Presentation | Taiwaneers

The Threat of Losing My Treat is not that Great

Michael's Posts, University 1 Response »

Apr 152010

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.

Chinese, Prayer, Culture

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

Mar 302009

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.