Mass social experiment. Cut out and stick this sign ( a big red out of order sign) on any item of public infrastructure you might encounter today, including, but not limited to: elevators, garbage trucks, cranes, phone booths, toilets, ventilation units, escalators, entrances to subway stations. The aim is to achieve comprehensive social breakdown across the US.

Well, I wonder how many people really dare to do this. Not me. I’m a chicken. Another thing is that I don’t think it’s common to put a sign on a broken machine in Taiwan. Well, perhaps on a copy machine or a vending machine. Hmm, elevator too. It might be funny to play a trick but it might also get you into trouble if you get caught. Thought about doing that at home, just for experiment’s sake. Too bad, I was out today and no one was at home when I got home, so I just gave up. I’m not  too adventurous, I have to admit.

And I thought of one bad example given by a teacher at one of the ETA seminars. A lot of time, Asians or Taiwanese use “bad" to mean “out of order" or “broken". For Taiwanese at least, 壞 is the same word for bad and out of order. However in English the meanings could be quite different. If you say the TV is bad, it means the quality is bad. If you say the TV is out of order or broken, it means it doesn’t work. In Chinese, I guess we say it in different ways too. 電視不好/電視很差。電視壞了。 Anyways, students just like to make up their own grammar or vocabulary even though it doesn’t make sense.

Not sure what I’m talking about. Too tired, I guess. On Sunday night, I’m often quite sentimental. Not sure why. I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Well, it means I don’t have to go to classes but I do prepare a lot and always get very busy on Monday. I don’t have so called Monday Blue, I have Monday  Busy, haha. I invented this. A lot of things in my mind but couldn’t find the right words to put them down. It’s just like this and perhaps because I’m writing in English. Haven’t done this for quite a while and it kind of limited my ability to express myself, I guess. Or perhaps my mind is blank now?

Can’t think in English, not sure if I can think in Chinese. Probably not much difference. Was reading Haruki Murakami’s book toady and he said one thing about learning language or expressing yourself in a foreign language: try to figure out what you want to say and express yourself in plain simple language. That’s exactly what I think about communicating in a second/foreign language. Get the meaning crossed! Instead of using big words, express your idea with simple words, paraphrase if it’s complicated.

Read another book about how some famous Japanese designers created their work, some stories about the creating process. Pretty impressive and got some very good ideas. This is bad and I’ll have to stop here before it gets worse, haha. I like tomorrow’s instruction. Well, that’ll be tomorrow’s. My writing is getting pretty bad though it’s never great. Anyway, just for practice’s sake, I try to write in English every other day and of course in Chinese when I write post related to English learning. And I really want to pick up my Japanese, so I was talking to myself in Japanese earlier. That’s probably why I’m all confused now, haha. One more thing, I want to put some more effort on my French too! Too greedy! This is probably one of my biggest problem. Anyway, time for bed and hopefully I’ll be able to get up early and do a lot of things I hope to get done! Good night 🙂