Having arrived in Taiwan 2 weeks ago, I found myself immediately sick. The same thing happened last year after landing in Hong Kong for a planned 3 week vacation. At first I tried to imagine it just being jet lag, but two days later I realized I was just sick.
I think my goals for the three weeks I had free before classes started were a bit too lofty. I thought to myself that I'd hit the ground running immediately after I had landed, but being sick coupled with jet lag as well as the stress of having to find a suitable apartment, was all a bit too much. Nonetheless, compared to my first time around in Taiwan, I found myself having spoken more Mandarin during the first week than I did for the first two months last time. That in itself I'd count as a success story.
In general I'd say that that everything in Taiwan so far this time around has felt much more comfortable. While I last time was struggling for the whole period just entering restaurants and ordering, I find myself much more open to what I'd personally say to be uncomfortable experiences. While not being an introvert per say, I do tend to be a bit careful, and I'm acutely aware of what I imagine other's perception of me to be.
I think in general the month of August has been quite a miss for me, and I'd say the less time I spent studying in anticipation of the trip, was compensated by the time I spent after having arrived in Taiwan. That is to say, it all evened out and the month became a normal study month as it would've been in Sweden.
Last week I managed to get myself to Taipei and Lucky Bookstore (which is the NTNU/Shida bookstore), and bought the following books:
Taiwan Today 今日台灣
Mini Radio Plays 迷你廣播劇課本
Twenty Lectures on Chinese Culture 中國文化二十講
Thought and Society 思想與社會定
The Independent Reader 從精讀到泛讀
Advanced Chinese Reader 高級華文讀本
With me from Sweden I also brought the following books:
An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael Fuller
Talks on Chinese Culture (I bought the one from Yale University as I heard it's hard to get inside of Taiwan due to it being ICLP exclusive, either way, Renfroe mentions it being based on the same lectures as Twenty Lectures on Chinese Culture)
Advanced Chinese Reader by John DeFrancis (Having gone through the first four books, and very much appreciated them and DeFrancis work in general, I'll post a more comprehensive review of this whole series later on)
This list is based upon John Renfroe's personal blog from his time in Taiwan, as well as the YouTube video he posted a couple years ago on the Outlier Linguistics channel. While I have no idea if I'll finish all of these books, it's all pretty much depending on the course workload and my own discipline. Some books, especially The Independent Reader 從精讀到泛讀, might be out of reach for me no matter how hard I manage to work in a year.
On Friday I'll know the result of the placement test, and on Monday the classes start.