Classmates

As I've mentioned, I'm taking an intensive course this quarter - which means you meet 3 hours a day instead of just 2. You are also supposed to have 4 hours of homework each day - but after the switch in teachers, I find that I have about 2 hours max. This teacher does not push us as hard, and I find that I am not progressing as much as I should. I'm hoping to take the Chinese New Year break to push myself to review all the old material - as I am slowly forgetting old vocab.

The best thing about the class is my classmates. They are a fun bunch. Everyone has a great sense of humor and when it comes to question and answer time, they'll crack a funny joke or tease the teacher a little with a fake answer. We also do stuff together after class occasionally. The other week, we all went to Shida Night Market and got a variety of foods and then ate outside the school. (Sana is in a neighboring class and joined us for the meal.)


A few of us then went to NOVA, a collection of mini computer shops near Taipei Main Station. It's supposedly more expensive than Guanghua Computer Alley, but less hassle. The IBM/Lenovo shop is there and they quoted me their price for a new slim dvd drive (mine broke a while ago). They only have new ones and they only have dvd writeables (mine is a dvd-r with cd-rw). And it is super expensive! It wasn't a waste of time though - the guy there cleaned my whole laptop! It looked brand new when he was done with it. He was more than gracious - he practically ripped my computer apart before I could say anything - I think maybe he was bored, and the idea of dusting the innards of my Thinkpad was the highlight of his day. Or maybe IBM taught him good customer service. Anyways, I was a happy camper.

Note: At Nova, most technical terms are in English - the only special thing is they call laptops "notebooks".