Hello, Tim!
I hoped that this wasn't another of those clichéd weeks. Alas, things haven't been going the way I wish they would for quite a long time already.
This week held some of my more sentimental and emotional days, and I believe it was the pressure coming from pushing the application schedule that made me like this. Just this evening, I finished the TWELFTH modification of my motivation letter. In normal cases, I would be willing to do a dozen times of refinement for my article. However, this time, I felt like I had lost connection with my motivation letter. If you have both the first and the latest version of my letter, you wouldn't think it came from the same person's head. I understand that since I was applying for a program that is entitled "International Business", there are a lot of things which I don't know about. Therefore, my cousin pulled practically all the strings she could find: the agency we paid to help us with the more complicated parts of the application, her friends living in NY who are apparently professors in business studies, a friend of hers who is still studying in Austria, etc. to help me check whatever I need to improve.
I was grateful. Seriously! But then when I see comments from different people start to contradict one another and was combined with my cousin's own opinion, I became confused. I re-read the passage I have now, and I cannot say that any paragraph belonged to me. It wasn't like the people were just helping me type out the paragraphs; I was the one who did the writing. But what I did was wipe away the paragraphs that were born from my own ideas and inserted ideas of other people, all of which I had no previous knowledge of. I babbled about the articles I had never read and the lessons I had never taken. There is absolutely no pride be taken when all I wrote was but some information crammed into a word processor.
I don't know how much naivety I still have in my thoughts but I thought in this kind of application forms you are supposed to show who you really are and what your personality is to convince the professor that you are the person to go to the program? What is it worth if all I did was try lying through my teeth? Every time I alter my passage according to what the grownups "recommended" me to add, something to include in my article, they told me how it made it look a lot better, but I didn't feel like they were complimenting my work, regardless of what they really thought; in my ears they sounded like praises to their own idea. The student in my head kept reassuring me that it was okay because this is what all students do and that the people who helped me all had some sort of relevant backgrounds which would turn out to be incredibly helpful. I tried to listen but it doesn't disperse the uneasiness in me. I guess, in the end, I am just too headstrong to admit that I dream of completing this application and come out successful so that I could hold my up high and stolz sein (which is "be proud" in German, a word I just learned last Wednesday). Anyway, I was a bit emotional, I understand, but it DOES feel good just to tear across the keyboard and type something HUGO-like.
As for the sentimental part, it was more like a premature nostalgia. I look at my bookshelf and thought of how I wouldn't be able to bring all my books with me, and it just sort of dawned on me that at the end of everything, no matter your wealth, your gender, your nationality, your sexuality (by the way, gay people will be lawfully recognized no matter what in less than a month after which would reach two full years of the highest Constitution ruling. Yay! All I need now is a boyfriend ha ha), you won't be able to take anything with you when you leave, either abroad or just depart from the consciousness of the world. It is just sad. I look at my mother and thought about all the things I'd miss about her and the roof under which we have lived for just a little shorter than my eighteen years of life.
I am grateful, at least, that we have something called the internet, which promised some video chat when I feel so lonely.
This is just what everyone experience before they go abroad to study, right?
Sincerely,
Hugo
Monday, April 29, 2019
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Year Three, Almost Free 31: Ten-Minute Challenge and What a Short Letter
Hello, Tim!
This still managed to be an incredible whirlwind of a week. Lots of emotions around different events.
But since I really haven't got much time reserved for this week's letter (mostly because I really am not granted a choice) I figured this could be a great 10-minute challenge, namely I get to write as much as I can in ten minutes.
Without further ado, time starts... now!
Okay. SO there were tons of things I want to elaborate on, but firstly, I want to talk about the funeral and the incineration of my second uncle.
He was a fisherman for over three score years, but last week we got the news of how his boat tumbled due to some horrible weather, and when he was found, his heart had stopped beating already. My uncle was from my mother's side, which is a family of ten or so siblings. Of course, my family was devastated, and that was when I thought bitterly that this is just going to be sadder and sadder. I know that my mother is a person with a spirit made of iron, but at times like this, she still needed comfort with her family. In this age where people are having fewer and fewer children, people are just going to get lonelier.
I don't know a lot about my uncle, but the story of how he was caught in an accident and was imprisoned in China for more than a year was told a dozen times at the family dining table. He was said to be a tough person shouldering the burden of nourishing a family of five by earning solely from fishing.
He was loved by his siblings, and that is the universal truth.
Then comes the story of my last interview for colleges in Taiwan. The interview was split into three parts, and the three professors from either part kept showing great interest in regards to this blog, which made me largely at ease since I just have to tell roughly the same story for three times, occasionally adding more information. So yeah, I have a good feeling that I'll be accepted.
Ten minutes have just passed.
Man, I really hoped that I still have the time to mention my personal statement for Germany which nearly drove me crazy, but I think this is all for today. Tomorrow will not be any different. German class, more personal statement refining, and I also have to ask Summer about my recommendation letter. Also, I have a computer sciences report due Wednesday.
If you excuse me for a minute, I would like to leave the desk and just yell into a pillow.
Yours sincerely,
Hugo
This still managed to be an incredible whirlwind of a week. Lots of emotions around different events.
But since I really haven't got much time reserved for this week's letter (mostly because I really am not granted a choice) I figured this could be a great 10-minute challenge, namely I get to write as much as I can in ten minutes.
Without further ado, time starts... now!
Okay. SO there were tons of things I want to elaborate on, but firstly, I want to talk about the funeral and the incineration of my second uncle.
He was a fisherman for over three score years, but last week we got the news of how his boat tumbled due to some horrible weather, and when he was found, his heart had stopped beating already. My uncle was from my mother's side, which is a family of ten or so siblings. Of course, my family was devastated, and that was when I thought bitterly that this is just going to be sadder and sadder. I know that my mother is a person with a spirit made of iron, but at times like this, she still needed comfort with her family. In this age where people are having fewer and fewer children, people are just going to get lonelier.
I don't know a lot about my uncle, but the story of how he was caught in an accident and was imprisoned in China for more than a year was told a dozen times at the family dining table. He was said to be a tough person shouldering the burden of nourishing a family of five by earning solely from fishing.
He was loved by his siblings, and that is the universal truth.
Then comes the story of my last interview for colleges in Taiwan. The interview was split into three parts, and the three professors from either part kept showing great interest in regards to this blog, which made me largely at ease since I just have to tell roughly the same story for three times, occasionally adding more information. So yeah, I have a good feeling that I'll be accepted.
Ten minutes have just passed.
Man, I really hoped that I still have the time to mention my personal statement for Germany which nearly drove me crazy, but I think this is all for today. Tomorrow will not be any different. German class, more personal statement refining, and I also have to ask Summer about my recommendation letter. Also, I have a computer sciences report due Wednesday.
If you excuse me for a minute, I would like to leave the desk and just yell into a pillow.
Yours sincerely,
Hugo
Monday, April 15, 2019
Year Three, Almost Free 30: Two Interviews and Finally Relaxed (not Just Yet)
Hello, Tim!
This week, I had two college interviews to attend, and it was certainly a nerve-wracking experience. Let's see what happened!
On a weekday, we students who have interviews to go to are granted special leave for the whole day, regardless of when exactly the interview is going to take place. Both Angela and I have interviews at four in the afternoon, she taking finance & law and me taking French lit. Our schools were the same one, so we decided to meet up in the morning for more last minute preparations. At this point, I believe all there was lacking was the comfort we need to talk about ourselves and our own opinions. At the brunch where Angela designated as our rendezvous, we threw each other questions relating to topics like death penalty, abortion, and the sort. When students go to interviews, some would resolve to memorize a script, but that was just too polished to be something out of your own heart, which would make it less convincing to the judges, who are, in most cases, professors doing interviewing for many years. An interview is not a speech contest. What the teachers are hoping to see the gears turning in one's head, how it sparks and how one can show the difference he/she possesses in a short amount of time. Therefore, the ability to think on one's feet is way more important than that to recite a script from memory.
Angela's father drove us to the college, loosening up the time constraint I would have if I were to commute on my own.
Prior to the interview, I was led into the waiting room, where the director of the French department, was giving a speech about all the reasons why we should learn French. Not why we should be learning French at Fujen University, but why we SHOULD learn French. It talk was in French, with a college student standing by the lecturer doing oral translations for the audience. I always welcome all sorts of listening practice for both French and German, and to my own satisfaction, I could understand around 70% of the speech without the help of the translator despite knowing that the professor was probably intentionally using all the easy words, for the benefit of us and the translator alike, for she was still just a student.
It was my turn for the interview. I was first led into another room where I was to pick randomly a topic to talk about for roughly two minutes.
It was pure good luck that I got this topic: "Talk about why the French are paying so much mind to philosophical studies while here in Taiwan we only care about the basic subjects like Mandarin Chinese, math, English, and should this sort of philosophical studies be introduced to Taiwan?"
In fact, a few days ago at school, Angela, Selena, Sabrina, and I gathered together to form a discussion circle of all different recent topics, which was also in preparation for the coming interview. Selena had to go to an interview for philosophy, so we had accidentally brushed through the topic before, making it a lot easier to think of some powerful opinions. I talked about how France used to have so many renowned philosophers in the past, and how the fact had directly influenced the French culture and their way of teaching, I then said that if we the Taiwanese kept our tight grasps on only the studies that we have used for several decades, we wouldn't have anything new to think about, hence there will be no place for improvements and will just be marching the same grounds over and over. The three judges were apparently resolved to keep a stern face for the whole interview, and I hoped that they are somewhat satisfied with my answer.
Then the judge in the middle asked me about the autograph I got from a French author I mentioned in my personal statement, which to my ecstasy, was something I was familiar with. I then pulled out from my memory all the things I could remember about this autographed book: its name and the name of the author, about how the book won some award in 2010, and what the book was about. I made the impression that I am someone who values written works very much and that it was something that really happened to me.
For this interview, I was less lucky to have anyone to accompany me. I gave a call to my uncle to ask if he would be able to give me a ride to the university since I had to be there before eight in the morning.
The interview was incredibly long. One would have to knock the doors of three professors for a total of twenty minutes of inspection. One professor asked me for my plans after I graduated, and I was a bit caught off guard. I stammered a little, talking about how I might be looking for programs abroad when I graduate after saying I wanted to be a teacher, and the professor launched a long talk -longer than mine- about how it was not necessary if I wanted to become a teacher because all I would need is a teacher's license. I kind of blew my interview at this point, but the third professor gave me hope. He was a friendly, welcoming guy, bringing up about his brother we also used to go to the same senior high school (ZZSH) like I do, and then he asked me about my past experiences in teaching as well as my vision as a teacher. The time was almost up, and I was asked to ask him what question do I still have for him.
The first thing that came to my mind was "What was the biggest setback one teacher can face?"
His face did lit up right then, telling me that it was a big but good question. "Being a teacher is a lot like being a parent, where you can face a lot of negative emotions, and for the rest of the part, we can teach you when you enter the school."
I was not sure if the last part of the talk was intentional or not, but it did give me hope.
Still, getting admitted to a university in Taiwan is not my destination. I still have Germany to deal with, which, honestly, was a bigger wall of bricks than the interviews in Taiwan could ever be.
This week, I had two college interviews to attend, and it was certainly a nerve-wracking experience. Let's see what happened!
Friday- Fujen Univerity- French Language and Literature
On a weekday, we students who have interviews to go to are granted special leave for the whole day, regardless of when exactly the interview is going to take place. Both Angela and I have interviews at four in the afternoon, she taking finance & law and me taking French lit. Our schools were the same one, so we decided to meet up in the morning for more last minute preparations. At this point, I believe all there was lacking was the comfort we need to talk about ourselves and our own opinions. At the brunch where Angela designated as our rendezvous, we threw each other questions relating to topics like death penalty, abortion, and the sort. When students go to interviews, some would resolve to memorize a script, but that was just too polished to be something out of your own heart, which would make it less convincing to the judges, who are, in most cases, professors doing interviewing for many years. An interview is not a speech contest. What the teachers are hoping to see the gears turning in one's head, how it sparks and how one can show the difference he/she possesses in a short amount of time. Therefore, the ability to think on one's feet is way more important than that to recite a script from memory.
Angela's father drove us to the college, loosening up the time constraint I would have if I were to commute on my own.
Prior to the interview, I was led into the waiting room, where the director of the French department, was giving a speech about all the reasons why we should learn French. Not why we should be learning French at Fujen University, but why we SHOULD learn French. It talk was in French, with a college student standing by the lecturer doing oral translations for the audience. I always welcome all sorts of listening practice for both French and German, and to my own satisfaction, I could understand around 70% of the speech without the help of the translator despite knowing that the professor was probably intentionally using all the easy words, for the benefit of us and the translator alike, for she was still just a student.
It was my turn for the interview. I was first led into another room where I was to pick randomly a topic to talk about for roughly two minutes.
It was pure good luck that I got this topic: "Talk about why the French are paying so much mind to philosophical studies while here in Taiwan we only care about the basic subjects like Mandarin Chinese, math, English, and should this sort of philosophical studies be introduced to Taiwan?"
In fact, a few days ago at school, Angela, Selena, Sabrina, and I gathered together to form a discussion circle of all different recent topics, which was also in preparation for the coming interview. Selena had to go to an interview for philosophy, so we had accidentally brushed through the topic before, making it a lot easier to think of some powerful opinions. I talked about how France used to have so many renowned philosophers in the past, and how the fact had directly influenced the French culture and their way of teaching, I then said that if we the Taiwanese kept our tight grasps on only the studies that we have used for several decades, we wouldn't have anything new to think about, hence there will be no place for improvements and will just be marching the same grounds over and over. The three judges were apparently resolved to keep a stern face for the whole interview, and I hoped that they are somewhat satisfied with my answer.
Then the judge in the middle asked me about the autograph I got from a French author I mentioned in my personal statement, which to my ecstasy, was something I was familiar with. I then pulled out from my memory all the things I could remember about this autographed book: its name and the name of the author, about how the book won some award in 2010, and what the book was about. I made the impression that I am someone who values written works very much and that it was something that really happened to me.
Saturday- Chenchi University- Education
For this interview, I was less lucky to have anyone to accompany me. I gave a call to my uncle to ask if he would be able to give me a ride to the university since I had to be there before eight in the morning.
The interview was incredibly long. One would have to knock the doors of three professors for a total of twenty minutes of inspection. One professor asked me for my plans after I graduated, and I was a bit caught off guard. I stammered a little, talking about how I might be looking for programs abroad when I graduate after saying I wanted to be a teacher, and the professor launched a long talk -longer than mine- about how it was not necessary if I wanted to become a teacher because all I would need is a teacher's license. I kind of blew my interview at this point, but the third professor gave me hope. He was a friendly, welcoming guy, bringing up about his brother we also used to go to the same senior high school (ZZSH) like I do, and then he asked me about my past experiences in teaching as well as my vision as a teacher. The time was almost up, and I was asked to ask him what question do I still have for him.
The first thing that came to my mind was "What was the biggest setback one teacher can face?"
His face did lit up right then, telling me that it was a big but good question. "Being a teacher is a lot like being a parent, where you can face a lot of negative emotions, and for the rest of the part, we can teach you when you enter the school."
I was not sure if the last part of the talk was intentional or not, but it did give me hope.
Still, getting admitted to a university in Taiwan is not my destination. I still have Germany to deal with, which, honestly, was a bigger wall of bricks than the interviews in Taiwan could ever be.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Year Three, Almost Free 29: Letter of Motivation and My First Set of Professional Attire
Hello, Tim!
Today is Saturday, and I was just working on my (possible) personal statement that is for Germany application until I was totally stuck. To change the mood, I figured that I might as well start the blog writing right now.
Besides, many literature studies there are taught in German while courses for business studies using English are more common. No matter how fast I can pick up German, there is no way I would be able to attend lectures taught in German within less than five years.
After tapping aimlessly on my keyboard, mulling over what to include in my statement and what not until my thoughts are all tangled up.
It was exceptionally difficult even when my cousin had given a considerable amount of advice for business application mostly because I don't have much prior experience to anything relating business, and even though what my cousin had suggested me to put in my statement, but some of them doesn't sound like me, and I think in a statement like this, it is better if I don't pretend to be someone that I am not, hence making me even more confused about what to write. I think I need to put it aside for a while, let it sit, let it ferment, and see what might eventually come.
SO I am not going to comment on how I look because from what I know about myself it is going to be either borderline narcissistic or utterly self-deprecating, and I want neither of those. The shirt fit my body shape well, and it is promoted for its permeability. The suit jacket (is that how you call them?) was a bit heavy but had a very pleasant texture.
So yeah, this is my very first set of suit, and there are going to be various occasions in which I would need its help.
I believe this can be called laziness?
I'll go read a book or something. Let's see if more words will come out when I feed my brain some.
Sincerely,
Hugo
Today is Saturday, and I was just working on my (possible) personal statement that is for Germany application until I was totally stuck. To change the mood, I figured that I might as well start the blog writing right now.
Why I Got Stuck
My family and I have been talking over this "studying abroad in Germany" deal and has now decided on taking international business as my college major. Here is a short version of why I don't think I'll be taking other courses into consideration. First of all, international business in Germany focuses quite much on languages as well, which is something I value dearly. Besides, they also offer chances to study abroad to places like England and France as well as a semester's length of internship, a lot of which are even mandatory. This might sound a bit too realistic to my liking, but it sounds a lot more practical and offers a more useful set of skills.Besides, many literature studies there are taught in German while courses for business studies using English are more common. No matter how fast I can pick up German, there is no way I would be able to attend lectures taught in German within less than five years.
After tapping aimlessly on my keyboard, mulling over what to include in my statement and what not until my thoughts are all tangled up.
It was exceptionally difficult even when my cousin had given a considerable amount of advice for business application mostly because I don't have much prior experience to anything relating business, and even though what my cousin had suggested me to put in my statement, but some of them doesn't sound like me, and I think in a statement like this, it is better if I don't pretend to be someone that I am not, hence making me even more confused about what to write. I think I need to put it aside for a while, let it sit, let it ferment, and see what might eventually come.
I Got a Suit
Just this even, my cousin took me to the department store to search for a suit that is fit for all of my upcoming interviews. I thought I was mentally prepared for this day but it turned out I still had some doubts lurking. I don't even know what those doubts were about! There was just a compelling voice in my head that would appreciate if I just refuse to try on the suit. Here the try-out picture:
SO I am not going to comment on how I look because from what I know about myself it is going to be either borderline narcissistic or utterly self-deprecating, and I want neither of those. The shirt fit my body shape well, and it is promoted for its permeability. The suit jacket (is that how you call them?) was a bit heavy but had a very pleasant texture.
So yeah, this is my very first set of suit, and there are going to be various occasions in which I would need its help.
End
All this thinking is giving my brain a horrible travail, and I don't think I have the brain to keep on doing anything but writing down any of my words...I believe this can be called laziness?
I'll go read a book or something. Let's see if more words will come out when I feed my brain some.
Sincerely,
Hugo
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