For those of you who have never used Google Translator here is your big chance. You should keep in mind that 鄭明哲 is my Chinese name. Once you have figured out this post’s title you can write me a comment about how great Chinese is and how much you enjoy learning it.

Before reading on, press the play button of this video and listen to it as you read. It will be a scrumptrulescent experience, I promise.

Last week I finished my last final, turned in my last term paper and started winter break! Last Thursday Emily and I hosted a “No More School” party here at our house with truly fantastic people joining us in our celebration. This week I’ve lazed about, began using Pimsleur in my quest to become a real speaker of 普通話 (Mandarin), hiked with Emily in the hills just south of 台北市 (Taipei City), spent an evening at the club with foreign exchange classmates for one last whoopla before they bid Taiwan adieu, and said goodbye forever to being a twenty-five year old. What a wonderful world we have been given.

After checking my grades and speaking with classmates it seems that there is consensus in my class that many of our professors felt that they were too kind to us during the midterms and have tried to make up for it in grading our final exams. It seems like all of us have 5-10 points less on our finals than were on our midterms….maybe the administration gave one of their crack-down decrees or something. Maybe we all just slacked off. Whatev’, we should all become Montessori advocates anyways.

Our party was great. A ton of people had told Emily and I that they would be coming but as it turned out there were not too many but plenty enough to have fun! I estimate thirty to forty but Emily insists there were at least fifty people. We had an awesome mix of my classmates, Emily’s classmates, and friends of friends creating an atmosphere of diversity, conversation, beer-pong, Soul Caliber II (Playstation for the rest of you), and Texas Hold’em. Phil, one of our roommates headed up the beer-pong effort and it was a true hit. While the fact that the Asians did not know the game wasn’t surprising, I was flabbergasted in learning that the Europeans hadn’t played. Just think, because of our party beer-pong will be spreading the world over. Can a man leave a better legacy is the question that now haunts my moments of cogitation. Last year we had our party at the end of Spring semester in June and it was way too hot. Now, having done both I can say with authority that having the party at the end of Fall semester is a much better way to go.

The lazing about has been great for me but a little nerve-racking for Emily. I think that might be a reflection of our upbringing. What do you think?

Pimsleur’s Mandarin learning curriculum has been recommended to me a few times now. It was apparently developed by Dr. Pimsleur to simulate the way a baby learns language. So far I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m hopeful that I will soon be speaking pǔ tōng huà like a zhōng guó rén. Right now, though, I need to remain hopeful and consistently exercise my nǎo. Diligence is my Achilles’ heel but this time…this time will be different.

The lazing about came to a head this past Wednesday with Emily suggesting we go hiking. We chose a trail out of our Taipei Day Trips book that started just south of Xindian and went up over a mountain (or big hill if you prefer) and ended down the other side in Muzha. On the way up we stopped in to see a little temple cut into the side of the mountain behind a waterfall. It was pretty rad. If I were going to be a monk that place would be a contender. Upon reaching the top of the hill Emily and I came upon a few criss-crosses in the paths that we weren’t too sure about and ended up a little off-track. No matter though as we decided we had had enough hiking for the day. Finding ourselves in the Tea House area of the mountains surrounding Muzha we popped into one, bought some tea, enjoyed the view, talked, and sipped to our hearts content. I should teach you all how to properly drink tea; it is quite a procedure. Once we’d had our fill we hopped on the bus for the winding ride back down into the city.

Emily and I joined some of my classmates, who were only here for this past semester as exchange students, at 9 percent, a club that is luckily within walking distance from our house. Emily and I had never been there before and the evening was a nice bit of Long Island ice-teas, dancing, and saying goodbye to Julia and Fendi who are leaving to head back to Germany.

As I write this I am celebrating my first day as a twenty-six year old. I knew it was coming up but since break began I’ve completely lost track of dates. Consequently I didn’t realize until yesterday that my birthday was looming so near. I’m not even thirty and I’ve already become that guy who forgets about his own birthday. This very moment Emily is preparing a wonderful birthday dinner for me so I had better go.

This spring and last spring I have suffered from it. My brain just doesn’t want to follow the academic calendar here and shuts down about 3 weeks before school does. So far I’ve had my Web Programming, Environmental Issues, & International Trade Regulations finals and the only one I studied for was the last one but only for about 25 minutes. Tomorrow morning begins with a Marketing Management final followed by an International Economics final in the afternoon and again I cannot bring myself to study. I’ll bring my econ textbook with me and study in between…maybe. Tuesday I’ve got a Global Industry Analysis final and finally I’ll finish Wednesday morning with a Statistics final. Its hard to find motivation to study when: (a) I don’t want to, (b) blogging is even more appealing, and (c) there is almost no chance that I can fail any of my classes regardless of the final. I know I know these statements aren’t the mark of a good student…maybe I’ll try that next year.

I am excited to be finishing up. On Thursday we’re having an End Of Semester Party at our house for a bunch of friends. It should be really, really fun. Emily will still have another week before she finishes so my plans are to finish painting our room (which we started during Chinese New Year aka beginning of February), read in my book (Freakonomics), and take a two-day bicycle ride on the East coast of Taiwan from Hualien to Taitung. Its supposed to be a beautiful ride as well as easy enough for the less astute cyclist. I’ve been reading up on this particular ride on some of the other blogs’ of foreigners here in Taiwan who have taken the ride. Here’s one account with pics if you want to take a look. I’m excited to give it a go. You know what I mean; put a tent & sleeping bag on my bike’s little holder thing and ride off into the land of real men. Hopefully I’ll remember to take video footage and put together something cool.

Speaking of which I haven’t put up any new videos for a while. This is due mostly to my computer (thanks again Dick) going on the fritz with Windows and not coming back until I nixed Microsoft and am now using ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron as my OS. I really do need to figure out how to get my video editing software to run on this OS because I’ve still got footage from Korea I want to get up not to mention our upcoming party and then the bike ride.

On Friday my Environmental Issues professor, a very interesting Canadian women (I mean interesting in a good way), gave me two tickets to a show at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall for tonight that she couldn’t use. Emily and I had never been to a concert there before and it was really fun. We got all duded up and scootered over….we turned out to be among the better dressed for this particular event but I didn’t mind because I got to see Emily all beautiful. It turned out to be a concert of Taiwan’s performing arts school. I’m assuming its somewhat akin to Juilliard. They were very good. It made me want to play my violin more and get a little ensemble or something going.

A huge step was taken last night in my Chinese abilities. I got out Emily’s beginner texbook from last year and, with a little help from my beautiful bride, taught myself how to write 我 (pronounced “wo”) which means I/me. Until now I have focused solely on listening and speaking and basically only knew how to write my Chinese name, 鄭明哲. Reading & writing Chinese has always seemed daunting to me but last night was incredibly fun. I think I’ll incorporate it into my studies from now on.

One weird thing that I’ve noticed lately is that whenever I read, listen, or even think about Scripture my mind wanders and its hard for me to concentrate. A part of me thinks its because I have too many things on my mind and need to properly decelerate. Another part of me feels like its an attack on my relationship with God from a third party. I can’t really tell but the mere fact that I think it might be an attack is strange because I don’t normally think of these things as being very spiritual warfare-esqe when they happen to me. For those of you who feel inclined please pray that I can focus on the Holy Scriptures.

For the past year and a half I’ve had classes every day with the same group of 43 students. As you can imagine our friendships have been deepening. Another prayer request would be that God uses these relationships for my classmates and I to ’sharpen each other’ and ‘draw (each other) closer to Him.’

Today four of my classmates and I gave a culture presentation on the United States for one of our classes. Teachers love having us do these things even when the class has nothing to do with culture. I guess I can’t blame them though as many of them only teach one or two classes in the International College (IC). We’re used to being in a very diverse classroom every day but for them its still a novelty. Anyways I presented on the South. I used a very hammed-up southern accent and taught them how to say “ya’ll” and about grits, sweet tea, southern-style BBQ, and how the confederate flag is a symbol not only of racism but also of states’ rights. It was really fun and you’ve got to love fluff assignments.