This tiramisu might look like a shit, but it tastes great.

The presentation doesn't look good, but it tastes awesome. #Taiwan #Chiayi #Travel #sharetravelpics #foodporn #food #teampixel https://t.co/0hRjgjBLIU pic.twitter.com/aJS9TpEQgr

— CW Chou (@tweejoe) October 17, 2021

When I walked in this coffee shop, it’s all familiar to me. The decorations, the menu, the staffs, all of them. I asked few questions, and I felt these questions had been asked before, and I got the exactly the same answer.

It's not easy to have meal alone in Korea.

Eating alone in Korea isn’t easy. Most of traditional Korean food restaurants requires people to order at least two portions. The first day in Korea, my friends and a went to the famous Daegugalbi restaurant in Gyeongju. We were quite confused when we ordered the meal.

First meal in Korea. It's good, but it's freaking spicy! #Korea #Gyeongju #travel #food #teampixel #explorekorea https://t.co/ULG6JgS64Y pic.twitter.com/kKnPJUbrVf

— CW Chou (@tweejoe) November 24, 2019

Daegugalbi

I think it made by pork mixing with Korean spicy sauce, which make it tastes spicy and salty. We ordered it slightly spicy, but it was still very hot for us. Thankfully, a cold soup was provided for us. It’s very helpful for easing the spiciness.

Anne & Ama

I recently visited an exhibition called Anne and Ama in the museum of Taiwanese Literature. Anne Frank is a well-known little girl who is a victim of Nazi during World War II. She had been keeping journals during her life time, and her diaries were found after she was dead in a secret room in Amsterdam where she hid from Nazi. The room she lived is now a museum to memorize her. 

I started a new blog

I've noticed that I haven't updated my blog for a long long time. And I looked back all the posts in this blog and found that most articles were not the reason why I started this blog. I decided to start another new blog, and post irrelevant posts in another new blog.

It's been so long!

I just found that the latest post on this blog is a year ago. I really should start writing something again. Though most of the articles would be boring because they're about my stupid meaningless life experiences. I still don't know any good topic to start with. Travel log is one of good ideas, I guess, but who cares about traveling Taiwan?

I hope I will post a new one soon...... Finger crossed!

Oh~ Merry Christmas~ I almost forgot! Happy holidays everyone except I don't even have a holiday.

A trip to Lie Ying Jian at Mei Ling

Lie Ying Jian means a tip of falcon, which is located in Mei Ling of Nansi, Tainan, Taiwan. It is named so because it looks like an eagle standing on the top of the mountain, and it is one of the most amazing scenes that I’ve ever seen in my life. I had heard so many people recommending this place as a best site in Tainan so I went there in a lovely afternoon.

We just want a bottle of wine

Finally, we have tasted the wine. Even so, it was miserable because no one know how to open the wine even we had two openers.

The story started from the day before yesterday. We planned to enjoy the white wine with cakes but no one brought any opener so we tried to borrow from others. We had asked every one we know that if they had an opener, but the answers were always "no". We discussed for a while and found that every one of us have openers and decided to bring them and taste the wine in the next day. However, in the next day, no one brought one because we thought that others might bring one. What a coincident! Not even one person had the different thought. Anyway, today, some of us did bring an opener in case things happened just like yesterday but no one knew that it was just the beginning.

At first, the opener was stuck in the cork successfully, and then we came to a problem which is nobody could pull out the cork. We have tried one by one until the cork mashed into pieces, which means the opener was useless after that,. That was really a tragedy. We had been looking forward this wine for two days because we didn't have opener but now we had many and they were useless. So, we had to use another way.

The most senior man came to an idea that we could stick a chopstick through the cork and make a little hole. A hammer was used to stick the chopstick into the cork and a pliers was used to pull out the chopstick. Suddenly, the chopstick broke into two fragments. One of them stock in the cork. There was nothing could be done unless we pushed the fragments into the bottle. We used another chopstick and stuck it into the cork again. The fragments in the cork was pushed down into the bottle, and, this time, the chopstick was removed smoothly.

At this moment, every one was screaming out load to celebrate the success of the "wine-opening" and getting ready for tasting the wine. We pooled the wine in the cups, and found that the wine was coming out drop by drop. Yes, it was drop. Even we had to wait for the wine pooled into the cups, we were satisfied with every single drop of the wine because every drops were our hard work. The wine was so sweat by the way, and I almost felt that I was drinking juice.

While every one was trying open the wine, I was searching the easier way to open a bottle of wine. Here is what I found:

I haven't tried it yet. I don't know if it works well. Maybe I will try it next time. lol

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas everybody! It is a really nice holiday, many of you should have a great day with family or friends. However, I have to finish my stupid PBL report. That is the worst Christmas gift ever!

PBL questions are about DNA methylation. I don't care if DNA methylation is age-dependent or not. I don't care if DNA methylation is the reason why we get cancer. I don't care what the paper is saying. I just want to have a normal holiday, but it's impossible.

It's really boring to be a graduate student. I shouldn't be here. This is not what I can bear. Damn it! Well, I am sorry that I say this word in this beautiful holiday, but my life really sucks.

I am tired of reading papers, just come here and complain a while. I think this is the shortest article that I have ever write on this blog. Who cares!

Mobile template is available for Blogspot

Blogger have launched a new function of mobile template which makes people much more easier to read articles on blogger. However, this function is still in beta state so anyone who uses blogger and wants to activate this function should sign in from this website: http://draft.blogger.com to make this option show up. After that, you can change the option from "setting" > "Email & mobile". There should be a "Show mobile template" option.

I don't have iphone or android phone or other smartphone so I don't know how it feel to browse my blog in mobile template, even there is a "mobile preview" bottom in the setting. preview could be different with the reality.

Speaking of smartphone, I really want one. Unfortunately, smartphones are too expensive for me to have one. Recently, I think HTC desire Z is pretty good. If I am rich, I will definitely buy one.

Welcome Arjunan to join this blog!

The main reason that I set this blog is to practice my English writing, and my dream is that there are many people who join my blog and practice English together. I am very glad that Arjunan join my blog, and also shared some very useful information of how to improve English. I have to say thank god that I made a great step to my goal, even I don't believe god.

I was so happy that I couldnt' wait to write a welcome article for Arjunan on this blog. Therefore, I wrote this while I was preparing my presentation for the next day. Honestly, I planned at first to write this article in the next next week because I would be a little bit freer in those days. I am sure that the more people there are in this blog, the more motivation I will get to practice English writing.

Arjunan's joining really encouraged me a lot. Now, I am very sure that there is at least one person who will read my articles, or share good experiences, or even discuss things with me. I am so excited about it.

In the end, I would like to thanks Arjunan for the two wonderful articles and I hope he will write more and more great articles on this blog. Anyway, welcome to join this blog, Arjunan!

Beating your kids

This video is quite interesting. When I was a kid, my parents beat me very often, as long as I did something wrong. The most interesting things is that my dad had said the same words as Russel said, "It will take them some time to get here, and someone is going to be hurt bad." when I told my Dad I can phone the Childrens' Aid.

Honestly, I agree that children should not be beaten when they can tell the difference between wrong and wrong. However, baby should be taught by beating because they don't understand what you mean, but they understand what hurt is. Besides, good habits should be trained when we are little. Beating properly can make a great help.

The main purpose of beating kids is try to teach them but venting our emotions. So, if we can find other way to teach them, beating can be unnecessary.

Qwertick: Make your keyboard to a typing machine.

Is there anyone who miss the sound of typing machines when you are typing? I do. Even though, I have never used a typing machine before but I am still attracted by the sounds. The good news is that there is a software which can make typing machines sound when you are typing. It can brig you back to the old days.


This software is called Qwertick. You can download it here or from its' official website:http://www.nattyware.com/qwertick.php

Some of you may ask, "Is there any other special function of this software?" Unfortunately, no. It is just a software which makes sounds when you are typing, and nothing else. Your keyboard is still a keyboard and could never have chances to become a typing machine. When you run this program, there would be an icon in the system tray. If you feel that the sound is annoying, you can turn it off from the icon or just shut it down.

By the way, I really like the sounds especially the sound by pressing Enter. It could do me a lot of favor when I need to write something. The sound makes me want to type. Enjoy yourself!

You know, we can download hundred millions personal data on facebook via BT torrents!

 I am not bluffing. This is truth. There is a person named Ron Bows who provides a torrent which has hundred millions of personal data that he search from facebook on his blog.

Bows claimed that this torrent contains:

• The URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile
• The name of every searchable Facebook user, both unique and by count (perfect for post-processing, datamining, etc)
• Processed lists, including first names with count, last names with count, potential usernames with count, etc
• The programs I used to generate everything

 This is horrible! I can't believe that our personal data is so easy to get if we use facebook. We can say there is no privacy in facebook. Honestly, sometimes I am considering to delete my facebook account. However, most of my friends using facebook, and I think this is the only way that they share their lives. The advantage for me to use facebook is that I can know what my friends doing recently if they volunteer to share, and it makes it easier for me to meet them in the future because even we didn't meet each other often, we still know something in common.

I know that this attitude is not healthy at all. We should interact with people in a normal way, not on the Internet all the times. This is one of my things which needs to be changed.

My first interview.

I have never had an interview before. Today is the day when I have my first interview. It is an interview of applying a graduate school. And this is a really long story.

Long time ago, I decided to apply for graduate schools so I went to cram school preparing the exams. However, I don't really want to go to graduate school so I stopped studying after chinese new year. Before I took the exams, I just finished less than one fifth of all books. I never expected to pass.


I was freaked out when I took the exams. Most of the questions are questions and answers, not multiple choice, so rationally, I did it very bad. All I answered were only one third of whole questions and I was not sure for half of my answers. I took them very easy.

The consequences showed that I failed in two school, and passed in one school. I was really surprised that I can pass for the exams. I can't believe it at all. Therefore, I got a chance to interview. If I make it, I will go graduate school. The interview was not easy to prepare. I need two recommendation letters, and a report card, and my autobiography. The report card are easy because I can just apply one, but the others are difficult. First, I don't know how to write a good autobiography. I don't know what are needed in an autobiography so I searched in the internet, asked some people, and even copy some templates. I wrote one finally, but it seemed not good enough. Anyway, it is much better than nothing. Second, I have to ask two professors who is willing to write me an recommendation letter. Wow, I didn't know who should I ask because there are some records that professor would turn students down in letter, or even refuse to write one for students. Whereas, I was lucky to have two letters in the end.

Last but not least, I don't know what should I wear to be proper enough. Some people said I should wear very formally, some people said I don't need to wear too formally. besides, it cost me a lots of money to prepare what I wore. That is really a big deal!

When I was interviewing with professors, they asked many questions which is not related directly to the graduate school. They were like chatting. They didn't ask any professional questions. That made me really relive indeed but I just have a bad feeling of this interview. And the worst things is that I finished this interview much earlier than the other candidates. Dose it mean that I don't have any hope to go to that graduate school?

My body is killing me!!!

Since I have been preparing for applying postgraduate school, it has been a long time since I stopped playing volleyball. Yesterday, I got a free time, so I went to a ball game. Honestly, the game was not intense, but I got up from the bed this morning with pain all over my body. All of my muscle complained me about over exercising.

However, I disregard my pain and hang out with friends this afternoon. I rode my motorcycle to had my lunch with my friends. And, wow! This lunch was great. I could possibly go to it next time. Then, we went to a department store. On the top of the department store, there is a amusement park. There are archery, Ferris wheel, arcade games, and other stuffs. Anyway, I played archery and some games. I found out that doing an archery really needs some strength. I got too painful this day so I couldn't shoot the arrow on the target. Maybe it is just an excuse. Whereas, my friend is good at archery. He shoot all of his arrows on the target. Good for him!

After that, we went home right after we finished the dinner. When I sit down on my desk, I can't believe I spent so much money today! I think I have to save money in the couple of days.

The progress of the class

In my university, teachers still teach students in Chinese. Only few of courses are taught in English. All of them are in the department of medicine because there are international students in department of medicine. I have heard that teachers didn't do well in the English taught classes. Most of students didn't understand what teachers was trying to express even international students. Yeah, that means teachers are not good at speaking English. Therefore, the attendance rate of the courses became lower and lower because many students decided to study by themselves. However, English taught courses still went on without any hesitation.


Last week, one of my teachers, in department of medical laboratory science, told us a news that our department will accept international students after about two years, and it means all the professional courses in our department will be taught in English. If everything goes well for me, I would not take the English taught courses. Whereas, the English taught class is not only difficult to students but teachers. All of us don't have experience of this kind of classes, so Miss Huang, one of our teachers decided to try it in this semester. She held a course which will be taught in English. Actually, this course is more like PBL, problem based learning in short.

Today, in the first class of PBL course, Wanda volunteered to be the first one to introduce the first case of the course. She is good at English. She also speaks English very well, but she seems very nervous, and so do I. I am not used to speak English in front of people even though I would speak English to myself sometimes. She introduced the case fluently and brought up some questions for us to discuss. All of us used very suck English communicating, and we got stocked very often because we couldn't understand each others. Every body tried very hard. As for me, I could mostly understand the conversation, but I couldn't speak even a word. I don't think the reason why I couldn't speak is because I am too nervous to speak. I think the main reason is that I am too shy. I would not speak even the class is taught in Chinese.

Nevertheless, the class was end perfectly. All of us spoke English while we were discussing the case. None of us spoke Chinese. This course is not essential but optional. Many people dropped it because of English, but I didn't. I think it is a great chance to practice professional English. It is not easy to have this opportunity.

Being shoot can be exhausted.

I am going to graduate from university, so every one in my class have to take a commemorative graduation photography. Since I am in an university, taking this kind of pictures can be very different from the time when I was in high school, or elementary school graduation. Being shoot alone, with friends, or with all classmates and teachers, there are too many kinds of pictures to be shoot now, and there are also different places for us to be shoot.

Today, I got a lots of pictures shoot with different places, different clothes, and different people. The most tiring thing I think is about places, and clothes. Because the sun was very big today which made me feel sun burned after I went out for 10 minutes, and we had many clothes to change, like casual wearings, academic dresses, and lab coats. So, it was hot when I put on each clothes, not mention how harsh it is when I was doing it. Besides, the photographer asked us to do many different postures while we were taken photos. This is the first time I feel that being taken pictures can be so exhausted.

I always don't like to be taken pictures because I feel weird to smile at nothing but a camera, and I don't think I am looked good in photos. Maybe I am not looked good at all, but at least I don't need to look myself in usual time. However, I like to take pictures of others cause that makes me don't need to be taken photos by others. Ha Ha!!!

I get very lazy recently.

I really don't know why I get lazy recently. The thing is that I am going to have exams for applying postgraduate schools, and there is no any power for me to study. Besides, I am also too lazy to do what I am interested in, like computers, movies, playing balls, or going outside. I don't want to do all of them at all. The worst thing is that I don't want to stay at the room either. This make me feel like I am wasting my time, and the true it is.

I should find something to cheer me up, but I just don't know what things can work. Maybe I can start some project of some interesting things. That would make me find some things to do. However, I have a feeling that I will give up at last.

Honestly, I went to a fortuneteller couples of weeks ago. He told me that I would be lazy and not satisfying for anything. Therefore, I would have a lot of big changes in the next ten years, but all of these changes are not going to help me in the future. When I heard that, I felt very frustrated. If this is the truth, I would be very very pathetic.

But, what can I do? If this is my fate, I can do nothing but accept this. Don't tell me that I can fight with fate because I don't, and I won't. I have heard many stories about people wanted to change their fate, and they truly worked very hard, but they failed at last. The things they did are too hard. I would rather accept it than fight against it. It is not worth at all.

Avatar

I went to see Avatar few days ago, and it really impressed me a lot. I watched 3D version, and it makes me felt these sceneries and creatures are so real, thank to the technology nowaday. In addition to the special effects in Avatar, the whole story does mean something to us,even I think it is felt like one movie, The Last Samurai. Human broke the eath and tried to find another planets for living, but still are breaking the new planet.

Avatar in this movie represents a kind of biological machines that is combined human's DNA and Navi's together, and human can control this machine through mind transforming. However, what does avatar exactly mean in the dictionary? It defines avatar that is a picture of a person or an animal representing a person on a computer screen, especially in a computer game or chat room. So, I think I can explain that avatar is a form of human beings in Pandora, and that could means Navis are also human beings. Both of them are creature in a planet, and both of them try to use all resources in the planet for living, but the most different thing I think between them is that Human beings in the movie take all resources only for themselves, however, Navi use resources for the whole planet.

I think this movie, Avatar, is trying to tell us about environmental issue, and tell us what we are doing may cause the extinction of human beings. If we don't protect our environment, maybe we will find other planets someday for living. Besides, there is a really interesting dilemma between environment protection and economy in this movie. Because human want to increase economical benefit, they consume more resources, and that causes damage to the environment. Sometimes, we can't have our cake and eat it. We have to make a choice.

This is a great movie, I think. At least, it is worth for me to think.

My Experience in Google Wave

First, I would thank my friend from twitter who share his invitation with me. Otherwise, I have no opportunity to experience google wave.

When I used google wave the first time, it not that easy to use as the demo video. It took me some times to get used to it. However, it is pretty good overall. People said that google wave is like IM software, but I think it is more like a e-mail with a chat room. I think this idea supposed to impress to everyone.

So far, we can use "with:public" command to search public waves, but sometimes the command would be "with:public@a.gwave.com". If you want to search public waves in specific languages such as chinese, you can add "lang:zh" at the end of the command. Unfortunately, it is not always work completely right. You may search some others languages by this method.



The most attractive things of google wave is that there are a lot of robots and extension on google wave like translation robot, emotional icon robot, and google map extension. All of this stuff would add more interesting in google wave.

However, there are still things that I don't like it. For example, the speed of google wave is so slow, and it takes too much resources to run it. I know that it is in preview stage, but I think it would be much better when speed of google wave become faster and faster. And the way of classification is not good, I think. The most way of classification in google is label which is in gmail, document, even favorite list. But I don't know why google wave's classification is folder which makes me not adapted to it.



Besides, I hope there will be a option to open a new wave in new window or new tab. It would be more convenience to talk to many people in different waves, even though there is a wave list on the top of web page. To be honest, it is difficult to use at all.

I think google wave will be easier and more convenience to use, but I hope it can improve very soon.