William Chong

洪蒼蔚 – (Hong Cang Wei)

The only reason this person’s picture is gratuitously placed on this site is because of his slight resemblance to my dad:

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My Chinese210 lectures will be at a totally different level compared to last semester! My gosh – aside from the first 5 minutes, our lecturer spoke exclusively in Mandarin Chinese. Our handouts are also in Chinese, so I’m sure I’ll end up doing remedial studying to build up my reading, if not writing of all these as yet unknown characters.

Other courses starting off well – 305 and 206 are both reasonably interesting, and we’ll see what happens with the dreaded 304 – Sports Psychology come Friday. Going to breakfast with Aunty Yao tomorrow morning, other than that it’s a pretty cruisy week in.

Take care!

I know that right now, most of you are on holiday.� I’m annoyed at that, but I’ll take comfort in the fact that I’m fairly confident I’ve reached my target grades in both 301 and 303, the two important core papers I’ve been taking this semester.� Tomorrow’s exam is a sociology Singspiel that is worth just 30% of my final grade, whereas Monday’s Chinese110 final exam is within the A+ range if I’m up for it!

In between that I’ve got a busy Saturday – informal class concerts (with reports attached), Academy open rehearsal, and work as well means I’ll have to practise my vocab and essay-writing amongst all that.

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I think I need another pad to to-do note paper things.� My iCal is fantastic but I couldn’t possibly carry my Mac to do groceries… or to buy clothes, pay bills, etc etc.� Here’s a couple of things I’m looking forward to working on during the break:

• more songs – writing and recording existing ones.� Keep checking!
• shopping for clothes, especially winter ones for Kim.� Got a couple of gift vouchers to help with that.
• sorting out presents for RB, Nathan, Brendan
• Yea, gotta flex some Sibelius muscles from time to time
• really hard work on my ATCL pieces for violin.
• dine and review a couple of other restaurants, maybe concerts
• keep working on Chinese!

I’d say taking 110 has been a really crucial paper in that learning Chinese was something I’ve always put off until it was too late.� I’m happy to say that I can start writing letters to my mum again, if not just to feel more at ease but also to express how much life has changed over the past year or two.

The saddest memories regarding my mum passing away – they’re vivid for months, but then somehow, it’s like snow that slowly melts when spring is here at last.� You won’t forget, since there are tell-tale signs that something immense happened in your life: empty fields where the snow used to lie.� Though I must say that sometimes you have pictures of really specific things – like the first look on your brother’s face, or the sound of the rain fording across the mortuary rooftop, or a floral guard of honour for such an immense service to your family.

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Other recipients of my vastly improved Mandarin (albeit half-Simplified) literacy include: my dad, Linda and her family, my godgrandmother, and essentially half my bloodline living in Taipei City!� You have to realise that this post is in part a procrastinatory attempt, since who wants to study sociology?� So when I -

My first exam isn’t till the 20th, which is next Wednesday. I’m finding it a bit annoying to study for 4 different exams simultaneously… but I’m sure it will work out fine. Not much to say really… I’ve got a silver-bar ballroom latin medal test this weekend, so that should be interesting too.

Have a good day!

I’m excited.� Just finished an essay, now have 3 weeks to study for 4 exams.� I caught my brother’s cold, which knocked me out of action for a couple of days last week.� On Saturday I DM’ed a slow night whilst Verne watched the rugby with glee.� And on Thursday one of our inebriated middle-aged male customers dragged a middle-aged female customer into the toilets.� Me and the other staff member that saw it just shook our heads, and she got to clean up the toilets at the end of the night.

In other news, we have a poker table!� I can say that it’s a decent investment for social lubrication.� Here’s a cool picture of a random room:

Going to hang out with Linda’s family tonight.� Hope you’re all happy celebratin’ the Queen and her birthday, etc!

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Hope your tail-end of semesters are going well, or your work doesn’t bore you, or you’ve done something good to yourself today.

Was a bit peeved yesterday (for a total of about 14 minutes between start and end of lunch) when I tried to return a magazine which I couldn’t open instore and found it wasn’t worth the money I paid, and found out there was a no returns policy for them.� Oh well.

(end rant) See, that wasn’t a very convincing rant, haha.

Teaching was fine, it’s interesting how I have two beginners’ classes that started off exactly the same, but each class has a totally different dynamic.� My favourite student is a 7 year-old boy who reminds me of me when I was 7 and just starting the violin as well!� He’s very cute.� Kinda like me when I was 7, though that’s a totally qualitative statement with absolutely zero objectivity whatsoever.

I’m currently working on a presentation for Tuesday, on the content analysis of lots of sports and gaming magazines.� It’s worth 10%, and a final report worth 25%.� And a 5% proposal completed earlier means that this study is worth 40% of my 307 grade.� *sweats*

What would I like to do in the near future?� Graduate.� Then take some time off, perhaps see some of the world.� Might do that start of the year when the madness of Christmas and New Years’ is over – you see, this is the time when everyone is most busy working and playing.

I’d most likely be working.

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Hello everyone!

Wrapping up the tail-end of classes for this semester, my penultimate one before I can safely graduate from higher education!� Other than that I’ve been good.� We recently acquired a poker set with really nice-feeling chips (those clay-compound ones that clunk together with a nice “chip” sound…), and opened it out a couple of times.� I have discovered that betting with fake money is much more fun than anything money could buy, hah!� Oh and also you can trick yourself psychologically into thinking you’re part of the James Bond crew by declaring each chip to be worth 1000x its original value:

“… raise by 5000!”

“… match and raise by another 10000!”

You will realise following this post that the main reason I took the time to type this entry up was not to make this site to reviewy… too many reviews recently.

What?� You like?� OK, next one’s a review.

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�RB, Cheryl, Laurence and I bundled ourselves into town last night.� A bit of Float, and a touch of Deschler’s – I don’t get the chance to go out too often, so it was a refreshing outing.

I’ve nearly finished my 307 Lit Review – it’s not a particularly long one, so I’m leaving the rest till Monday night to complete.� My final exam timetable also came out this week: I’ve pretty much got the worst timetable ever!� The last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the last Monday of the exam period.� What a way to reduce the midyear holidays…

Anyways.� Preparations for 21st?� Haven’t done too much of it.� I’m not a particularly balloon-and-streamers sort of guy, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be an excellent night.

I�m pretty sure I didn�t dish any April fools� jokes out today.

Here�s a selection of study notes from my papers:

�Lactate Threshold� is the point at which during incremental exercise the increase in arterial blood lactate increases disproportionately (i.e. exponentially).

???? – This phrase means that something is �well worth reading�.

Qualitative research is inherently biased.� The postmodernist point of research is now not to be a neutral observer, because no such thing exists.� Rather it is better to simply state your bias from the outset.

?F = ma; at the ankle joint COM this includes mg, GRF/shear, joint reaction forces.� Rotational formula: ?M = I?.� M = F*d.

After Wednesday I�ll be much more relieved!� Hope you�re all studyin� hard!