Thursday February 21st, 2013
I caved in. For a good reason of course. Today was made into
a uniform day by my own will. It is comfortable to chill in especially when it
comes to taking naps hunched over but also I knew ahead of time that it was a
club day. Doing various outstretched martial positions aren’t exactly best done
in jeans. ;) Therefore uniform day.
As well as University day! First lesson since the month long
winter break! Heading to the normal classroom on Thursdays an obstacle laid in
my way. Bars. The entire building was barred from the inside. Umm…what the heck?!
I’ve never ever seen any of the doors barred before and this time it was all of
them! Every fellow classmate was confused as well and didn’t know what to do
other than wait in front of it for the teacher. But some magic happened and an
administrator found us and led us to our proper classroom, one that which we’ve
never been to nor were we told about. It’s all right though since we got there
in the end. :)
And a nice classroom it was! The exchange students and
teacher both had our fingers crossed to be assigned this room for the second
semester but alas we didn’t get it. The upcoming Monday room seems to be good
but the Thursday room…so not. XD Oh well life moves on.
Beforehand I was 82% sure the exchange students had a Lesson
8 test the day we returned to University. So of course I studied the
vocabulary, Chinese characters and a wee bit of the grammar but not a large
enough amount to expect an A+. The grammar was the hardest as it was confusing
and I couldn’t recall the teacher covering half of it. (I ended up being right
about not learning all the grammar yet) We did end up having a test but only
writing Chinese sentences in the character format that included the lesson’s
vocabulary. As a handicap, the teacher put all the vocabulary’s Chinese characters
on the board while omitting the pinyin and meaning. Only one other girl and I
studied over the break and were prepared with being able to write without such
a handicap. Therefore the teacher had us turn around so our backs were to the
board and said she would award extra points for not using it. Score! Yay for
being prepared! :D To my surprise, I was half shabby at the test! I got all the
Lesson 8 vocabulary down pat but other words not yet learned or from ages ago
gave me a bit of trouble. Teacher explained to us beforehand that even
Taiwanese people forget Chinese characters if not used for a while. So exchange
students not using them for a month fall in the same category. XD
Something I learned today revolved around the Chinese
character “熱” (hot). The romanization/pinyin is “re” but
sounds like “rrr-uh.” Teacher pointed
out an incorrect adaptation I made for pronouncing it. I said it like “luh”
because that is how I hear Taiwanese pronounce it. Turns out that they are
saying it wrong somewhat out of laziness! I’m proud of myself that I can
unknowingly adapt in such ways even if they are incorrect. That’s what teachers
are for, to set you straight! But when you think about it, this difference is
strange. Chinese has the “rrrr” sound in its language but uses “lll” more. Do I
sense a connection to Engrish? *eyebrow wiggle* Like how “rice” turns into
“lice.” How “rock” turns into “lock.” It’s not that they can’t pronounce an “r”
sound, it’s just they rather use an “l” sound I guess. XD My revelation of the
day. :P
Lunch was simply
eaten at the University cafeteria with the Belgian student Maxime. Both of us
ordered the lovely #8 sandwich of wonderful vegetables, fruit, cheese, raisins,
nummyness and more nummyness! It’s been too long my friend! That goes for my
bud Maxime too! He’s a friendly guy and eager to talk to people. …For he’s a
jolly good feeeeellow, for he’s a jolly good feeeellow, etc. XD
I also purchased
from 7-Eleven a milk tea I’ve seen advertised on subways and a popular drink
bought by Taiwanese. It was tasty but like most all bottled milk tea, very
sugary. The stomach area wasn’t feeling too good about drinking all of it but
at least the taste-buds were pleased to meet it and experience before my
exchange is terminated. To avoid the sugar problem you must go to a drink shop
and request for 75% sugar, 50%, etc. It’s different for every shop but I
recommend 50% or less. In some places, if you gave me a milk tea without
telling its sugar percentage, I would think the 50% was actually 100%. Sometimes
50% will taste like 25%. It all depends on the place but usually for everyone,
100% is too much. There’s a Taiwan tip for the day. ;)
Back at Tatung, for
the students who chose to wear normal clothing and not school uniforms I
noticed a trend. They’re, well, trendy. Everyone’s wearing fashion clothing
rather than just T-shirt and jeans. I suppose it’s their chance to show off
their style in the few days of wear-what-you-want privilege. But also the
clothing sold at night markets are geared toward being fashionable rather than
just plain stuff so that I think is Taiwan’s style, to be trendy. For girls at
least, the style revolves heavily around layers of clothing. For both genders,
a stylish jacket is usually involved even if hot weather graces the day.
There’s some Taiwan observations for ya!
As mentioned, club
was today. To my surprise the two assistant teachers were not there and our
kung-fu master arrived on time (he usually comes half way through the class
after we finish warming-up and do routines). Since it’s the second semester you
can switch club if desired or stay in the same one as first semester (Btw, you
can only chose one club because they all occur on Thursdays from 3-5PM). Not
many people left the martial arts club but I didn’t distinguish any new faces.
Because of this our class glided through our learned grasshopper routine,
practiced our lion dancing and began learning a new routine. The new routine
was fun because I’m understanding more and more of how the master teaches each
move. The routine is comprised of many different moves, all of which can be
used in fighting. To demonstrate, he will break down each move and show (on a
student) how they can help you. It’s always fun to see (or have done on
yourself) the teacher whooping students butts in only a few moves anywhere from
putting them in a painful arm lock to knocking them on the ground. That’s a
kung-fu master for ya! XD
It broke my heart a
bit when I had to tell the kung-fu teacher that I couldn’t take outside lessons
from him anymore. When I handed him the tuition fee he looked at me with big
eyes and asked “Why?” as if a little sad. The reasons revolved around the
lessons being too far away, consuming nearly 4.5+ hours between transportation
and lessons. Fingers crossed I’ll take martial arts in America but I just
couldn’t continue them in Taiwan. I’m sorry teacher!
My host father gave
me some government LED paper lantern DIY constructing thing that would form
into a snake (animal choice is obviously based upon the zodiac year we’re in).
He told me that its name is “Ha Ha.” Its cute and I’m touched that he gave it
to me. That shows he remembers I like to build papercrafts. He did the same
with an iconic red and white papercraft aboriginal boat. I haven’t yet made
them since they would 100% get squished and ruined flying back to America but I
look forward to assembling them!
Something I’ve been
itching to try was finally drunken! Free packs of ‘Mr. Brown Coffee’ snatched
from the hotel room on the Eastern Rotary trip have been tantalizing my mind
with curiosity. A long night was ahead so I decided some caffeine couldn’t
hurt. Whipping out a ‘Blue Mountain Blend’ flavor, hot water was poured into a
mug and the packet was ripped open. This was definitely new to me. Never have I
heard or tasted coffee like this. I’ve seen coffee packets where it has a
little bag that hangs from the cup edges and you pour hot water through it.
It’ll filter through the coffee bag and come out tasting like, well, coffee.
This one however was not like that at all. Think of cocoa packets. That’s what
it was. Brown and white powder was contained in the packet and was simply
supposed to be stirred into the water just like hot cocoa. Strange, strange
indeed. Regarding the taste it wasn’t bad but I might have put too much water
in because it tasted more like flavored water or, if you prefer, way watered
down coffee. Now I know for next time to try having less water so until then,
my opinion has not been set. That’s probably because I’m biased to Mr. Brown
Coffee. XD
The entire night
was work work work. All the blame is for be being behind on Taffys. The goal is
to write five Taffys in one night. Oh Lord that’s a lot! Well, this one’s done.
Four more to go! So farewell friends! Have a pleasant day/night! ^_^
P.S. I only
completed 3/5 Taffys I wanted to finish. Woo-wee these took awhile! It’s 2 in
the mornin’! That’s what happens when there’s eventful stuff to report on but
due to numerous obstacles couldn’t document on time and therefore kept getting
pushed back. Mmm, fun. :P Ok less than four hours before needing to wake up. I
sense coffee tomorrow. XD Good morning!
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