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Thesis editing and itchy legs

LittleBuddhaTW

Entry posted by LittleBuddhaTW

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What a combo, eh? So my graduate advisor gave back my thesis yesterday, and thankfully there weren't that many corrections to make, mostly just puncutation (English and Chinese use of commas is VERY different) and some word choice. She also didn't think I should leave an extra space between paragraphs. That was about it, though, and she said, "You shouldn't have any problem graduating." We spent about 30 minutes going through the corrections at McDonald's to make sure I could read all of her corrections (her handwriting is like chicken scratch), and that was that. She even asked me who I wanted to pick for the other two professors to sit on the review committee, and she agreed to both of them. I've already finished more than half of the corrections, and should be finished in another day or so.

 

As for the itchy legs part, my lower legs are just covered with mosquito bites. Why in the hell do they only bite me there? It's absolutely killing me!!! grrrrr :devil:

 

Yesterday, I took Shadow to the vet because he's got some kind of skin infection. The doctor gave him two shots and some ointment to put on the affected area. Shadow didn't seem to care about the shots, but he sure gives me a hard time when I have to put the ointment on him for some reason. I don't get it. :angry:

 

I've also got my own discussion forum at GA now, called "LittleBuddhaTW's Stone Grotto" (again, this was Kitty's brilliant idea! :worship: ). If you're wondering what in the hell a "stone grotto" is, you can either look it up or ask me on the forum! hehe Anyway, I hope people will come and post. I like reading everyone's comments and interpretations, and look forward to seeing if/how readers' opinions of certain characters will change as the story moves on. I've finished writing Chs. 13 & 14, and Chs. 11 & 12 are almost finished. I'm hoping to have Ch. 11 posted by the end of the week, and Ch. 12 a few days later. I'm gonna try to get started on Ch. 15 today.

 

Everything else with the move is going okay. I've got two boxes of books ready to take to the post office, maybe tomorrow if I can get my lazy butt going. The time seems to be moving by pretty quickly, and before I know it, I'll be back in the States and have all kinds of new stress to deal with it ... but I've learned a lot about stress management and patience living here for the past five years, so those lessons will come in handy. It'll be an adjustment to speak in English every day, too. The only time I really use English now is when I'm writing. I guess it'll be pretty weird. But I don't wanna lost any of my Chinese ability, so I need to make sure I get into a job where I can use it every day to make sure I maintain my level of fluency.

 

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good week so far. Wish me luck with my impending thesis exam (my professor is pressing me to do it earlier than I had originally planned, which is okay I guess), and come by the new discussion forum to say hi and all.

 

:boy:

8 Comments

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Camy

I'm intrigued by language, especially one as different as Chinese. When you speak in Chinese do you still think in English and translate?

 

Are you going to release SOOTB in Chinese as well, and if you did would the story work as well?

 

Good luck with the thesis and the mosquitoes - legs are miserable, but better than everywhere, and certainly better than there!

 

Camy B)

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AFriendlyFace

Hi David :)

 

I'm intrigued by language, especially one as different as Chinese. When you speak in Chinese do you still think in English and translate?

 

Are you going to release SOOTB in Chinese as well, and if you did would the story work as well?

I wouldn't mind answers to those questions myself.

 

So have you considered wearing long pants? and maybe a little thicker if you already are. Lots of people are attracted to legs, I guess it's not unreasonable to think that mosquitoes might be too.

 

WOW that is so awesome about you getting your own discussion forum! Yay! I'll have a new place to run my mouth. :boy:

 

Good luck on the exam!

 

Take care and have a great day :D

 

Kevin

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LittleBuddhaTW

I'm intrigued by language, especially one as different as Chinese. When you speak in Chinese do you still think in English and translate?

 

When first starting out, you usually go through the "hear-think-translate" phase, but after studying Chinese now for about eight years, and almost six of those years spent in China and Taiwan, I think in Chinese when I'm communicating in Chinese, and English when I'm communicating in English. When I speak Japanese, I still have to think about it and translate in my head, as well as with my rudimentary French. I find that I now dream more often in Chinese than I do in English, even when I'm dreaming about people who can't speak a lick of Chinese.

 

What's fun, though, is when I go to holiday parties at a friend's house. He's also an American (like me), and is a professor of Chinese history at a university here (brilliant guy, Ph.D. in Asian studies from Harvard). He and I are usually the only two foreigners there, with the rest being Taiwanese ... so, to be fair to everyone else when we're conversing in a group, we speak to each other in Chinese ... now *that* is really weird for me ... speaking to another native English speaker in Chinese. Even when we're alone, and talking about Sinology, we speak half & half, since so many concepts and vocabulary are in Chinese, and it's just easier. If we're just talking about some cute guy we saw, of course it'll be in English! lol :P

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Mark Arbour

I also get chewed up by mosquitos. I think, LB, that they like our blood because we are so sweet. I could be wrong on this though, at least as far as I am concerned. :P

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Mark Arbour
Mosquito bites me

 

Mosquito dies

 

I rarely get bit.

 

 

:rolleyes:

So you're suggesting that the entire mosquito universe is aware that you're a bad ass? I'm envisioning the mosquitos flying around and they look down, one goes into Spitfire diving mode, and the other says "no, don't, that's dkstories!" at which point they both shriek (like mosquitos do) and fly off to sting LB and I. :lol:

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glomph
I don't plan on working in a Chinese restaurant!

 

Around here, there are enough people in Chinese restaurants who speak Chinese. What they need are people who speak Spanish. It seems like at lunch time most of the folks you see in Chinese restaurants in this area are Mexicans. A place near where I used to live had a lot of Mexican working men come for lunch. One of the Chinese women would speak very fluent Spanish to them.

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glomph

Mosquitos prefer to stay close to the ground. It may be an evolutionary thing in that the mosquitos that flew higher were more likely to get eaten by bats or something.

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