i need to go to bed immediately so this will be the quick version.
went to carrefour, bought a whole ton of ready meals. curry stuff, pasta stuff, leek dumplings, popsicles, guava juice.
went to class. tuesday is still a good day. can't remember at least half the names in there which makes me feel bad.
i think i've formed a lasting bond with the corner lady who cooks me rice and pea pods, carrots and mystery vegetable that i think is japanese eggplant cut into long strips? but i have no idea. she kept saying 'no meat!' so i know it isn't meat, i just don't know what it is.
came home and went upstairs in my towel to take a shower and there were a whole ton of people in the living room who were going bowling so i ditched the shower and went bowling with kat, gill, the new guy Noe (in a minute), and jen. keith came and met us there after a game. we had fun. i love bowling in any country and i got 2nd place the 3rd game because keith was antagonizing me.
Noe got here this morning. he's from McAllen, TX. he went with me to carrfour "to buy clips" and i asked what for and he said to hang up his texas flag in his window. i told him i taped mine up :P oh, texans. i guess you can take us away from texas but we all have a bit of it in us.
time for bed! class at 1:30 tomorrow. keith's going to give me a ride so i can save 45 min that i would have spent on the bus. i think i'm ready for a scooter. we'll see.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
it's how they've always been and they intend to stay
presotea and i went to war today. there's this little tea stand where i've been getting jasmine green tea, and today natalie and i took the bus together and we went to presotea before we parted ways and i ordered my tea, unzipped my purse and realized i had forgotten to take my wallet out of my tiny Lohas bag when i went to carrefour the other day, so i had no money. thank goodness natalie was with me so she bought it for me.
then tonight i went back on my way back from school to get another tea because now i had money because they pay us in cash every day after we teach. anyway earlier i had bought these weird 'beef noodles' and i thought i had 20 dollars in change, so i ordered a $20 tea but when i went to take the money out of my pocket, i only had $15 (the $10 and $5 are both silver and i hadn't paid that much attention to the change i got back from the beef noodles, obviously), so i had to pay for a $20 tea with a $1000 bill. the girl was laughing at me.
i gave a test today in my first class and it went pretty well. the kids are all excited because the class after next, we get to go to mc donalds. next class we're practicing how to order something off the menu. my coteacher, jasmine, and i get to pretend to be the cashiers and have them order from us. apparently you get cool points if you buy all of the kids ice cream at the end. i think they cost 15 cents each so i think i can handle it :P i'm excited. i really like that group of kids. they're kind of hyper but they're good. memorable names in there: boldwin, kitty, eason (which was probably supposed to be ethan?), andd i guess that's it in there. one kid named jeff. nothing like the jeff i know and love though :P
my other monday class continues to be adorable. i really like my coteacher in there, carol. she calls them 'babies' all the time and its fun. she picks up whenever i'm lagging and she's fun and loud and i like her a lot. today before class i was talking to a bunch of the coteachers. my favorite group is there. christine, carol, elaine, jasmine, and chelsey who's new. i gave her my email address tonight. i hope we end up being friends.
we got another new person in the dorm today, justin. he seems nice. it's hard to tell about anyone so soon. he seems pretty quiet. he taught in south korea before coming to taiwan and he taught in southern taiwan for the last 2 months but he wanted to be closer to taipei. he's from chicago.
there's also a new nametag on another door that says 'Noe' which we don't know how to pronounce/can't figure out what gender the person will be. i guess we'll find out soon enough though.
then tonight i went back on my way back from school to get another tea because now i had money because they pay us in cash every day after we teach. anyway earlier i had bought these weird 'beef noodles' and i thought i had 20 dollars in change, so i ordered a $20 tea but when i went to take the money out of my pocket, i only had $15 (the $10 and $5 are both silver and i hadn't paid that much attention to the change i got back from the beef noodles, obviously), so i had to pay for a $20 tea with a $1000 bill. the girl was laughing at me.
i gave a test today in my first class and it went pretty well. the kids are all excited because the class after next, we get to go to mc donalds. next class we're practicing how to order something off the menu. my coteacher, jasmine, and i get to pretend to be the cashiers and have them order from us. apparently you get cool points if you buy all of the kids ice cream at the end. i think they cost 15 cents each so i think i can handle it :P i'm excited. i really like that group of kids. they're kind of hyper but they're good. memorable names in there: boldwin, kitty, eason (which was probably supposed to be ethan?), andd i guess that's it in there. one kid named jeff. nothing like the jeff i know and love though :P
my other monday class continues to be adorable. i really like my coteacher in there, carol. she calls them 'babies' all the time and its fun. she picks up whenever i'm lagging and she's fun and loud and i like her a lot. today before class i was talking to a bunch of the coteachers. my favorite group is there. christine, carol, elaine, jasmine, and chelsey who's new. i gave her my email address tonight. i hope we end up being friends.
we got another new person in the dorm today, justin. he seems nice. it's hard to tell about anyone so soon. he seems pretty quiet. he taught in south korea before coming to taiwan and he taught in southern taiwan for the last 2 months but he wanted to be closer to taipei. he's from chicago.
there's also a new nametag on another door that says 'Noe' which we don't know how to pronounce/can't figure out what gender the person will be. i guess we'll find out soon enough though.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
12 shoes, a llama, and a boquet of roses
i just painted my nails so this will be slow going.
today i woke up laaaate! like 1130. i cant even imagine sleeping that late at home. but you really don't miss anything here. i guess theoretically i could be doing something productive in that time, but for now i'm enjoying sleeping late.
what did i do this morning. now i can't remember. i think i just sat in the living room and talked to beth for a while. she's the only other girl here who's into makeup and girly things. i guess natalie kind of is but she doesn't really talk about it. beth goes to the spa and we can talk about girly things which is fun.
eventually i woke josh up and we went to jon's apartment to meet with people who were going to a beach to pick up trash. the deal is that it's the closest beach to us that you can just drive to. there are a lot you could take a train to i guess. but this beach is full of trash. so jon organized a beach clean up and about 8 of us started off and then we eventually got up to like 15 i think. we made a noticeable difference. there were about a million plastic cups and plastic bags, diapers, glow sticks, bottles and juice boxes. notably.. 15 shoes (none that matched), a boquet of dried roses, this giant woolly thing that can only be described as a llama, a monopoly house, and a broom. it was a hilarious/good spirited crowd. they were singing random songs and we had lots of funny conversations and lots of random taiwanese people started picking up trash with us. it was a good day. i kept reapplying sunscreen even though i was covered in sand. we were wearing rubber gloves and when you took one off, there was a good like half cup of sweat that you could pour out of it. it was pretty disgusting. anyway we did that for like 4 hours and then came home and showered.
tonight a bunch of us from the dorm went to dinner. we headed for tapenyaki, this japanese place we went my first week here, but it's sunday night and everything was packed, so we ended up at TGIFridays. i had a jack daniels cheeseburger and a cherry coke and i could have died i was so happy. i didn't eat much before the beach thing and my body was aching from yoga and bending down at the beach all day and food and air conditioning was so good. when i got home, keith and i played scrabble and i beat him by 4 points. he's never lost before apparently, but he's only been playing for 3 months.
one random thing:
beetle nut girls: there are these magenta, lit up boxes all along the side of the road with plexiglass on the front and these girls sitting on stools rolling up beetle nut which is some kind of tobaccoish thing that stains your teeth really red and gives you mouth cancer apparently. there are big patches of ground everywhere that are dyed red from the beetle nut being spit out.
the girls wear these ridiculous outfits, high high heels and will commonly walk out to a car and lean inside the window to talk to the guy. it's odd. they're everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Betel_Nut_Beauty_Stand.jpg
today i woke up laaaate! like 1130. i cant even imagine sleeping that late at home. but you really don't miss anything here. i guess theoretically i could be doing something productive in that time, but for now i'm enjoying sleeping late.
what did i do this morning. now i can't remember. i think i just sat in the living room and talked to beth for a while. she's the only other girl here who's into makeup and girly things. i guess natalie kind of is but she doesn't really talk about it. beth goes to the spa and we can talk about girly things which is fun.
eventually i woke josh up and we went to jon's apartment to meet with people who were going to a beach to pick up trash. the deal is that it's the closest beach to us that you can just drive to. there are a lot you could take a train to i guess. but this beach is full of trash. so jon organized a beach clean up and about 8 of us started off and then we eventually got up to like 15 i think. we made a noticeable difference. there were about a million plastic cups and plastic bags, diapers, glow sticks, bottles and juice boxes. notably.. 15 shoes (none that matched), a boquet of dried roses, this giant woolly thing that can only be described as a llama, a monopoly house, and a broom. it was a hilarious/good spirited crowd. they were singing random songs and we had lots of funny conversations and lots of random taiwanese people started picking up trash with us. it was a good day. i kept reapplying sunscreen even though i was covered in sand. we were wearing rubber gloves and when you took one off, there was a good like half cup of sweat that you could pour out of it. it was pretty disgusting. anyway we did that for like 4 hours and then came home and showered.
tonight a bunch of us from the dorm went to dinner. we headed for tapenyaki, this japanese place we went my first week here, but it's sunday night and everything was packed, so we ended up at TGIFridays. i had a jack daniels cheeseburger and a cherry coke and i could have died i was so happy. i didn't eat much before the beach thing and my body was aching from yoga and bending down at the beach all day and food and air conditioning was so good. when i got home, keith and i played scrabble and i beat him by 4 points. he's never lost before apparently, but he's only been playing for 3 months.
one random thing:
beetle nut girls: there are these magenta, lit up boxes all along the side of the road with plexiglass on the front and these girls sitting on stools rolling up beetle nut which is some kind of tobaccoish thing that stains your teeth really red and gives you mouth cancer apparently. there are big patches of ground everywhere that are dyed red from the beetle nut being spit out.
the girls wear these ridiculous outfits, high high heels and will commonly walk out to a car and lean inside the window to talk to the guy. it's odd. they're everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Betel_Nut_Beauty_Stand.jpg
Saturday, July 19, 2008
stars shinin' bright above me
no work today! it was a proper weekend. or first half of one. this morning i slept late, went to latini's for lunch and did my lesson plans. had a panini and an espresso ice cream. this time they gave me two scoops of ice cream. on my way out, the owner? asked if i was from canada since most of the foreigners are, i told him no i'm from texas. i don't know why but i didn't stick around to chat any more than that. latini's is another place that it's easy to be in 'the now'. the music is relaxing, it smells like baking bread and pasta sauce, and they have mint water. i could live there. i kind of do. i've been there 4 times this week.
then dena and i went into town to try to find shirts for jeff and matt. we found one that was very funny, almost as funny as reaax your vilace, but it had a girly v-neck so i didn't buy it. i did buy a delicious jasmine tea from this tea place, and i introduced dena to those pancake things i love. i didn't buy myself anything all day which was a miracle since they have a ton of sparkley things i thought i might need.
i got a ride home with keith because he was teaching downtown. he mentioned that he was going to yoga so i asked if i could tag along. everyone here goes to this gym in a mall called thai mall that's way far away. 20 minutes on the scooter. we park in a parking garage full of thousands of scooters and then go in the doors and i look inside and it's like.. a night club full of mirrors and neon lights and rope lights, but it was the gym. you walk into a room full of all sorts of exercise machines and it has glass on the far wall so you can look downtstairs where there was a whole skating rink, basketball courts, what looked like skating ramps, and a whole bunch of other things. the "yoga studio" was elevated like 2 feet from the first room, enclosed in glass so everyone could look in, and decked out in neon. it was the most bizarre place i've ever done yoga. and it was taught in chinese. my previous yoga knowledge kept me afloat, but i'm so out of shape after not having done anything in a month that my body is really feeling tired tonight. anyway i'm going to try to find a real yoga studio that's closer to home to go to before i sign up for the pricey night club/gym membership.
then we went home and he was going to carrefour and i had nothing to do so i went too. he showed me a secret passage way to get there that i'm going to use from now on. it's basically a 2 foot wide alley that runs between apartment buildings. it probably saves you 5 minutes of walking. anyway i bought a million things that i think jeff and matt neeeeed, and a few things for myself. cous cous, andes mints, and a cute teeny tiny new khaki Lohas bag. it was jam packed full of people in there on saturday night. i've never seen so many people. it was crazy. we shopped quickly and got mint chocolate chip ice cream in waffle cones to eat on the way home and i think i'm going to get one every time i go to carrefour from now on. it was so good.
i just made some cous cous, which i didn't like at home but i get cravings for it here, and now i'm headed to bed.
news from home:
-matt got hired at this burger place called mighty fine
-pierre, my friend marisa's dad, who went to ballet with us on saturdays, got hit by a van when he was on his bike and has neck and spine injuries but is mentally fine. if you could send positive his thoughts his way, that would be lovely.
-stacy schwab got married last weekend
then dena and i went into town to try to find shirts for jeff and matt. we found one that was very funny, almost as funny as reaax your vilace, but it had a girly v-neck so i didn't buy it. i did buy a delicious jasmine tea from this tea place, and i introduced dena to those pancake things i love. i didn't buy myself anything all day which was a miracle since they have a ton of sparkley things i thought i might need.
i got a ride home with keith because he was teaching downtown. he mentioned that he was going to yoga so i asked if i could tag along. everyone here goes to this gym in a mall called thai mall that's way far away. 20 minutes on the scooter. we park in a parking garage full of thousands of scooters and then go in the doors and i look inside and it's like.. a night club full of mirrors and neon lights and rope lights, but it was the gym. you walk into a room full of all sorts of exercise machines and it has glass on the far wall so you can look downtstairs where there was a whole skating rink, basketball courts, what looked like skating ramps, and a whole bunch of other things. the "yoga studio" was elevated like 2 feet from the first room, enclosed in glass so everyone could look in, and decked out in neon. it was the most bizarre place i've ever done yoga. and it was taught in chinese. my previous yoga knowledge kept me afloat, but i'm so out of shape after not having done anything in a month that my body is really feeling tired tonight. anyway i'm going to try to find a real yoga studio that's closer to home to go to before i sign up for the pricey night club/gym membership.
then we went home and he was going to carrefour and i had nothing to do so i went too. he showed me a secret passage way to get there that i'm going to use from now on. it's basically a 2 foot wide alley that runs between apartment buildings. it probably saves you 5 minutes of walking. anyway i bought a million things that i think jeff and matt neeeeed, and a few things for myself. cous cous, andes mints, and a cute teeny tiny new khaki Lohas bag. it was jam packed full of people in there on saturday night. i've never seen so many people. it was crazy. we shopped quickly and got mint chocolate chip ice cream in waffle cones to eat on the way home and i think i'm going to get one every time i go to carrefour from now on. it was so good.i just made some cous cous, which i didn't like at home but i get cravings for it here, and now i'm headed to bed.
news from home:
-matt got hired at this burger place called mighty fine
-pierre, my friend marisa's dad, who went to ballet with us on saturdays, got hit by a van when he was on his bike and has neck and spine injuries but is mentally fine. if you could send positive his thoughts his way, that would be lovely.
-stacy schwab got married last weekend
Friday, July 18, 2008
could it happen in a movie?
i forgot to tell you the best part about yesterday!
you know how i stayed up until 5am the other day to watch the episode of bizarre foods taiwan that didn't end up coming on? i was sitting watching tv yesterday afternoon and it magically came on! i was so thrilled. bizarre foods is this show where a former chef/foodie, andrew zimmern, travels around the world and eats the weirdest crap he can find in various countries. in taiwan, he ate stinky tofu, BLACK CHICKENNN! (which i had my first week here), and durien, among other things. he spit out the tofu and the durien. and he eats all kinds of things. bugs. organs of all kinds. keith was watching it with me and he was nearly in tears laughing. though it doesn't take a lot to make him giggle like a school girl. keith is probably my favorite person here but he is definitely weird. he does a lot of yoga, grew up on some canadian island, is studying to take the MCAT, and has the most mischievous smile of anyone i've ever met.
so todayy i woke up because it was raining hard outside my window, pinging my air conditioning unit, because we had a TYPHOON for crying out loud. it was hovering over the bottom of the island pretty much all day long, dumping lots of water on us. apparently they cancel school if it gets really bad, but it wasn't that bad today. it was good rain though. usually it just kind of sprinkles for 20 minutes on and off all day, but today we got hard rain that you could hear and see and it lasted for 5 hours or so. i curled up on the couch upstairs under the quilt gram made me and read my book for most of the morning, listening to the rain. it was lovely.
before i got on the second bus to go to school, i went in to starbucks in the fancy mall and got a vanilla latte and a panini. the panini was groooosss. it was dark meat chicken with radioactively yellow cheese on a microwaved, sesame bun. with mustard. but the latte was perfect. i don't drink coffee at home but on a rainy day there's something comforting about it. i started reading the power of now last night and so today i was trying to focus on the moment. it's much harder than it seems like it would be. there's always something to look forward to.
at school we practiced our demo's in both classes. in my first one, gene had written out the whole thing which was fantastic since i have no idea what i'm doing. the kids really like him. they have the boy bond. that class is all boys and 4 girls. i want to get them on video singing 'do re mi'. picture 20 taiwanese kids singing a song from the sound of music, pronouncing all of the M's as N's and not really knowing what they're saying. it is so funny. he even taught them the 'do mi mi, mi so so, re fa fa, la ti ti' part.
this girl and her brother always come up to me when they see me outside of class and i feel bad because i can't remember her name. it's sally, but i always think it's ruby. i have a ruby, sally, annie, candy or cindy in every class and i don't know why but all of those names mesh together in my head. her brother's name is fred. he's in my monday night class. he's adorable but he doesn't know much english at all.
anyway so tonight between classes, alex and i went to get mango smoothies that were pretty good and i bought some hair clips. here's the thing with the fashion here. it's trashy and cheap and ugly, but i've seen so much of it that at this point i actually am starting to like it. bright colors, glittery or bedazzled things, really tacky stripper high heels, headbands and suspenders are all very popular here. and the weirdest hair baubles and clips you can find. today i bought a polka dotted heart, a big yellow bow, and a weird pink barrette with flowers on it.
one of my coteachers had a buzz lightyear hair thingy one day, an american flag patterned ball the next day, and what was the last one.. oh, stitch from lilo and stitch yesterday. in her hair.
after class, alex took me to his apartment and we met up with jerry and the 3 of us went to this aborigine-themed restaurant. i ordered lamb that was pretty good. and we had tofu that they couldn't stop raving about. it was alright. not my favorite at all. tofu is like.. egg custard in a square. i dont know why people like it. it doesn't taste like anything and it feels like jelly in my mouth. anyway we drank 6, 1-liter taiwan beer's between us and had lots of hilarious conversations. they have a policy that they only want to do things that could be made into a movie. boys!
so it was a good day. tomorrow i'm on a mission to buy the weirdest stuff i can find to send home to jeff and matt and i want to take some pictures of stuff so you can see what it's like here.
you know how i stayed up until 5am the other day to watch the episode of bizarre foods taiwan that didn't end up coming on? i was sitting watching tv yesterday afternoon and it magically came on! i was so thrilled. bizarre foods is this show where a former chef/foodie, andrew zimmern, travels around the world and eats the weirdest crap he can find in various countries. in taiwan, he ate stinky tofu, BLACK CHICKENNN! (which i had my first week here), and durien, among other things. he spit out the tofu and the durien. and he eats all kinds of things. bugs. organs of all kinds. keith was watching it with me and he was nearly in tears laughing. though it doesn't take a lot to make him giggle like a school girl. keith is probably my favorite person here but he is definitely weird. he does a lot of yoga, grew up on some canadian island, is studying to take the MCAT, and has the most mischievous smile of anyone i've ever met.
so todayy i woke up because it was raining hard outside my window, pinging my air conditioning unit, because we had a TYPHOON for crying out loud. it was hovering over the bottom of the island pretty much all day long, dumping lots of water on us. apparently they cancel school if it gets really bad, but it wasn't that bad today. it was good rain though. usually it just kind of sprinkles for 20 minutes on and off all day, but today we got hard rain that you could hear and see and it lasted for 5 hours or so. i curled up on the couch upstairs under the quilt gram made me and read my book for most of the morning, listening to the rain. it was lovely.
before i got on the second bus to go to school, i went in to starbucks in the fancy mall and got a vanilla latte and a panini. the panini was groooosss. it was dark meat chicken with radioactively yellow cheese on a microwaved, sesame bun. with mustard. but the latte was perfect. i don't drink coffee at home but on a rainy day there's something comforting about it. i started reading the power of now last night and so today i was trying to focus on the moment. it's much harder than it seems like it would be. there's always something to look forward to.
at school we practiced our demo's in both classes. in my first one, gene had written out the whole thing which was fantastic since i have no idea what i'm doing. the kids really like him. they have the boy bond. that class is all boys and 4 girls. i want to get them on video singing 'do re mi'. picture 20 taiwanese kids singing a song from the sound of music, pronouncing all of the M's as N's and not really knowing what they're saying. it is so funny. he even taught them the 'do mi mi, mi so so, re fa fa, la ti ti' part.
this girl and her brother always come up to me when they see me outside of class and i feel bad because i can't remember her name. it's sally, but i always think it's ruby. i have a ruby, sally, annie, candy or cindy in every class and i don't know why but all of those names mesh together in my head. her brother's name is fred. he's in my monday night class. he's adorable but he doesn't know much english at all.
anyway so tonight between classes, alex and i went to get mango smoothies that were pretty good and i bought some hair clips. here's the thing with the fashion here. it's trashy and cheap and ugly, but i've seen so much of it that at this point i actually am starting to like it. bright colors, glittery or bedazzled things, really tacky stripper high heels, headbands and suspenders are all very popular here. and the weirdest hair baubles and clips you can find. today i bought a polka dotted heart, a big yellow bow, and a weird pink barrette with flowers on it.one of my coteachers had a buzz lightyear hair thingy one day, an american flag patterned ball the next day, and what was the last one.. oh, stitch from lilo and stitch yesterday. in her hair.
after class, alex took me to his apartment and we met up with jerry and the 3 of us went to this aborigine-themed restaurant. i ordered lamb that was pretty good. and we had tofu that they couldn't stop raving about. it was alright. not my favorite at all. tofu is like.. egg custard in a square. i dont know why people like it. it doesn't taste like anything and it feels like jelly in my mouth. anyway we drank 6, 1-liter taiwan beer's between us and had lots of hilarious conversations. they have a policy that they only want to do things that could be made into a movie. boys!
so it was a good day. tomorrow i'm on a mission to buy the weirdest stuff i can find to send home to jeff and matt and i want to take some pictures of stuff so you can see what it's like here.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
heaven knows it's high time
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=9P8e1EkZ1ug&feature=related
that is the prettiest song. i love it. i'm not sure if the link will work for you since it's the taiwanese youtube? but just search this years love by david gray
i dont know how i feel about thursdays. my first class is really good and my second class is horrible. they speak chinese the whole time and i don't know how to stop it. so far i've been the good cop, i'm going to try changing tactics next week. we'll see.
i don't really have a lot to say about today. another box from maj and faj came. it was stocked with gravy mix, which i didn't ask for but i thought about once the box was already in the mail so i'm glad it was in there, and the best spaghetti sauce in the woooorld, tank tops, shorts, flip flops, twizzlers, and random other things. the power of now. i'm pretty excited about all of it. i'm going to wear one of the tank tops tomorrow. thanks fam :)
we're supposed to get a typhoon tonight and tomorrow. look at how crazy the satellite is: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/wp200808_sat.html#a_topad
it's died down a lot. it used to be headed straight toward us. in any case, we're supposed to get buckets of rain tonight and tomorrow. time for bed!
that is the prettiest song. i love it. i'm not sure if the link will work for you since it's the taiwanese youtube? but just search this years love by david gray
i dont know how i feel about thursdays. my first class is really good and my second class is horrible. they speak chinese the whole time and i don't know how to stop it. so far i've been the good cop, i'm going to try changing tactics next week. we'll see.
i don't really have a lot to say about today. another box from maj and faj came. it was stocked with gravy mix, which i didn't ask for but i thought about once the box was already in the mail so i'm glad it was in there, and the best spaghetti sauce in the woooorld, tank tops, shorts, flip flops, twizzlers, and random other things. the power of now. i'm pretty excited about all of it. i'm going to wear one of the tank tops tomorrow. thanks fam :)
we're supposed to get a typhoon tonight and tomorrow. look at how crazy the satellite is: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/wp200808_sat.html#a_topad
it's died down a lot. it used to be headed straight toward us. in any case, we're supposed to get buckets of rain tonight and tomorrow. time for bed!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
dreit cards accepted
i saw a shirt on this girl today that said 'dredit cards accepted' and i was thinking about it on the way home on the bus and i looked out the window and there was a girl wearing the same shirt right as i was wondering what exactly it said. how's that for cosmos in action.
today is the first day i've felt a twinge of unease about being here since my major freakout at the beginning. we were on the roof tonight talking about our friends from home and how people are settling themselves. one of my friends from middle school just got married this weekend and my best friend will be engaged soon and part of me feels like i'm behind sometimes.
the other part of me wakes up in the morning to see that i've moved myself to taiwan, i'm surrounded by interesting, adventurous people, i get to experience a culture that not many north americans get so up-close-and-personal with, i'm teaching kids who i've started to adore and if not, who i can tell i'll eventually bond with, people look at me like i'm a movie star every day, and i'm stretching my comfort zone and what i thought was possible for myself by leaps and bounds. aside from not being crazy about all of the food or the general smell of the country, every night i feel more secure with myself and my abilities, and i feel like coming here was an important step for me. so that is that.
today i found out my second class was being evaluated 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. the kids were very well behaved, but it just felt weird. no one was talking. she had a miiiillion criticisms but some of them were helpful to me. we played some really fun relay games and the kids got more into it than they've been with anything else i've tried, so i was happy.
derek and i went for sushi right after on his giant motorcycle from the '70s. that was interesting. i think a million people on the street saw what color my underwear were before i had properly secured by dress :P
tonight a bunch of people from the dorm went to wednesday night dinner as has become the tradition. we went to this japanese place called Watami. they have a giant menu with pictures of everything which is golden. i had cream cheese rangoons and rice, miso soup and pickled vegetables. all for $6 US. then we came home and hung out on the roof (on my new roof blanket) because it's about 20 degrees cooler up there than our un-airconditioned living room. it was nice.
this is that thing i keep eating that i took a blurry picture of. it's a weird pancake with egg and bacon.
these are some kids playing the shrinking circle game in my first class today. they had the same genius idea to go piggyback. it was extra funny though because the kid on his back weighs like 70 lbs. he's super tiny.
sunset as i was waiting for the bus to take me home tonight around 645
today is the first day i've felt a twinge of unease about being here since my major freakout at the beginning. we were on the roof tonight talking about our friends from home and how people are settling themselves. one of my friends from middle school just got married this weekend and my best friend will be engaged soon and part of me feels like i'm behind sometimes.
the other part of me wakes up in the morning to see that i've moved myself to taiwan, i'm surrounded by interesting, adventurous people, i get to experience a culture that not many north americans get so up-close-and-personal with, i'm teaching kids who i've started to adore and if not, who i can tell i'll eventually bond with, people look at me like i'm a movie star every day, and i'm stretching my comfort zone and what i thought was possible for myself by leaps and bounds. aside from not being crazy about all of the food or the general smell of the country, every night i feel more secure with myself and my abilities, and i feel like coming here was an important step for me. so that is that.
today i found out my second class was being evaluated 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. the kids were very well behaved, but it just felt weird. no one was talking. she had a miiiillion criticisms but some of them were helpful to me. we played some really fun relay games and the kids got more into it than they've been with anything else i've tried, so i was happy.
derek and i went for sushi right after on his giant motorcycle from the '70s. that was interesting. i think a million people on the street saw what color my underwear were before i had properly secured by dress :P
tonight a bunch of people from the dorm went to wednesday night dinner as has become the tradition. we went to this japanese place called Watami. they have a giant menu with pictures of everything which is golden. i had cream cheese rangoons and rice, miso soup and pickled vegetables. all for $6 US. then we came home and hung out on the roof (on my new roof blanket) because it's about 20 degrees cooler up there than our un-airconditioned living room. it was nice.
this is that thing i keep eating that i took a blurry picture of. it's a weird pancake with egg and bacon.
these are some kids playing the shrinking circle game in my first class today. they had the same genius idea to go piggyback. it was extra funny though because the kid on his back weighs like 70 lbs. he's super tiny.
sunset as i was waiting for the bus to take me home tonight around 645
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