouts, I always put it off in favor of something more pressing like researching second hand kitchen appliances to buy to add to my collection in my new room.

So I'm back in Taiwan, this time as a student, and I am really enjoying this new position. It's already been over 3 weeks since classes began, and already I can understand a few simple phrases in Chinese spoken at regular speed. That is definitely improvement, as when I first returned I still could not understand anything. I am trying to slowly transition my accent from a thick Beijing accent to a softer Taiwanese accent, so I don't stick out so much when I talk :)

This week we are learning about the weather. The weather is also giving us much to talk about as it is constantly changing. It seems that "qiutian" (pronounced 'tyo tien') or "autumn" may actually be making an appearance. The temperature has dropped a few degrees and it feels much cooler outside. I'm very grateful, as my room is on the 4th floor, and as you know, heat rises, and the higher you live, the hotter you apartment will be, as least I am finding that out.

We are still in the very beginning level of Chinese, but we are fast approaching book 2, and are very much excited at the idea. We will soon graduate to harder lessons and more complex homework. Today we had our first preview of future class 'presentations.' We had to introduce a country and talk about its weather for 1-3 minutes. I chose northern California, and 1 minute :) I talked about how strange (ji gui) the weather is becoming, since it snowed last May. I didn't have a lot more to say after I described the sunny aspect and the occasional rain and the nice temperatures most of the year. My limited vocabulary kind of stopped me after that point.

My classmates are from all over the world. We have Asia, Europe, and North America and Latin America represented in our classroom. It's really quite exciting.

The title of this post is "Learning and Still 'Teaching' " because I can't help but continue 'teaching' or telling everyone I know about the useful information I'm learning, such as where the library is and where the good restaurants are. I couldn't help but tell all my friends about how to get a library card and after a couple trips at least 8 of my friends now have library cards and 4 know where the media center is, where you can watch movies :)

Well it's getting late so I shall begin to end here. One last thing - something I do not cherish about Taipei is the enormous and speedy cockroaches that meet me on the stairs with beady eyes (I think) in the middle of a dark night. Thankfully I've found that light is one weapon I can use against them, and I happily shine my small beam from my small flashlight on them, but we always end up in a dance - I call it the cockroach dance, because usually the cockroach is faster and more scared than me so he usually gets to go where he wants and I have to just jump out of the way. Thankfully not too many have charged towards me, and thankfully I'm still at least 50x times their size (just a random number). But still, I could do without them, as well as the anonymous bugs that have bitten me in at least 14 different places. (I was careful to count my bug-battle scars so I could tell people so they could feel sorry for me. But that's just how a city-raised girl like me feels in regard to insects.)

So until next time, but seeing as how regularly I write, that may not be until next year, at which point I shall probably write in Chinese and you won't be able to understand it anyway unless you use google translate (which I probably will use to write it anyway), until then, have a great time!

:)