About CBT

About Chiong Bin To

Chiong Bin To is a Romanization of the Taiwanese pronunciation of my Chinese name, which in Mandarin is Zhang Min Dao. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, from a mixed Taiwanese home; my mother was benshenren, my father was waishenren. I was educated up until 18 years of age in the public school system. From the pit of Model Minority Hell, I was plucked and placed onto my path by none other than The Most High. From there, I sojourn to discover all the places through which my path leads. I am first and foremost a student of cultures and languages, from which I draw inspiration to fuel my creativity. My mission is to reveal to all people the beauty of each person, in the context of their native cultures, so that God may be glorified as Creator.

On this page, you will find information as to what I'm doing with my life, with posts published in timely fashion below.

Summer Update 1

Several things have happened since I last posted:

1) I applied to UIUC and North Central College.
2) I got accepted to North Central College (I haven't heard back from UIUC, yet).
3) I'm taking French 1101 this summer. More about this below.

French is lexically similar to Italian (which is good), and even has a few shared words with German. The grammar is funny, though. One example of quirkiness is that, despite verb conjugations, pronouns are still necessary. I suspect that the pronouns are necessary because French has lost so many sounds, and many conjugations for a verb sound the same. One example is the verb "aimer," which sounds similar to the English word "aim" for its "je," "tu," and "il/elle" forms.

What always gets me about summer school classes is how quickly courses move. Double for language classes, which must cram the same amount of content as a normal semester into students in half the time (16 weeks vs. 8 weeks). I'm slightly behind, and we're getting blitzed with information. I may need to seek meetings with the instructor outside of class to kind of catch up or solidify what I've learned.

Another thing that kind of bothers me is that my audio CD still hasn't arrived. That's another reason to meet with the instructor additionally.

Of course, I have to redouble my efforts to match the course's assault. I've been in summer mode, playing computer games and whatnot, which is unacceptable. Je n'étudie pas assez. Yeah, I did that without help of a dictionary or translator.

posted by Ezra M. Chang at 6/23/2011 12:34:00 AM