It’s been a month since I have started attending my German language course and I think that those four straight weeks of going to school for 5 hours each day has paid off. I can feel the huge development whenever I try to read texts in German and whenever I watch something in German. Now that my knowledge in the German language has surpassed that of a beginner’s, I think learning a foreign language is not so bad. I remember how negative I was towards learning German. I’ve always seen it as an obligation but now that I can speak and understand it, I am actually enjoying it. Of course the constraint of having to go to school every day still sucks and I don’t think that will change but I am really glad that I agreed to learn German and I am glad that I’ve got a husband who is very supportive and who does not lose his patience even during the time when I was so uncooperative.

Tomorrow, we’ll have our midterm exams and I don’t have huge worries about it. I am confident that I can and I will do well on it so tonight, instead of going over my notes, I will blog and after that I will read a book—a romance novel written in German.

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I’ve got a crush on new mobile phone again! Who wouldn’t? I mean with the new Sonny Ericsson Xperia, who wouldn’t trade his/her current phone?

Xperia is the newest smart phone launched by Sonny Ericsson and although it has not reached the most of the market yet, lots of people (including me) are already eager to get their hands on the newest Sonny Ericsson phone. To read more about the phone, visit Sonny Ericsson Xperia’s official site.

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Do you know that with just 50$, you can have powerful video editing software. Yep! Blaze Media presents a software that offers functions such as conversion, ripping, editing, recording, burning, playback, and much more. It’s an all in one multimedia application that is user friendly so you don’t have to worry if you are a neophyte when it comes to video and audio editing. Other advanced features of this incredible software include video capture, video creation, combining, and extraction, video editing, CD burning, audio and video merge (joining), MusicID audio recognition, lyrics search, audio tag editing, FreeDB support, and more.

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One good thing about living in China is that everything here seems to be cheaper. Not only clothing and shoes but also electronic things like MP3/4 players, DVD players, computers, cellphones, computer accessories, etc. Of course most of the brand names are unknown to many non-Chinese but that doesn’t mean that these products cannot function well as the others. Right now, I am using a Hasee Laptop and I am quite contented with it. For 4800RMB (460 EU), I got a brand new laptop with 120G capacity, 2GB of RAM, and all the other basic features that well-known brands offer. Not bad.

But there are just some things you can’t buy here like an electronic English-German dictionary. There are hundreds of cheaply priced e-dictionaries in electronic stores but these only offer Chinese-Foreign languages. No foreign language-foreign language so I have to buy mine in Europe. Normally, you can buy a good e-dictionary here for 500RMB (48 EU) so I was a little bit annoyed when I bought my e-dictionary for 150EU. Nevertheless, I am still glad I bought it because I can’t imagine going through one German class without it.

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We had a little debate yesterday in our class. The debate was about whether or not it is practical to pursue higher education. Most of the girls said they agree that the only chance to get a better job and earn a lot of money in the future is to get in top universities and finish a degree. Surprisingly, most of the guys in the class don’t believe so. They said that nowadays a lot of manual jobs that does not require university degrees are paying more than white collar jobs. True. A very good example is my brother-in-law who holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering but is now working as a tower crane operator in Dubai. He got the job not because he has a university degree but because he has training on operating heavy equipments.

Since there’s a big need for heavy machine operators, I personally think that getting in a heavy equipment operator school works for a lot of people who don’t like to go through the academic life but who want to earn decent salary. And for these people, there is Associated Training Services (ATS). ATS is a distinguished institution that offers heavy equipment operator training on a variety of heavy equipment and construction related trucking like backhoe training, bulldozer training, excavator training, front end loader training and a lot more so if you are amongst those who believe that decent salaries don’t necessarily come from white collar jobs then look no further. Associated Training Services is your key to an exciting and rewarding career in the heavy equipment operator industry.

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I am now a full time student.

Yep, I enrolled in a German language course a few weeks ago I already attended a full week of classes. So far, I am enjoying it. My instructors are not native German speakers but that does not bother me because they are good enough to teach German. Once, I brought my recorder to class and recorded a few minutes of our class discussion. I let my husband, who is a native German speaker, listen to it and he said that the teacher seems pretty good. She (the teacher) has her Chinese accent when speaking German but she is 100% understandable. Other than that, she can also explain grammar well.

I am the only non-Chinese in class. Normally, after explaining the grammar points in Chinese, my teachers explain it to me in English. This makes me feel a little bit special. Classes are 4 to 5 hours daily from Monday to Friday and it should last for 10 weeks or so.

I hope that after this course, I can carry on day to day conversations in German with ease.

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My Fujitsu laptop is gone. Because it’s the oldest of our three laptops, we gave it away to Marcus’ younger brother. I now use Marcus’ (now mine) super compact 10” laptop and I like it but I realized that the screen is way too small for my rapidly deteriorating eyes so I am now in search for a new computer.

Since I work mostly at home, I decided to get a desktop computer with a big LCD monitor. And as for the laptop, I will still keep it so I have something to use when I am on the go. In my search of a new desktop computer, I stumbled upon Dealtime.co.uk. They have a lot of cheap computers on their list and they offer other electronic products too. They have TVs, DVD players, MP4s, cell phones and a lot more. It’s like a huge online department store! So if you are looking for something online, whatever it is, you might want to check out Dealtime.co.uk first.

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We got here in Shanghai on June 30. When we finally arrived at our hotel, the first thing I searched for is an internet connection. I was itching to blog but I needed an internet connection for something which is more important like looking for a flat and sure enough, the 102 Euro per night hotel has internet connection but they charge an incredible amount of 0.10 Euro per minute or a maximum of 8 Euro per day. Though I know that it’s Marcus’ company handling our hotel bills, it just didn’t feel right. I mean, I wouldn’t want to spend that much for a 24 hour internet connection and although I will not be the one to pay it, I will not give in to any of these over priced hotels. No no.

So what I did was search for an unsecured wireless connection and I was lucky because when I placed my computer right beside the window, there were about 11 wireless connection and 3 or 4 of them were unsecured. We were in the 30th floor—good place for my WLAN to get some signals from nearby wireless connections. So I had 22 days of free internet.

Shanghai is a very modern city and wireless internet connections are rampant. You can get an unsecured wireless connection just about anywhere for free. But you should know that connecting to an “unsecured” wireless network has some risks. For example, other computers connected to the unsecured network can attack your computer and steal private data. In my case, my laptop is pretty empty so it was not a very big risk for me.

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