Thursday, March 21, 2013

Just tea...nothing else to say

Thursday March 14th, 2013

Yesterday’s unique meat bun was consumed again today. This time I paid close attention to its contents and therefore I can report more accurately on them. From what I can tell, it had three main ingredients: radish, carrots and a meat like pulled pork. Radish, or white carrot if you translate the Chinese name directly, was the main component but probably the tastiest of all! Meat buns are just too delicious!

In University land I heavily fought the urge to buy coffee. For those who are K-Pop fans, Yoseob’s ‘Caffeine’ became the morning theme for coffee with its, “You’re bad to me, so bad to me, so bad to me, yeah.” XD By some spurge of willpower, I bought a bottle of tea instead to quench my thirst. Not knowing what type of tea I selected (the Chinese characters were in illegible to me looking as if scribbled quickly down), I brought it to my teacher and asked what it was called. She replied, “just tea.” Taking a moment to figure out what she meant, I realized what she said was spot on. “就是茶” literally means ‘just tea’ in English. So it’s not green tea nor oolong tea nor anything else. It’s just plain tea. Kind of a cute name huh? Not too shabby in taste as well. ;)

After our chapter test, sealing our time spent on lesson nine, the time came to present our ‘favorite shop’ projects. Due to technical problems with the couple other projects, only Maxime and I presented today. I find humor that the two of us who were a buddy-helping team were the only ones to exhibit today. Shows what a good team we made. ;) Though the project can be turned in Monday, turning it in today awarded an extra “5%.” Not 5 points, “5%.” The thing is, I think it means the same thing in Taiwan. Something I haven’t touched upon yet is the different sale system they have. You can find yourself walking by a clothing shop and all of a sudden you see a sign like “9_ (Chinese character I don’t know)“or “90%.” Sounds like a fantastic sale right? Well it’s not. In America we’re used to seeing signs announcing it’s sale price percentage deduction (Ex. 40% Off!). In Taiwan it’s more common to see sale signs that have the exact opposite meaning. That “90%” truly means that the price is 90% of its original so it’ll only be 10% off. A sale difference not to be mistaken or the incorrect version. ;P Anywho, the project went fine and I consider mine a huge success despite some worrying I had in the beginning. Yay!


Strangely enough a lot of people are considering leaving Class C, either moving up to Class B in hope of learning faster or moving down because they continually are late and disregard assignments. I confess that I would like it better if the class moved a bit faster but I have no intent on moving classes. The slower pace can aid in learning the material more effectively but a better reason are the project challenges given to us. Creating a presentation of both an idol and a favorite shop in Taiwan are great ways to expose us to something different and teach us new things. The shop project for example, I learned both new and corrected vocabulary from it as well as finally exploring a shop I’ve eyed for months and discovering it in fact is my favorite shop in Taiwan. A faster (or slower) paced class with such projects can’t do that at all! Therefore Class C shall be my home until the end! ^_^

Duuuuude. The nap back at high school was intense. At first when I roused awake, I thought I didn’t sleep a wink because it seemed that just minutes ago I was quite alert and had no luck in getting sleepy. It was then that I realized that because I was tired, I don’t even remember falling asleep. That’s intense! XD And for the darnest reason, when I take a nap EVERY SINGLE TIME my left leg completely falls asleep becoming a numb useless piece of flesh. Also my left(?) arm conks out as well. EVERY TIME! One leg and one arm just blacks out and takes considerate time to get feeling following through the nerves again. So weird! Why? I really wonder why it’s always those two and nothing else. So strange!

No club today nor school speech. Well, there was a speech but only for first year students yet I’m in the second year. FYI, Taiwanese high schools last three years instead of the normal four years in America. So I’m a hybrid of an American sophomore and junior in Taiwan. XD Anyway, my class had a lesson in English and then an hour of basketball. Instead of joining the basketball, I partook in an English class/culture project with students from a different class, the same class I visited this past Monday. These projects are similar to the ones I did in first semester but instead I don’t have to write a report but yet answer questions, maybe even speak a bit for the presentation. Today’s topic was free time. The thing that stood out to me was in America, it is totally normal to go over to a friend’s house (or vice versa) and hang out, have a sleepover, etc. In Taiwan, nope nopedy nope. It is very strange to do so because the houses are not meant to host. They are usually small in size and not kept tidy for visitors. An exchange student told me that when she asked if a friend could come over to the house, they had to have nearly a week of preparation to clean and cook. Visitors are a big endeavor and thus are not a frequent happening.

On the way home I detoured at the library to return the finished J.R.R. Tolkien book. Good book by the way though a tragic Middle-Earth history. Browsing through the English fiction section, my eyes grew wide in amazement as I learned that “Peeps” had a sequel called “The Last Days.” Guess what came home with me? XD Not just that novel but also one I know to be famous yet never read by the same author. Anyone ever heard of “Uglies?” Supposedly the trilogy is spectacular and now that I know the library has all three installations, it has made the “need to read” list. ;P

*bombs night with work* Let’s do this shiz-nick-its! >:D Good luck with whatever is going on in your life. Everyone, fighting! :D

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