Management | Taiwaneers

Last Semester of the First Half

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, University 2 Responses »

Mar 142009

Well school has been back in session for a few weeks now. Its strange to realize that at the end of June I’ll have finished two years of my four year degree program. “Time, time, time, see whats become of it…” as Simon & Garfunkel said.

I’m excited for this semester. So far I like all my professors. I feel like I will be challenged by many of the classes without being overwhelmed….yes indeed, that mythical feeling exists.

My schedule:
Mondays: Global Industrial Analysis in the morning and Visual Basic Programming in the afternoon
Tuesdays: International Economics in the morning and Statistics in the afternoon
Wednesdays: A glorious morning of freedom followed by Academic Writing in the afternoon
Thursdays: Physical Education in the morning and Marketing Management in the afternoon
Fridays: Environmental Issues in the morning and International Trade Regulations in the afternoon

As you can see my classes are delving even deeper into my major, International Business & Management. I’m guessing this will be one of the busiest semesters I’ll have here. The classes are getting more demanding but the schedule hasn’t let up, as it will in 3rd and 4th year.

I’ve been elected Vice-Class Leader again and have become a defacto union leader of the MCU International students. I have a lot of respect for union leaders. Balancing the anger of the mob with actually getting things accomplished has been an interesting skill to try and learn. I’ll give you an example.

Last semester we had a class with a very poor teacher. Her English abilities were severely lacking and her classes consisted of really crappy powerpoints that were read to us by her. Her tests consisted of us regurgitating her powerpoints word for word onto a piece of paper from memory. Well none of us liked her. We had several discussions about her with our department’s director. We talked with upper classmen as well who said they couldn’t stand her either. Not that she’s mean or anything, she’s just a crappy teacher. Towards the end of the semester realizing that she was scheduled to teach several of our future classes we took more direct action. Everyone in the class, except one person, signed a petition asking MCU not to have her teach us again for the remainder of our time at Ming Chuan University. We submitted it to the Dean of MCU’s International College. I also emailed the university where this teacher said she got her Ph. D from asking if I could read her dissertation. They told me they had never heard of her before. I then emailed the teacher asking her for a copy of her dissertation or to tell me what name she published under so I could find it myself. She never emailed me back and then right before this new semester was about to begin the teacher emailed our entire class letting us know that she had been reassigned to teach graduate level classes so she wouldn’t be teaching us again this semester. Needless to say I was amazed and happy! I have no idea which of the class’ actions are responsible for this victory but we are sure its a victory! The key now is learning how to duplicate this victory. Most of the “union” work I do at MCU isn’t aimed at actually making my experience better. I’ve realistically set the goal that I want the problems and kinks worked out for the students who come after me. Now there is a new dilemma and I feel like the best thing would be to give a gift back to the administration by not making a big deal about it. Appeasing the wrath of mobs isn’t easy though so we’ll just have to wait and see.

In other news my Chinese is improving. I’m learning new words and remembering them. My neurons seem to be getting along better with Chinese and I’m starting to really enjoy practicing words with friends and classmates. Recent additions to my vocabulary include: Toilet, I think, Please speak slowly, Fat, Skinny, Mean person, Looks like. To reinforce them into my memory I’m constantly asking classmates if they want to go to the bathroom or asking them if they think so-and-so looks like an elephant. Its fun!

Unfortunately I have had my last, at least for the present, tutoring session with my exceptionally excellent student Joshua. I began tutoring him in English back when we lived in Taoyuan and we’ve been meeting once a week for the last 14 months not counting when I was home for summer break. Its a bummer to lose the income. He has become a good friend and we’ve said we’ll keep in touch.

Now I’m going to go work on editing some more of our Korean vacation video!

ABOUT US addition

Michael's Posts No Responses »

Nov 192008

I know I know the title makes it sound like we’re announcing that we’re pregnant or something but thats not it.

Some friends of ours created a radio program as part of a midterm project. They asked to interview us on what its like to be married while in degree programs here in Taiwan.

For those of you who are interested you can now find this interview on the ABOUT US page. Many thanks to Kenton Chance for passing along the audio and for the excellent editing. In addition we want to thank him and his group, Curry, Yirone, and Michael, for allowing us to share it here.

End of October…Already!

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, University 1 Response »

Oct 262008

The time seems to be passing very fast! I look at the date and feel like its three weeks past where it should be.

On Wednesday I’ll have my first midterm of this semester in Management class. The teacher sucks. I hate to complain but she doesn’t speak English very well, is teaching but seems to have no interest in doing so, and basically for class just reads powerpoint slides for three hours once a week. On top of that her idea of a midterm is have us memorize the powerpoint slides and then regurgitate them back onto the midterm word for word……..yuck yuck yuck. Oh and the midterm is 30% of the final grade. Okay enough of that.

Today Emily and I had the pleasure of Sunday lunch with our good friends Sandy & Laura. Two of Megan’s, my sister, really good friends who by their sheer coolness and the power of association with my sister are now some of the best friends Emily and I have as well. It was great to see them again and catch up.

Now, after getting back home Emily and I are both busy studying. I am memorizing for the Management midterm, reading in my mythology textbook, and working on a speech outline for an informative speech on the US mortgage crisis to give in speech class. Emily has a mountain of homework as well and so here we are in our nice little home off of Heping Rd., sipping coffee, with the hum of our window box air conditioner going in the background craming knowledge into our heads.

Friday I helped put on a Welcome to Freshman/Halloween Party at MCU for International College freshman. It was fun to be helping to try and build a more community like atmosphere at school. Sometimes being an older student I don’t have much interest in ‘school spirit’ activities but I enjoyed myself. Emily came and we performed a rendition of the song Last Kiss by Pearl Jam with my guitar as part of the performance time. I also ended up being the emcee for the event so needless to say we were very involved. Saturday, the next day, all of us party organizers got together and just hung out for a little bit to actually enjoy some time ourselves. It was nice! Emily and I had them meet at our house and then we walked down to the Shida night market and had dinner at a restaurant we like called Evans’, a burger place. Its sort of cool how I have all my classes with the same group of people. We are all bonding and getting pretty tight.

On that note I’ll tell you about the Taiwan high school phenomenon. Taiwanese have very strong ties to high school classmates because in high school you are always with the same people in every class for every year. Very much like what I have now in college. Many Taiwanese form friendships with their high school classmates that last lifetimes. If I ask someone what they did over the weekend or where they went on a recent vacation they will often tell me they went to visit high school classmates regardless of their age or walk of life. Even Taiwanese in their golden years go and exercise with high school classmates or go shopping etc. Its really quite special and unique. Very different from America, wouldn’t you say, where half the kids wish high school never would have ended and half can’t wait to forget it ever happened.

In other news I made my first video with our new camcorder and posted it on Youtube. I didn’t put it up here in our movie section because it doesn’t really apply but if you want to check it out go here http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=183c2_won40. I’m hoping to start making some more videos about life here to add to your virtual experience but as you can see it hasn’t happened yet and its already almost November.

Speaking of November I’d like to give a shoutout to two very special women whom we love so so much. Megan, my sister, and Kathy, my mom, were both born on November 1st, different years, and I would like to wish them both a very happy birthday!