The is going to be the best 6 months of my life

Or at least I'll try to make it the best six months I've ever had!

I have been procrastinating about updating my blog about my whereabouts as you've noticed yet again :D I thought I should break the very bad habit by updating what I did today and I 'might' just start updating about what I did before. Pardon the pun.

I'll start off by saying I'm sitting in my room in Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan. To those of you who's been updated of where I've been you probably know that I've been travelling a lot. To those of you that are not updated; no, I'm not at two/three/four places at the same time. I actually wrote an essay worthy description about where I've been for the past 2 months but I thought I should spare you by giving you a summarized version instead. So..here goes.

August 30

• (Melbourne > Klang)

mid-September

• (Klang > Perth > Klang > Melaka > Klang)

October

• (Klang > Melbourne > Klang)

November

• (Klang > Penang > Klang)
• (Klang > Taipei > Kaohsiung > Taoyuan > Taipei > Chiayi [Alishan] > Taipei)

I recently just graduated from Monash in October and since the Psychology postgrad intakes are only offered at the beginning of each year, I had time, and by time, I mean a whole damn lot of time to spare in between. I work/studied (free/forced labor), lazed around, went travelling and now I'm currently enrolled for the 3 month Mandarin Course at NTNU (National Taiwanese Normal University) or better known as Shida 師大.

I know, why study Mandarin in Taiwan and not in China? Why study overseas when I can study Chinese in Malaysia? I lost count of the number of times people have asked me the exact same question.

I'll answer the more obvious question; why Taiwan and not Malaysia?

I had the opportunity to learn Mandarin in a Chinese populated country. If I studied Mandarin in Malaysia I WILL only speak Mandarin in class and probably to the auntie/ uncle when I'm ordering food. I know because I did some Mandarin course over in the language centre in Klang before when I was younger. Studying overseas meant that I am forced to speak in Mandarin to everyone that I meet. Almost everything here is written in Mandarin and it'll be a constant reminder for me to learn those characters faster if I want to survive happily in Taiwan (think about the food and shopping that I'm missing out now NOO). Even though for now, I could only second/third guess what everyone is saying but I know I'll get there soon enough.

Why Taiwan (traditional Mandarin) and not China (simplified Mandarin)?

Because it's more convenient and I suppose safer for me to study in Taiwan because my sister in law is in Taiwan for the next 6 months. Anyways, it doesn't matter to me whether its simplified or traditional, I don't even know either of the Chinese characters anyway! My goal is to be able to hold a damn long and deep conversation in Chinese and recognizing/writing Mandarin characters comes in as a bonus.

I had the opportunity, why waste it? Life is very short. Going through 5 deaths this year has just justified the fact that the moment we were born into this world, we are doomed to die. It's just a matter of time. When opportunity reveals itself, grab it.

Haaa, sorry for the sudden 180 turn on the mood of the supposedly, cheerful blog post. Don't know why my mind just wandered off that way as I was typing. Oh well, least you know what I write here is more or less what I'm thinking at the moment and not you know, all screened through and edited like how you would do for research essays :)

Anyways here's one of the few graduation photos that I've got in the mail in Melbourne. Brother e-mailed me these photos just so I could get a sneak preview :)