Thursday March 21st, 2013
The very first thought that ran through my head when my
alarm set off was ‘don't you dare screw up like yesterday.’ What a positive way
to talk to myself, huh? XD No worries though because everything went smoothly
with getting ready for the day. That’s what counts after all!
For breakfast host grandmother gave me this microwaved block
of whatnot. Seeing it for the first time I had a huge question mark floating
above my head. My puzzlement was resolved by simply eating it. Turns out this
block was a rectangle of bread. Just bread. Bread with faint butter and garlic
flavor. It wasn’t bad but I have problems with only eating bread for a meal,
both for stomach filling and nutritional reasons. Therefore I snatched a Nature
Valley bar with fruit, nut and whole grain goodness in attempt to balance out
the meal. Not sure if that was the wisest move but hey, I haven’t gotten my nutritionist
degree yet so don’t be harsh on me. :P
At University I grabbed a Japanese Green Tea drink at
7-Eleven to quench my thirst. Something I learned about my relationship between
tea and myself is that I enjoy it but only in small quantities. A sip or two
will be pleasing but a gulp will start to physically upset my stomach. No
kidding, it will make my stomach queasy. Therefore I only drink a little at a
time, allowing a full bottle to last me over three hours. FYI, I down water at
light speed and refill quite frequently so a bottle of tea lasting three hours
is impressive. :P
A note about the weather, in the morning I stepped outside
to a slightly chilly misty environment that felt refreshing. Ah how nice! Less
than an hour later, it’s hoooooooooot and windy! Seriously this weather is so
sporadic and weird! Taipei, can you constantly be nippy for me please? ;)
University class today blazed through a grammar lesson at
the speed a curious cat will chase a teasing laser beam, LIGHTING FAST! My head
spun a bit trying to grasp several confusing, mind-boggling Chinese grammar
concepts. For example “下雨了” can have two meanings. One is
it rained, as in a completed act. The other meaning states there’s a change as
if it started raining. Yet “了” is commonly used for stating an action is
completed but it doesn't mean past tense. What?
I am baffled! My guess is I need a couple more days until my “ohhhhhhhh”
revelation and look back on this paragraph thinking ‘how did I not understand
this?’ XD My fingers are crossed for it!
Lunch was eaten at
Laya Burger with Shania, Mika and Maxime. Wanting an egg roll thingie but a
different version, I chose the ‘pickled cabbage egg roll’ to get some
vegetables in the meal. It looked fine but next time I’ll stick with the yummy
balanced vegetable and chicken egg roll. This pickled cabbage one had a lot of
pepper included and the surrounding Asian tortilla seemed to be more fried.
It’s not bad but I’m not a fan. Oh well.
Since the afternoon
meal was consumed fairly quickly, I was able to arrived at Tatung high school
pretty darn early, nearly twenty minutes earlier than usual. This made me
excited because it meant easily making naptime with minutes to spare and having
a full rest. Yay!
…or so I thought. The
lights were turned off, my head was resting peacefully in my folded arms and I
drifted soundly asleep. Five minutes later…“文靜.”
I just had to be awoken by a
classmate. And for what you might ask? For a picture. A picture. Sure let’s take a picture of the foreigner when she’s groggily
awoken with red blotches on her skin marking where her head rested. That’s a
great idea! -_- And it wasn’t just a quick snap and all was done. It was
walking across the campus, up some stairs and then picturessssssss. Yes, plural
and it wasn’t a quick task. Right when they said I could go, I didn’t dilly
dally. I marched straight back to my desk and resumed my snoozy position even
though hardly any time remained for sleeping.
Actually I didn’t detest
doing the thingie but please, if naptime is allotted to me, don’t disturb
Andrea. I now depend on the afternoon nap to stay functional. Therefore I
comprised by sleeping through the next class, math class. What meant to be a
twenty-minute rest turned out to be a fifty-minute snoozle. It just shows how
desperately I needed the nap.
One reason for the
needed sleep was having P.E. class following up after math. After my arm, leg
and fingers went from being completely numb to moveable, we headed outside.
P.E. began with a short run around the campus, which I’m delighted to say
didn’t pound on my lungs like previous times. That’s either because I’m already
shaping up or I just pace myself better. Both are good reasons nonetheless! ;D
Weird Asian warm-up was next and basketball filled the remaining class time. I
wouldn’t say our basketball game is intensive but today’s had a lot more energy
and some friendly tension between the teams. Twas fun. ^_^
Apparently one girl
made a bet right at the end of the game that if the opposing team (my team) got
the last basket, she would buy drinks for everyone. The result, my team member
got the basket. Yay…kinda. I was hoping for some tea but instead the girl got
everyone bubble milk tea. It’s a tasty drink sure, but totally loaded with
sugar (a.k.a. calories of death!). I offered it to another basketball teammate
of mine but she declined saying she already had her weekly bubble milk tea. See? Even the local Taiwanese know it’s
bad enough to warrant a drinking limitation! Though there was no way to decline
the drink nor get rid of it (American trash cans and Taiwanese recycling bags
are totally different) so I was forced to drink it.
Even so I took the
opportunity to enjoy it rather than detesting consuming it. The first sip blew
me over with a tidal wave of sugariness. I was like “Woah!” It made me think
that the drink had the 100% sugar option yet when I read the label it said 50%.
That was 50%?! Oh my lordie! What the
heck is 100% like?!
I actually have a
theory on the sugar percentage shops offer for bubble milk tea. See, I think
that bubble milk tea is never meant to have 100% sugar. If it did, you would
have a cup of crystalized sugar instead of a liquid beverage. But rather the
drink shops do a mental trick on you. By ordering a 50% sugar instead of a 100%
sugar, you mentally think ‘oh, it’s not that
unhealthy because I’m getting the 50% option and not 100% sugar.’ BUT! The
drink shops have the normal level of sugar masked with the “50%” title so that
you enjoy a sweet sugary drink while thinking it’s not that sugary, not like the 100% one. A true 50% sugar option
wouldn’t be very sweet at all. Trust me, I’ve had one before from an honest
scaled drink shop. So it’s a trick of the shop to get you to buy more since it
makes you think it’s not that bad. Clever! BUT I SEE THROUGH YOUR DEVIOUS
DEEDS! >:D Seriously I think a 100% sugar bubble milk tea from this place
would be like drinking diabetes. They should correct the scale and if anyone
was crazy enough to drink a 100% sugar one, just let them say they want double
the sugar. That’s how it should be!
No club today as
well as no school speech thingie. Therefore I was allowed to go home an hour
earlier than usual for a Thursday. Yay! I would’ve gone exercising on the
elementary school’s track again but I had two problems. One, I was waiting for
clothes to dry (they air dry and take several days to do so) and two, I can’t
do three consecutive days of showering. See, hair falls out everyday like
normal but taking a shower will increase the number of detached hairs. Y’all know
I love my long hair. I’m seriously afraid of going bald because my hair is
thin, no joke. Therefore in America, I maximum took a shower every other day.
Three days in a row is just too much too soon.
But I still needed
some exercise, especially with the bubble milk tea invasion. Sure playing
basketball in P.E. burned some calories but not enough to merit mental approval.
Therefore I had a non-sweat workout plan! Off to the library I went! My battle
plan was to return a book, check out another and then spend thirty minutes fast
walking along a back pathway, fifteen minutes in one direction and fifteen
minutes back tracking. Fast walking hardly draws any precipitation from me at
all, especially if a nice wind is blowing on my face. Though when fast walking
transformed into a full-out power walk/strut thanks to an upbeat song from my
iPod, then sweat threatens to come out. :P
Shall we see some
pictures of my little trip? :)
This’ll be a small
part of the elementary school I go to for jogging its track. You walk through
that covered entrance that leads into a tunnel-like area for parking. After you
climb some stairs, the track can be found ahead (not seen in this picture).
The second floor of
the public library nearest my house. This floor has a small section of English
novels along with some Chinese language instructional books. Today I checked
out the third installment of the Chinese learning textbooks used at University.
It had some words that I could totally use, mostly regarding food description.
I wish to learn both how to properly say it as well as write it. Chinese
characters are just as important as speaking in my opinion. ;)
This is a long,
looooooooong stretch of some sort of trench. Trust me, it’s a whole bunch more
extensive than this picture suggests. I walked fifteen minutes on the sidewalk
running next to this channel and didn’t even get near to seeing its total
length. I don’t believe this is a sewage system but also not a river. You wouldn’t
want to swim in the water nor start a new brand of perfume modeled after it.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed going along its length since the pathway
protected me from cars and had only a couple stop lights to wait through,
requiring very few breaks in my power walking. Andrea likes! ;D
Once fifteen
minutes were up, I meandered a U-turn through a nearby small park. Here I found
a pretty gondola that proudly stood with poise and dignity.
Night floating down
upon my walk back home. Here you can see the wide pathway I took with the
trench on the left. This width is not very common for a sidewalk, which makes
it feel a lot more open and welcoming.
Dumplings for
dinner. I’m definitely glad I had my power walk!
Quick note: My
chica seat buddy gave this to me, a Japanese snack of what looked like french
fries. I tried them at home and indeed they were french fries but in a strange
chip form. A solid, hard chip that is. They’re not bad but they didn’t capture
my heart.
I completed a
Rotary report over our trip to the National Palace Museum in Chinese with an
English translation in case of any confusion. I made it as basic as possible
with the help of Google translate for terms yet to be learned (Ex. Tour guide).
Afterward I brought it to host father who helped me correct it. It took a bit
of work to figure out what he was trying to change because my Mac uses pinyin
to type Chinese characters and not the ‘bapamafa’ version Taiwanese use. So I
had to figure out the Romanization of what he said and have him select the
correct character. Many of the changes he made included many words I didn’t
know but I just went along with it. The content of my report didn’t change
dramatically so it still felt like my work.
But then he had me
bring it to host mother who very thoroughly was picking it apart. She was
adding a lot of changes I completely didn’t understand/know period to the point
where I couldn’t read it since many of the characters weren’t in my arsenal of
knowledge. Therefore I just thanked them for their help and explained I wanted
to keep the report simple otherwise Rotary would think I didn’t write it. So I
e-mailed it to Rotary and had one less thing to stress about lifted from my
shoulders.
A revelation
settled upon me today, I DON’T HAVE TO TAKE THE HIGH SCHOOL CHINESE TEST
TOMORROW! :D WHOO-HOO! Rotary has a day-long activity that prevents me from
attending school. Thus I get at least another weekend to self teach myself the
remaining textbook lessons. Thank you sweet Lord! I already know this weekend
is pretty booked full of activities but it’s the time extensive thought that
gives me hope. Fingers crossed for that too!
G’night y’all.
Catch ya later! ;P
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