Monday October 16th, 2006

Wandering through a shop in St. Jacobs, ON, I stumbled upon a small section of cat things. A notepad that read, 'Dogs come when they are called. Cats take a message.' A ceramic plate saying, 'Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.' I had to giggle as I could relate.

I've done some research into the University of Macau. Although the internet states it's the second most densely populated place in the world, it doesn't seem to have a limitation as to how many animals one can bring into their country. The University is primarily a teaching University, but some other courses are available. Mandarin is a required course with Cantonese being optional. One year will run me about $5,000 CAN, not including living expenses. I will be looking into how internationally recognized it is. Their website states that they have established academic links with over 100 institutions around the world ... I think I will have to find out in greater detail what that means exactly. I wouldn't want to go back to North America showing a few years of nothing.


Hong Kong has given me eyes for a new place. If I start planning now, I'm sure within two years I could have enough to take a year off and get back into studies. With just over two years left on my contract here, timing should be perfect. I suppose an extra private or two might be in order.

Chinese University, I'm afraid, didn't make it into my schedule. I spent some time being disappointed and scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. In the process, I've discovered that Wen Hua, seems to me, to be a bit disorganzied. I tried to figure out the pros and cons of going to a classroom environment ... really dug into the idea of what it was that I was trying to gain. Wen Hua means ten hours of study each week with approximately seven hours travel time per week. I will lose one private tutor and my morning language exchange partner ... I've been seeing her for almost a year and a half now.

In saying that ... I've hired a private teacher. A bit more expensive? Yes. A bit less time of study? Yes. A bit more convenient? Absolutely. I can keep my private and my LE partner and the teacher will come to my home for study. Although it will be six hours less class time, it will also be seven less hours spent driving in the madness of Taiwan. I will try it out and see what progresses. That's all one can do, right?

My Chinese lesson starts on Friday. I am going to ask to start from Chapter one in book one. I think it might be good to get another perspective from the beginning, but this time doing all of it in spoken Chinese. I want to learn to write, so that's why I'm going a bit backwards here. I'm sure we'll be able to cruise through the first fifteen chapters ... after that ... hard to say. All I know is that I am excited!

The cats are starting to get a bit vocal ... I suppose it's time to go rough a bit of feathers around here ... they love the abuse!