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Friday, June 23, 2006

Dusk over Taichung


This semester sucked, perhaps the worst of my teaching career, since my first semester in Kenya. Way too much pressure, my beloved 4A class graduating, too many classes, and too many frustrations in my personal life. Three months of hell.

So I thought that it would be appropriate to end my semester with photos of dusk over Taichung. These are dedicated to every fracking moment of pure torture that I experienced this semester. May it be swiftly forgotten.













It was a beautiful dusk....and I am glad it is all over.

9 comments:

  1. Is that dusk or dust? Just joking.

    It reminds me of when I was in Beijing and saw something similar, only it was 4 pm in the afternoon and the wind from the Gobi was strong. The sun had disappeared.

    I think you should run for PR spokesman for Taichung.

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  2. Sorry to hear that you are pissed off with things Michael. Hang in there and don't let the turkeys get you.
    It is hard letting go of a graduating class especially when they are so responsive and achieving well.
    Then you look at the next lot and say "Oh my God" to yourself......
    How many times have you thought that eh? But then 12 months later.....

    Cheers buddy, Geoff

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  3. Hi Mickael,
    I wanted to draw your attention on the marvel a very quick contrast and color automatic setting (on photoshop) can do to your pictures.
    Have a look at these pictures of yours i played a bit with (on the left is before...):
    Pic 1
    Pic 2

    Once you have opened a file in photoshop it is shift+ctrl+alt+L for automatically balancing the contrast, and shift+ctrl+L for balancing all levels (this is not good for all pictures). Save this with shift+ctrl+alt+S.

    ;)

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  4. Thanks, guys! I appreciate the hugs.

    Ed, I don't have photoshop. Most of the photos I put up here go up unprocessed, except for cropping. My understanding of photo processing is primitive, and it will several years before I hvae time to spend learning all that.

    Michael

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  5. Michael-
    I had a crap semester, too. My students didn't say a damn thing for weeks, then started handing in hideously plagiarized work. It was enough to drive me out of academia. Fortunately, I was able to get a few elective classes of my own construction passed for next term. But the bitter taste is still here, and will take at least the full summer to get over. And now, to top it off, my kitchen flourescent light is refusing to turn on, blinking in that halfway on, halfway off mock that is so reminiscent of Tsai Ming-liang's films.

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  6. My students do that too. Download whole pages from the internet, copy from books. What a madhouse.

    Michael

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  7. The best I had this year was someone who submitted a work that they had translated into English using Babelfish or something like that. It was so mangled, it was quite funny to read. Maybe if I can find it, I will post it sometime.

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  8. wow, the Babelfish translations should be posted! perhaps another new blog? i would RSS read that one too!

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