"Dear sir, may I borrow your phone to make one call? Just one."

Ha! That's fresh!

This morning, due to academic reasons (cough, cough), I have to take the CAPITAL BUS back to Yilan. Just as I boarded the bus and settled in a seat, a passenger walked up to me. He said, "Dear sir, may I use your phone to make a call? Just one call. My phone's out of battery." One would never know what purpose his/her phone is used for, especially by a stranger, so naturally I refused his "plea".
He approached me again during transit, seeing that I was using my cellphone, he said, "How about this? I need to call my company so that someone will pick me up upon arrival to Yilan. I will give you $20NT as a compensation of your airtime."
"My phone's running low on battery, sorry." was all I said. And I wasn't lying, either. That guy then walked up to the driver and asked him for a phone. I was thinking: this whole thing is happening again. But the bus driver tactfully send him back to his seat with "Company policy prohibits us to carry cellphones to duties." ......

Stage Performance

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Worst one hour of my week, and the week's just started...

What would you say to a Hongkongese who decides sit right behind you, talks loudly and burps non-stop for a whole hour?

This morning, as I boarded the bus from Taipei to YiLan, I was greatly annoyed by another passenger, the encounter was so... disgustingly engrossing that I was on the verge of puking multiple times during transit.

It was seven-thirty-five, I was anxiously waiting for the bus heading YiLan to arrive. My three-hour Chinese Language course starts at nine-ten, the transit time is usually a slight bit over one hour, so I have to catch the next bus to YiLan no matter what.
At seven-forty-five, the bus finally came. As I boarded the bus, I noticed a group of about five Hongkongese females trailing me to my seat. I didn't give them much thought. They were quite quiet for foreigners when waiting in line for the bus, I need some rest so I can be focused in classes today, perfect.
But, as the bus started rolling, my suffering started. A really loud and contiguous burping noise started behind me.
'Maybe she had too much for breakfast, at least she's not puking.' I thought.
However, the burping sound did not seem to cease, in fact, it's gradually getting louder over-time. I started to regret not bringing a headset from home today... It may be that her companion felt embarrassed, because she started to converse with the 'burping girl' (in Cantonese, of course). To be honest, her doing so only lead me to discover a even more disturbing 'talent' the 'burping girl' had: Now she's still burping, but she manages to converse with her friend during each short intervals of her burping. Her disregard for other passengers REALLY started to piss me off! To top that off, her decision to sit right behind me in a filled bus basically made me her most 'intimate' listener. I felt ill to the point that I was in the verge of puking my breakfast out several times.
I felt the urge to ask her to sit all the way to the back of the bus, if stop burping wasn't an option, but I didn't. Luckily, the lot of Hongkongese got off the bus at JiauXi, so I had time (20 minutes until arrival to YiLan) to recover from the extreme discomfort I felt since I sat down in my seat back in Taipei.
My impression of Cantonese-speakers from that point on... 'Not pleasant' is all I have to say.

"Would you like to stay at National YiLan University for another year?"

As title suggests, that's what I've been asked by the teachers this week. Tim was the first to make a statement similar to that. He said, "You have been absent from this class so often, you don't deserve to be with the rest of the class." , which pretty much sums up that it would be a SIN to give me a passing grade in that course.

The second teacher to make similar statement was Japanese teacher Chiu. To prepare her class for the Japanese Certification Exam Level 3 in the winter, she dedicate two nights per week help her students preview the exam using test banks from previous years. I attended the one on Tuesday, but because of my tardiness I was declined taking the practice test from the test bank. I could only review with the class. So, I attended the Wednesday evening training again. After the answers have been reviewed, Chiu spoke to me in front of the class... "Why are you here again instead of studying for the Japanese final exam!? Is there any way that you can make up your Japanese course credit in another school near your home? You are bound to stay in NIU next year if you don't have a decent grade for your final exam. Do you really love this department SO MUCH that you still want to stay?" ............

Well, there you have it. Two mandatory courses, one answer. That's code red for me...

Weekly World News...

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Dude, where's my DRIVE?

I 'somehow' managed to lose my 8GB Transcend MP3 USB flash drive, loaded with lecture recordings, academic documents, and non-academic voice recordings somewhere. And with this term coming to an end, plus I thought I needed not backup the contents of the drive very often, this is not good news at all.

I suppose I will just have to do without all that helpful information (and tool) for what's left of this term...

A week of numbers

As the topic suggests, this week is all (most) about numbers.

The first number for the lottery drawing (yay...... ?) is... 28, and it is related to Age. Who's age? Good question, but I ain't gonna answer that. Ask around, and you will probably find out the answer on your own.

Oh! The second number just rolled out... 92. This number is related to an exam given to all members of Microsoft's Campus Elites program. An award ceremony was held this week for all top scorers. I went there only to find out the event organizers want to have the 3 highest achievers to represent the rest of the crowd to receive the certificates (and also have their pictures taken with a Microsoft Representative). To my disappointment, I was not among the 3

"musketeers".

Here come the third... wait... this number has three digits(!?). Anyhow, the number is 860. Well, this is definitely not a lottery number. What can this be then, heartbeat rate? I'm no Ironman. Time? Nah... if 860 represents time, it should be 900 (9:00). Then what!? It is my TOEIC score. Not a score I took pride in, though, because I got beaten by two Mechanical Engineering students in the area that I'm supposed to shine brightly in...

That's about it. This post may look like me trying to make connection from numbers to ordinary things. In fact, that is what I was doing. But without numbers, the three segments mentioned above would be beyond dull to read through.

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USR JTN SIGNED OUT-----

Department Council...

The department council (系學會) for this year is by far the most inactive council in years. Unlike previous school years, current council mostly hold events in a private manner, even if you are a department member, if you have very limited contact with the council, chances are you will be left out in the cold. Another thing, though not really an "event", but it's been done yearly long enough that it has become somewhat of a tradition： the Yearly Contact List/Card. It may have something to do with the council's privacy approach, because it was omitted/dismissed by the council this school year.

Overall, the council this year gets my vote... My vote of negative impression.

5/9

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5/2

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4/25

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Your honor, I plead "not guilty"

---------April 13-----------

The instructor of Theatre performance course wanted students to know each other better, she asked everyone to do a self-introduction, but include one or two false information, and the whole class will try to determine the false info. It was a lot of fun, until it was my turn...

I said I was born in the US, I have ADHD, I graduated as the top of my high school class, I have never smoked, and my Chinese isn't very good. That said, only to realize that I only stated facts!

Still, I waited for the judgement of my classmates to surface. Much to my surprise, they all voted that I lied about having never smoked...

Seriously, do I look like a smoker!?

---------April 16-----------

It's past 00:00AM, April 16. The daily night role-call was not made. Either the floor manager forgot his duty (again!), or something out of the ordinary happened.

It turned out to be the latter. Roughly 20 minutes later the managers showed up right outside our room, knocking. It appears that we (my roommates and I) were accused by the third-floor girls from the girls' dorm for using binoculars to look into their room. "The girls said the guys from the last room facing girls' dorm on the third floor were using binoculars looking at them changing, your room fits their description," the manager said, "this is a very serious offence, so if you did, don't do it any more, and we will dismiss it this time. If you are wrongfully accused, you know what you should never try."

This had got to be a really bad joke, for all I know I was chatting in facebook, and my two dormies were playing online games. Non of us lifted the window curtain, not for the past two hours at least.

The old saying in Chinese proves itself through mobile phones

There's a saying in Chinese : "Stupid people can never get sick." It roughly translates to: If a person is quite simple minded, even the virus won't bother to inflict pain upon them, knowing that the fool wouldn't even know they have contracted flu(s). I guess the same applies to mobile phones.

In the past, even the highest-class phones had no Central Processing Unit (equivalent to that of a human brain). As technology advances, the "smart phones" made their appearance. For mobile phones to be SMART, those handsets took a different evolution path than that of their ancestors: SMART PHONES are equipped with a brain (CPU) and a heart (ROM), among other upgrades.

If brain translates to wisdom, then it somewhat makes sense that a wise man can catch a cold (froze while working) or a fever (intense heat builds up on the outer unit shell)......

Forgive me... for I have trailed off my topic and now my thoughts have all vanished... Me thinks I just became a fool this moment............................................................

TOEIC on FB!?

During the week, I received an invitation from one of my FaceBook Contacts to play the TOEIC mini-vocabulary evaluation game. I found it somewhat fun, so I became a FAN of it.

It was also during the week that I was informed that I was eligible for pre-paid campus-wide TOEIC EXAM. So I signed up.

There were too many computer accessories/peripherals piling up over the years and I decided to have a "flea market" of my own. I created a Business FB group with the store title "~新品庫存&收藏品倉庫~ [暢貨中心]", encouraging others to find their "surplus items" a new owner through this group page.

Rubbish from recollection~ (March 28th)

Got my hands on a first-batch HTC Tattoo Cellular Phone. Played with it a bit. It's loaded with features, for the very same reason it takes quite a few days of tinkering with to get acquainted with the phone system software.

Had a Japanese exam on Monday. The result? A truly depressed face should be enough to answer your question. I'd blame it on my new toy, but I knew too well the true source behind my failure.

As for the rest of the week..... Nothing exciting to report.

Cumulative Mumbo Jumbo (March 21)

Some individuals say that AVATAR was a "sequel" to THE SMURFs. I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

March 19 at 8:32pm, I Caught a 3.oz "Terrible Twos" Mouse via MouseHunt, a FaceBook minigame. This event mouse was a rather tough one to catch! But I suppose the loot was worth the efforts.

Oh, and I finally managed to upload the photos I took during my brief visit to TaoYuan National Airport to see IVY, oh joy!

Feeling suicidal? I sure was..

Having found my former classmates working in the language center, I often go there during the free time between classes. Occasionally I was also of help to them, doing word-processing, troubleshoot minor computer problems, verbal translation, data sorting, lifting heavy objects, and such. Last week I was asked to lead the English Joke/humor Contest, and because no one signed up for the event, all of the volunteers of Language Center were advised to promote the event and populate the sign-up sheet.

I had no luck what-so-ever recruiting a willing participant, but then a teacher from the department showed interest. I gladly invited her.

Back at the L.C., I reported on my progress. Unexpectedly, I was scolded, verbally 'abused', for inviting, not just any teacher, but THAT teacher to the event!

Deeply depressed, I actually thought of suicide.....

Week of March 7th

Nothing much to blog about...
Caught cold, or so I believe.
Had a FORCED haircut by my mom.
Wanting to spend on some new 3C electronics, only to find empty pockets in my pants.
Proctored a General English Proficiency Test: Upper Intermediate Level session, later found out that NONE of the participants from freshmen, sophomore, or junior classes passed it. Consider my proctoring time unwisely spent.