Morning...huh? CRAP CRAPPITY CRAP!

Wednesday March 20^th, 2013

“文靜。文靜！” I heard my Chinese name being called by host grandmother from outside my shut door. Stirring from my slumber, a terrible feeling pounded into my system, one I hadn’t experienced since back in Texas. I had overslept and was late. That sickening feeling as if a battery had been wired directly into your veins and painfully electrified your entire body. With that same bolt came the sudden stampede of adrenaline to match it. Commence turbo Andrea.

Dashing to the bedroom door, I opened it to find host grandmother curious to why I hadn’t come out at the usual time for breakfast (6:20 more or less). She said breakfast was ready and left me to madly dash to get ready. Checking the time to see how late it was, my heart was stuck in between relief and panic. Relief because I wouldn’t be late for school but panic because there was less than ten minutes to make my normal bus.

This is my morning schedule:

5:50 - Wake Up

5:55 -  Back Up Alarm

6:20 - Eat Breakfast (dressed in uniform)

6:30 - Get Ready

6:50 - Leave House for Bus

I was awoken at 6:41 and left the house at 6:51. BAM! SKILLS! Or at least ADRENALINE MULTITASKING SKILLS! Chomping breakfast down while changing clothes, brushing hair, packing bag, etc. felt so insane. No time to brush teeth though. That part sucked. But I am indebted to host grandmother for being inquisitive to why I hadn’t come out for breakfast yet. Without her I would’ve slept through the day. Thank you so much host grandmother!

As a result of scarfing down my vegetable 包子 (bun) as if competing in a food eating competition, my stomach didn’t feel very satisfied with its meal. Therefore I treated it with a bottle of orange juice from a Hi-Life convenient store for both filling purposes and needed vitamin intake. Maybe it was just me and not drinking OJ for awhile, but the 100% OJ tasted super sweet, not sugary, but sweet. Oranges are just so fantastic in taste and nutrition. Right now its fortifying immune system nutrients are greatly needed because Taipei is slipping into a cold season. With the weather changing from winter to spring, extra immune system help is appreciated.

Speaking of changing weather, OH MY GOSH IT’S SO HOOOOOOOOOOT! It’s back to sweating when walking to class to the point where I feel like a piece of chocolate melting on the sidewalk. Yet once the first class boots up, the air conditioner BLASTS ITS POWER FULL ON! Throughout several classes I found myself shivering with my school jacket on and sleeves down all the way (I usually wear the sleeves pushed up to the elbows). I’m surprised I don’t get a cold immediately just from changing between such extreme environments rapidly. Maybe the OJ works after all. ;)

Despite the mishap of accidently sleeping in and what negative things it predicted for my school day, I surprisingly got a good chunk of work done. Sure I struggled with sleep a bit and still took rests between classes that reached past 20 minutes each but work was accomplished nonetheless! YES! SCORE ONE FOR ANDREA! If you can’t tell, I’m trying really hard to not resort to coffee because basically all convenient store coffee is loaded with sugar. I need coffee caffeine and not unhelpful sugar that’ll later end up on my hips. XD

I’m making good progress on the three lessons I must self teach before Friday’s test but some of the grammar is killing me. I’ll just stare at it for a while with a perplexed look, trying to make it magically click in my brain like a key turning a lock. Some are totally fine but others make native English speaker’s minds spin a bit. Doing direct translations make no sense or just sound plain weird. I opened my textbook to a random grammar page and will give you the first I saw:

A: 你什麼時後吃晚飯？

B: 我六點半吃晚飯。

Direct Translation:

A: You when eat dinner?

B: I six o’clock half (6:30) eat dinner.

English habits want to kick in and have the pattern switched to what I grew up with. That’s when the fight to keep a Chinese mindset takes a stance. I’m working on it but it’s not a piece of cake, especially when a whole bunch of new confusing grammar is spilled onto my plate all at once. I shall prevail though no matter how long it takes! FIGHTING! >:D

Yet another lovely exercise day. I’m now committing myself to turn any day without a schedule into an exercise day. All Thursdays are automatically ruled out because of having to stay an extra hour at school for whatever is planned, club or school event whatnot. In order to use the nearby elementary school’s track, I must leave soon after I get home on normal days (arrive around 5:15, leave at 5:30). Thursdays screw that up since they prevent me from getting home until about 6:15. Originally I thought this track closed at 7:00 but a lady who I guessed was responsible for turning off the track’s lights approached me at 6:28 to ask how much longer I would be. I didn’t have a problem with leaving then because I planned to stop at 6:30 anyway just like yesterday. But it just goes to show that I can’t dilly dally when I get home to leave for the track.

I drank my last packet of instant Mr. Brown Coffee tonight. Sadness. Tasty sadness. At least it gave me the needed boost of energy (not just sugar) to hammer away at work. Perhaps I’ll buy some before returning to America because I quite like to drink them now and then.

A new assignment from my University teacher is to learn a Chinese “cold joke” for every Monday and Thursday class. We have to ask either our host family or classmates. For my first time I opted for family. Shall I explain what a “cold joke” is? You know how British humor is said to be dry? Well I heard that Chinese humor is even drier. Researching this subject I found a page that explained how Chinese jokes are not always funny. An example it gave was this:

 A mantou (steamed bun) was walking down the street one day. He started getting hungry, so he took a bite of himself. Then he was a baozi (steamed stuffed bun).

Now that one I get because of the English parenthesis help and got a small smile out of it. Without the parenthesizes, I would’ve remained expressionless. My host parents gave me two cold jokes and tried to explain each. I 60% understood what they were telling me but the lacking 40% prevents getting any amusement from it. I’ll probably dissect it in Google translate to help but one must remember that Chinese jokes aren’t as humorous as what I’m used to. That’s why they are literally called cold jokes in Chinese, because they aren’t meant to make you laugh but rather make you think. It’ll take a while for me to understand this concept and their humor. Perhaps in time I will. *fingers crossed*

That’s all for today folks! I believe an early bedtime is in order for tonight based on this morning’s experience, no? XD Y’all sleep well now! Until next time! ^_^