I’m sure we can all relate to my non-native English speaking classmates. Someone who is supposed to know everything, a teacher, does something that you think is wrong but aren’t sure about, so you assume you were wrong in thinking they were wrong, and then you adopt whatever they did, thinking that it must be right. This is their plight.

If I remember correctly it was a teacher who made the mistake originally in a ppt. And now my classmates have been doing it ever since.

This particular error happens all the time because these MCU teachers are always making us do presentations. And, because we are International Business and Management majors the likelihood that this particular mistake will happen is very high; since we are always doing SWOT analyses or Michael Porter’s Five Forces of Competition analyses. So, this word is always rearing it’s H’less head.

And it’s happened so many times and so regularly now that I don’t want to say anything to end it. It’s downright fun to be sitting there watching presentations and see that once again a student wrote “treat” in their ppt instead of “threat.” The amount of times it’s happened now rules out coincidental typos.

It’s the little things people. Am I wrong not to do anything while laughing on the inside at the absurdity of competitive treats?

Anybody else out there in blogland have another of these stories you can share with us? I love me my laughs.

Big & exciting news people: In PE class a few weeks ago we all had to take a test. There were several parts to this test:
1. Do as many sit-ups as you can in a minute
2. Do a flat-footed long-jump from a stand-still
3. Reach forward as far as you can sitting on your bottom with your legs out-stretched in front of you
4. Measure your heart-rate after 1 minute of stairs with 1 minute to rest
The results were written on a little paper with my name on it along with my age, weight, height, and BMI, calculated from height and weight. Everyone’s results were then fed into a computer program which calculated the bottom fifty-percent of my class and the top fifty-percent in terms of “physical fitness.” Those in the bottom will have to take a third year of physical education but I won’t BECAUSE I’M IN THE TOP HALF AND WILL BE DONE WITH PE IN A FEW SHORT WEEKS!!!!!! It truly is the simple things in life.

Everyone here in Taiwan boils their water (we do too) or has a water filtration machine. I always assumed it was because the water was not safe. However, this week in Environmental Dynamics class I learned that this is done because of historical habit and for better taste due to the water’s high chlorination. We’ve been living in Taiwan for over twenty months now and I just learned its safe to drink the tap water.

Its been a while since I posted about the cab-driver who pee’d on the side of the road outside our apartment while traffic zoomed by so how about a little culture shock for all of you. I just learned it is a common practice at Taiwanese weddings (not Chinese so this is common in the south of Taiwan but not here in Taipei) to hire strippers as entertainment for weddings. Not the night-before party or anything like that but for the actual wedding party dinner. CULTURE SHOCK!

And finally the Nonsense Shirts Store is still a blast. 2 months after opening we’ve had our first, non-friend (as in stranger to us) customer, schwing! Additionally with the help of friends here I’ve expanded the business to also include custom t-shirt printing service and bulk ordering of our own products.

First of all the only proper way to start this post is to say that my wife is a genius.

A few months back Emily was having serious problems with her computer. Her computer’s memory seemed to be shrinking even though she wasn’t doing anything until finally she had nothing. For a few months we just shared one computer, then after researching a whole bunch of different options she found this Linux-based operating system called ubuntu. She put it on her computer hoping that the problem would be solved, however ubuntu didn’t jive with her acer Aspire 5000. For some reason it wouldn’t connect to the internet and in this day-and-age who wants a computer without internet? Well she ended up putting windows back onto her laptop and the problem was solved by just that act of wiping and reloading. End of story, or so we thought.

About a month ago windows gave me a little pop-up thing on my computer. It asked me if I wanted to “verify the authenticity of my copy of windows” or something like that. Even though my copy of windows has been bought and paid for, thanks to my former employer who gave me the laptop (thanks Dick!), its just instinct for me to stick it to the man whenever I can so I told the pop-up “no I don’t want to.” Well the pop-up didn’t like that. I can’t be certain but I think my rejecting that pop-up caused my computer to start doing everything really, really slowly. Just to open up a Word document took enough time for me to go to the bathroom and come back. I stopped using my computer and Emily and I were sharing hers.

Well I suffered through the lengthy time commitment of getting all the stuff on my computer onto our external hard-drive and then I took Emily’s ubuntu CD and loaded it onto my computer, wiping out windows and everything else. Voila the problem has been solved and my computer is back up to running well again!!! The problems Emily’s Acer had with ubuntu don’t seem to be an issue for my Dell. I’m so pleased. The man tried to stick it back to me and because I have a brilliant wife who found really cool free software I was able to say “oh no you didn’t.”

All that to say I’ve been having computer problems but they seem to be lessoning. It is a little difficult for me to get used to ubuntu (aka Linux) not being a geek. I am learning as I go on how I can get the programs I want to operate on it but it can be frustrating at times. In fact the other day, right after I put ubuntu on my laptop, I was telling Emily how it was crap because nothing works on it. Now a few days later I see light at the end of the tunnel. I take my hat off to the open-source world. They have my thanks and gratitude for creating ubuntu and a whole bunch of other open-source software that I have been using more and more, especially since its compatible with ubuntu and a whole bunch of the stuff that you have to pay for isn’t.

Am I becoming a computer geek? Probably not, I can say though that I use Linux. I can’t say I use it because I think its just that cool. I do have to admit that I use it because I don’t really have the money to buy a copy of Windows instead. But at the end of the day I am one of the cool kids with an OS thats not Windows or MAC. How do you like me now Microsoft….you and your crappy windows that tried to sabotage me.

Back in the throes of midterms already. Its unbelievable! I just started the new semester and we’re already half way through?

This year Emily and I filed our taxes online. It was sort of funny because last year we filed having worked for a half-a-year before leaving for Taiwan. This year has been completely work-free except for a few months in the summer and it showed on line 37. It was weird/cool to look at last year’s return compared to this year’s and realize anew just how sweet God has been to give us these scholarships. His provision is there even though it looks different and can’t be seen in our AGI.

Speaking of working, this summer we are faced with a dilemma. We figured jobs would be scarce so we opted to find airfare money in rows and rows of seed-corn while we are home this summer. My dad was gracious enough to sign us up with a detassling crew but we are still unsure if we’ve been hired because so many people have asked for the same honor, even though its a hot, sticky, dirty, and tiring honor. Hopefully we’ll be selected. If not I don’t know what we’ll do to replenish what we’ve given Malayasia Airline for the chance to ride in their airplane to the USA and back. On the other hand, maybe its just a case of His provision being there but just looking different? So different that I don’t recognize it yet.

Here at Taiwaneers.com we’ve added advertising to our website. You’ll notice in the right-sidebar there are now two ads from Google. They are part of Google’s AdSense program. I really like AdSense’s business model and while having ads isn’t what this website is about I think the way Google places ads that are geared for their audience is a great advancement in advertising. Wouldn’t it be nice if all advertisers would stick to telling us about things that we actually show some interest in? Everytime somone clicks on one of the Google ads on our site we get a little cha-ching. Pretty cool huh? With that in mind please feel free to click away.

Last Sunday Jerry, one of my Taiwanese classmates, came to church with me. He had never been to church before and it was really fun to hear his impressions. You can pray for him. He’s been raised Buddhist but doesn’t really feel like that was his choice and is trying to figure out what is his choice. Tough stuff to deal with while trying to ace exams. He’s a really, really cool guy and definitely a thinker. I’m looking forward to this opportunity to help each other grow.

My computer has been sick. It goes incredibly slow to do any task but when I check the CPU usage its at normal levels. AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Its getting to the point where I’ve backed everything up and am preparing for drastic measures.

The Nonsense Shirts Store is still lots of fun. We’ve sold five shirts so far and I have to say each sale is exhilerating. Right now we’re adding new inventory and I’ve been talking to folks in the manufacturing process. If things work out we might be able to offer custom shirts and multiple quantities and sizes of each design! Needless to say these developments do not hamper my enthusiasm.

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.