豬血糕很好吃。

Okay, so I haven't updated since Tuesday but I've been busy! Lots of stuff going down and I will share that all now. :D

However, first things first, I will speak of the gloriousness that is zhuxuegao. Directly translated, pig's blood cake. It's not really a cake.. What it is is glutinous rice boiled with pig's blood, hardened 'till the have a somewhat pudding like consistency, then cut into rectangles.

Now, this is delicious by itself, and you can buy it just like this or grilled with some different sorts of barbecue sauce on it. The best way to get it, in my opinion, is at the vendors who only sell this and nothing else. Here, they dip it in a sauce that I believe is a pork's broth of some kind, then they dip it in peanut powder. So, you bite in, tastes like peanuts.. awesome, then it tastes like zhuxuegao which is awesome as well.

Don't even go, 'ewwww, but Isabel, it's made out of blood!' because if you eat pig's meat, that's technically the same as eating it's blood. The meat marinates in that. x) It's seriously so good and my friend Tina tells me you can get it in San Diego so I'm really happy!

Okay, what next. Oh, yeah, the Thai horror movie. That was weird. I went and saw it with some classmates and another exchange student, Sammy. He's better at reading characters than I am so we just sort of sat there and tried to understand it. I think we got maybe half. Afterwards Sammy and I raided some grocery stores and then went home.

English subs trailer:

Thursday was nothing special. The only thing worth pointing out is that we went to a Mexican restaurant! Well, as Mexican as you can get in Taiwan. It was pretty good, a little piece of home. :D

Friday I went to school where they told me they rescheduled our speech again and made it on Thursday instead of Monday. Meh. At this point I just wanna get it over with. After school I went with Kenese and some classmates to see a movie. We ended up splitting and going to see two different movies, I saw Devil. It was pretty good! Not horrifying or amazingly done, though. I still enjoyed it. :] Afterwards I thought it was 9:45 so I dashed home to make it in time for 10:30 but it turned out that it had only been 8:45 and I got home an hour early. Not cool.

Yesterday was amazing. I left the house at 10:30 and didn't get back until exactly 10:30 that night. I started the day off with Sammy, we went to Taipei main station to meet up with some exchange students who were going to the beach, then we walked around and toured through a really nice department store. Then headed back to Taipei main station where we got like five pounds of sushi for 4 US dollars. Amazing. Sammy told me about the mall underneath the station so we headed there next to do some shopping. It was sweet, like an underground night market. On our way out we noticed a group of teenagers-young adults were getting ready to perform a little concert so we stayed. They mainly sang English songs and so many of them were oldies! I was telling Sammy that if my Mom'd been there she'd be able to sing along with every one of them. They were good and Sammy and I met some of them afterwards and told them we'd sing with them if they wanted us to. xD Now we're friends on facebook and Sammy is discussing arrangements.

After this amazing event we went to Shilin night market where we met up with more exchange students and some Taiwanese Rotex. I did so much shopping. Of course, I got zhuxuegao and almost died it was so good. I kept on trying to get Sammy to eat it but he wouldn't. First I bought some stockings for school.. I like them better than the to the thigh socks. Then I bought some belly button rings because I like how they look as earrings. Oh, and then amazingness. Earlier at the mall I saw CSI: New York for the cheapest I've seen it in it's actual case and everything going for a little over $20. At the Night Market I bought it for 10 and I am satisfied, don't care if it's so pirated it's not even funny. xD I bought a huge leather purse for $6 and a bunch of other stuff. I am satisfied. Afterwards on the way home my knees were like buckling beneath me and my feet were so sore, but it was a happy sore.

I'll update sooner next time, promise!

一個月在台灣。

I've been here for a month. Holy poo. It's gone by so fast and it makes me really depressed to think that means the 10 months I have left will go by just as fast and I'll be back in boring ol' America. x]

Don't get offended, people back home, I do miss you. I imagine I'll miss you even more as time goes on, but these people that I'm here with now are probably people I'll never see again. Hate to be pessimistic, but it's true. I've got friends from France and Germany and Brazil now and unless we're super dedicated I doubt I'll be getting together with them much after this. Even the people from the US on the east coast.. I dunno. I'm making myself sad! xD Hahah, I think it's funny.. I've got ten months left and I'm already thinking about the things I'll miss; the MRT, the 7/11s, all the adorable asian boys, the exchange students.. the list goes on.

Just wanted to post a short blog celebrate my one month anniversary. :D Tomorrow is the moon festival! Yay! I'm gonna go see this movie:

It's in Thai and it has Chinese subtitles.. Gonna have to practice my reading skills! I most likely won't understand anything, but that's all right. x) I'll enjoy it.

中秋節快樂！

颱風。

Today I'm locked up in the house because of a typhoon that's hitting Taiwan today and tomorrow. Lots of rain and lots of wind. It's good because I get a chance to relax but I'd much rather be out doing something.

Friday was my birthday! I turned 16. :D It's been brought to my attention by the other exchange students that I'm among the babies of the group. There are only two other girls that are still 15.. but it's all good! That day at school I went about my normal schedule. In the morning I started making my first origami ribbon cricket, which I was surprisingly good at. ;] We didn't have time to finish it though, so I have half a cricket on my desk right now. x) In balloon class I learned how to make a dog! I'll make sure to take pictures of that as soon as I make another one. At lunch time I went to my main classroom where I was presented with a couple gifts and some separate cards and also a book filled with pictures and a little letter from everybody in class wishing me a happy birthday. It was insanely sweet reading through all of their notes with all of their cute English mistakes. Some of the letters:

"Hello!! Isabel~~ Is me Yaris. :)

Do you remember we go to Taipei zoo? We are happy! This is our first time to go out. It's so sweet, and you are so cute. Our time is sweet & happy & funny!! You always talking with we! It's really good, you are a friendly foreigner, I'm so love you! You have big blue eyes, and beautiful face and sweet voice, you are really really so cute!! Happy birthday to you, be happy :) I love you."

"You are very kind. I won't be nervous to talk to you. If you go back to America, we'll very sad. So don't go!! Stay here until we graduate!! by Allen"

"Hey~Isabel :) Welcome to Taiwan and come to our class. You're such a lovely and pretty girl. We guys like you so much, we learned many things from you. I wish that we can teach you some Chinese, too. We'd love to help you anything. And it's glad that you always say that I'm a cute boy. I've very happy to heard that! ^v^ And in this important day, I just wa

nt to tell you: Happy birthday.

Cute boy, Albert.

I'll miss you, don't forget us, okay?"

It's all so sweet. I like died when they gave it to me.. and despite all this they still want to have more of a celebration. It would have been today, but because of the typhoon I dunno anymore. I'll let them decided and let me know. xD Hahah, I realize I've become totally unrestricted when telling boys that they're handsome or cute. I make sure to let them know if I think so. xD So many of them are absolutely adorable I just wanna take them home and keep 'em as a stuffed animal. :D

After school I got home and quickly headed out to go out to dinner. Other than talking with Isabel (other exchange student, her mother is from Beijing so she is already basically fluent) and Babette it was totally boring. It was more of a let's use Isabel's birthday as an excuse to get the host families together and have the adults discuss arrangements. It's all good, though. Figure I'm gonna have to put up with that on occasion.

Yesterday was insanely fun, though! We went to a water park and it wasn't that crowded because a typhoon was on its way. Apart from the rides, which were all crazy fun, the lifeguards were pretty good too. Although I'm pretty sure most of them were gay (pink speedos and just that attitude) it doesn't mean I couldn't appreciate them! xD

I didn't get any pictures of them but I'll steal some of the other students':

Hahahah, love ittt. xD Afterwards a group of us exchange students headed over to Ximen and did some shopping a got up to some mischief before heading home for the night. Today the typhoon is officially here so I can't go out, but this morning I skyped with my family for the first time since I left! It was nice to see them, but I still haven't seen Laurel! :o Next week, I shall. Tomorrow I'm not sure if we have school or not because of the typhoon, but I hope we do! I don't wanna be in the house all day. D;

Until I write again.. :]

明天是我的生日！

Okay, well, the first topic I'm gonna cover is that I never mentioned my Chinese name! I got help from my host family in choosing it when I got here. My surname is Wang (second tone, voice rises) because that's my first host family's surname. Then my given name starts with yi (fourth tone, voice drops) because their children's names start with yi, then mei (third tone, voice falls then rises. Do it right! :P) because of mei guo (america, mei also means beautiful). So, it's 王奕美 or Wang Yi-Mei. Wang means king, yi means elegant and mei means beautiful. I like it. They call me yimei or amei or at school a lot of people call me ishabeir. xD It's cute.

Next topic! Sorry, have to do this.. it's gay boys! I'm in a sea of them here! These exchange students are letting me know left and right that they're gay and I'm like o.o. Many of them are obvious, but some aren't so much.. Makes me think a lot of boys back home at guajome need to come out of the closet already because they're everywhereeee. Not only this, but I'm dreading the day I return to America because of the adorableness that is the boys here in Taiwan. You know how in America, pretty much the only touchy contact teenage boys to men can have with each other is that man hug thing. Don't know what to call it, you know, they grasp each other's hand and pat the other's back. They can't do much else or they're accused of being gay. It's definitely not the same here. I walk into class and boys are hanging over each other, sitting in each other's laps, using another boy's lap or shoulder for a nap. I'm in heaven, you have no idea. I mentioned this to them because I'm in such a happy state of shock and they immediately blush and separate (dammit) and then I tell them I think it's adorable and they just blush even more. xD

I'm nearing the end of reading an online novel and it's one of those lose-track-of-time, pissed-off-when-I'm-not-reading-it quality stories. I put up with it, though. I can't be reading all the time here, I must explore! :D

Yesterday school was fun! A bit boring at times, of course, but fun. Then I bumped into some exchange students on the way home and ended up tagging along for Shilin night market! Met some more French exchange students from a different district (Jesus, there are a ton of French people here.. o.o) and kinda just wandered. Got awkward at times. x] Pretty fun, though.

Then, today, I had Chinese class. Kind of upset with that right now. There's nothing I hate more than relearning stuff I've already learned several times before and not being presented with anything new. Right now we're just reviewing and helping some others 'catch up' by starting from the beginning of the book.. Quite a few of us (including me) have learned more than half of it already. D; Hopefully it will get better. After Chinese class we got together at Ximen and I had a red bean bun. Num num. Then school! Jing Wen Gao Zhong! I had drawing class. :] I drew four apples and shaded them differently, mmm, I do such hard work. Some kids invited me to go to another night market with them and, of course, my response was hells yes. I hate to say it, but I enjoyed this much better than the night before. Maybe it's because they were all sweet as hell and despite the language barriers weren't as awkward as the random exchange students I got plopped with before. It was fun. We got lots of good food and they insisted I eat stinky tofu again. I don't like stinky tofu particularly, and apart from the smell it's definitely not disgusting. They said I'll just get used to it and eventually love it as much as they do. I wouldn't be surprised at this point. x)

Speaking of food, tomorrow's my birthday! Which means food! Hahah, I'm gonna eat whatever I want and not worry about the kilo (woah, went metric) I'll have gained until after. My class is having a party for me (D;) and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be cake and pizza.. Unless the pizza is topped with squid I really don't care for it, but I'll be nice, of course. Then dinner afterwards with host family and other people. Don't know how that's gonna be, yet.. I'll let you know how it goes. :) Toodleooo.

在圖書館。

I'm in the library right now at my school! I'm so happy with my school you have no idea. Even with all its disorganization and chaos, it's absolutely awesome. They set up a schedule for us that is amazing and I still get to be around a bunch of the kids at school all the time. I really like them, too! Only some of them bug me.. Like that girl I mentioned in the last post. Ugggh. So creepy. I wonder if she'll catch on.. I hope so.

Some of the kids got put into really good schools in Taipei. That sounds just spiffy at first, but think about how the Asian education symstem centers around hardcore memorization of everything.. This equals insane studying and cram school.. which equals everybody at these good schools ignoring the exchange students. I want them to get a transfer to my cute ghetto school so badly. D;

Yesterday I just sort of chilled. I slept in, read, then I got invited to a birthday party by one of the exchange students so I decided to go just because I'd be doing nothing else that day. Said exchange student's Father is friends with a couple who live here in Taipei and it was their twins' birthday. He was a white guy who married to an Asian woman so we joked about that saying he was one of "thooose guys". We get to the party and it's filled with a bunch of "thooose guys". Just a bunch of white dudes and their wives. Plus, they were all from Canada so I was still an outsider. xD They were nice though and it was an excuse to get some well cooked Chinese food. :D

Today I had Chinese class.. Then had lunch with some exchange students sort of. We went to subway and I was appalled by the prices (same as in the US x]) so I just split a cookie and a drink with a friend. Now I'm here! Just thought I'd add a quick blog while I'm in the library doing nothing.. I'm joining my main class next period because I have no idea where this supposed music class is. Meh. I'm an exchange student I can do what I want! :o Now I have to pee but the bathrooms here are soooo gross. Eww, squatty potties are from Satan. Speaking of Satan, have you seen the preview for that Devil movie? That looks so scary! I wanna see it! o.o

My birthday is this Friday! I'm excited! And worried.. I really hope my night doesn't just consist of going out to dinner with the families I'm going to be staying with and their current exchange students.. I'd rather be with my current host family or my friends. Whatever. I don't really get to choose, I suppose. :/ I'll make it fun either way! :O

Until next time... ;)

好甜。

I went to Taipei 101 today! I'm uploading the photos to facebook as we speak.. or as I write. I dunno. It was really fun! :D My feet hurt so bad, afterwards a couple of friends and I went shopping, saw Resident Evil and then went on a quest for a night market, which we eventually found. :]

Goodness, this girl from my school is like stalking me and it's getting really annoying. She just has a creepy :) face and is always talking at me. D; The only reason she's doing it is because I'm a foreigner, and she makes it so obvious I wanna slap her. x]

Yesterday at school we had class debate (I think that's what it was) time to just discuss what we'd do as a class, and my teacher wanted me to tell everybody how I felt about school and blah blah. She said I could do it in English because it's the English major class but I wanted to do it in Chinese but I realized there was no way I could. xD I didn't learn how to say I feel very overwhelmed by all you crazy Asians and the staring and the pictures. I don't think they understood even half of it but they got that I'm happy and that I think they're very sweet. I was really happy in class that day for some reason. Hm, it was just a good day. :) They're planning a birthday party for me next week (it's on Friday) which is insanely sweet.. A bit overboard, but sweet. ^^;

Then afterwards I met up with some other exchange students at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and we just had to choose the hottest place in the park near it to stay at. D; It was fun, though.

Then today was the Taipei 101! I swear, I went to the top of Taipei 101, saw Resident Evil, and did some shopping at a night market and I didn't spend much more than 1000 NT, which is like 30 bucks. Awesomeness. At Taipei 101 we went like crazy over the samples in the mall area but we walked a lot today so I think it evens out.. At least I hope so. x] I'll be careful tomorrow. I'm really worried but excited for the Moon Festival. The moon cakes that they make are like 3 inches in diameter and some of them pack about 1000 calories. Eep.

Yup, that's how I remembered 9/11. I'm so patriotic... x] Okay, well, my feet hurt like crazy and I'm coated in sweat so I'm gonna take a shower! I swear, I have never sweat droplets without doing anything until I got here. It's like my face is crying.. Okay, that's a bit gross. It's not that bad, but it's bad. Heehe, zai gen! (That's taiwanese, not Mandarin. Oooh, freaked you out there didn't I? You were probably like, whaaaa? It's zai jian, Isabel. But no, I'm right and you're wrong. It's Taiwanese so it's different. o.O)

幹！

So, I got up at 5:10 this morning to leave the house at 6 and get to school by just past 7 so that I could give a short 30 second long speech in front of the whole school. (about 2,000 kids) I get there, and they tell me because it rained for one minute they weren't going to have the ceremony this morning. So all that trouble was just a waist of time and I was still late to Chinese class. The best part about this is I still haven't done my speech and it has to be on a day that I have Chinese class, so I'm gonna be late again. Juuuuust spiffy. D; Well, that's life.

I've found that for my schedule about half the classes are just the exchange students and I and the other half are with other classes. Plus, the classes that I have with the exchange students are mainly Chinese language classes. It's been really fun and all the other exchange students are so jealous because they have physics and math. Heeeheh.

Next week I'm gonna bring my camera to school and just take pictures of everything, so you'll be able to see me in the sea of Asians next week. Including my beautiful uniform.

My Chinese teacher is harsh! I'm really happy about that, though, because she corrects us when we get our tones wrong which is really important. Plus, we're the 'best' class so we should try to live up to that. x] It's been fun so far! All of the exchange students are awesome. It's really difficult to blow them off for my actual school mates, which is what you're supposed to do.. But I believe I've reached a happy medium. :] It's not difficult to make friends here, that's for sure. I've pretty much discovered that if I don't have plans for the weekend I could easily walk into any classroom and ask if they wanna take me somewhere and immediately have a bunch of requests. I'm not conceited or anything, but these people get a bit ridiculous. We had a drawing class after lunch today, and the class that we went to was clapping and cheering when we walked in. It was insanity. It's all good natured, though. They're all very sweet. The boys are shy and the girls can get really loud... Like really loud. In that class we were called to the front and were asked several questions by the students. Like if we were boyfriend and girlfriend, who I thought the cutest boy in class was, how old we are, for Heitor to show his muscles.. xD You know, just very mature, well thought out questions.

One of the funny things I found today was that I had my uniform shirt unbuttoned slightly (like not all the way to my neck) with a tank top underneath and about an inch of cleavage would show if I bent over or something. I got sooo many comments on that today. From boys and girls. xD Girls telling me that it's so sexy and some insisting I button it up (which I eventually did D;) and boys telling me others were nervous or shy because of it. I think it's because not only have they not seen many foreigners in the flesh, but they also haven't seen many girls with enough boob to get natural cleavage. (I know this is going to spur a rant from my Mom but I wanted to mention it anyway. x])

One of the things that's gotten really annoying is when I'm on my way home from school and I'm walking through the city to my apartment there's this line of shops where a bunch of tourists gather. They're all from mainland China and they're all just really noisy and rude. I have to like dodge and duck to get through all of them. D; One of the things I don't mind about going home is the MRT! Especially when it stops and an all-boys school and about 50 boys come piling in. How fun! x]

I've gotten really stingy. Today a huge group of exchange students and I (swarm/army of foreigners) went out to lunch at a Japanese place in Ximen. I found myself when ordering thinking that one of the meals for 105 NT was expensive (about 3 US dollars) just because I can get a meal like that from a street stand for about 30 NT (1 US dollar. I realized that I was being ridiculous and ordered it anyway. xD I can't imagine how bad it's gonna be when I get back. Here, everything is cheap for foreigners, but for the general population it's just normal. So, if I carried around 2,000 NT (60 US dollars) this could be seen in value as anywhere between 100-150 dollars. It's just different and I'm not really used to it yet. Stuff is so cheap here I haven't even broken into my allowance from my parents or Rotary despite my buying a bunch of things already. Pretty sweeeet. :D

Tomorrow I'm going out with some exchange students to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall to chill and Saturday I'm going to Taipei 101! Woot! I'm gonna try to make some plans with my classmates soon, too. :] I need to buy an electronic Chinese-English dictionary so that's a good reason! They can help me choose! :D

Okies, well, this is all I can think of for now. Until next time!

胃灼熱。

weizhuore. I didn't think it would come to this but I am now memorizing how to say heartburn in Chinese. I just suffered a brutal attack and thankfully it's over now. I swear to God I wouldn't even wish that pain on my worst enemy. D; I'm upset that I worried my host family somewhat but I'm so happy it didn't happen at school. With the language barrier they would have thought I was dying. Goodness.

Lemme seee. What have I done over the past few days? Well, Saturday I went to a welcome party con mis amigos where they had a bunch of food that I've never seen before. Needless to say I tried everything I had never eaten before. Despite this massive eating the scale here reads that I've actually lost weight. Awesome, much? It was a lot of fun. Something I've discovered here is that many Asian men look much younger than they actually are. Me and some exchange students were talking with a group of young adults at the party and I thought they were all in there young twenties. Most of them were, but some were 32 or 33 and I was like (:O). You look so young! I had a green bean (not the green bean-green beans but like beans that are green) popsicle. That was intense.

We can get away with saying any bad word here in front of the Taiwanese. They all know the words and that they're slang, but they don't know how bad they are. x]

Then on Sunday I went with some people from school to the Taipei zoo! That was fun but it was especially hot on Sunday. And it rained. A lovely combination. D; It was still fun, though! I was with a group of girls and two boys for the day. Holy poo, one of them was so outrageously gay it's not even funny. I'll be the first to say my gaydar is awful but when it's obvious it's obvious. He wasn't hiding it or anything, we discussed how cute our math teacher is, but he's just so gay it's adorable! xD

Today I went to Chinese class which was just more bopomofo and tone practice. Then I got to school where I went to the library, worked on my speech, and played ping pong with Kenese. Just a pretty chill day. I had this weird ass sandwich that I picked up from a 7/11.. Haha, I love how the process of eating here is for us exchange students, it's always "Oh my god, yesterday, I ate this thing.. I have noooo idea what it was but it was so good!" xD It's kinda fun for it to be a mystery. o.O I got home, had dinner, then went with my host parents to costco to compare with the one back home. I'm not sure if it being two floors and with basement parking a difference for Taiwan-US or big city-small city. Pretty sure it's the city one. They had basically all the same products as they do back home, but more a Asian foods too. :]

Then I got home, was about to take a shower, then you know. Evilness took over me and an alien tore out from inside my chest and once it was free proceeded to beat my already injured body. D; Don't be jealous. >.<

我不可以喝啤酒。

My school schedule:

Monday: Chinese Class, Study in the Library, Fine Arts then PE.

Tuesday: Practical Chinese, Traveling Taiwan, Calligraphy, Music, Intro to Culture Shock, and Chinese conversation.

Wednesday: Cross Culture Interaction, PE, Chinese Food, Chinese Origami, Night Market Culture, and Houscraft. (wtf is that?)

Thursday: Chinese Class, then Drawing for the rest of the day.

Friday: Mahjong, Chinese Tounge Twisters and Balloon making, PE, Chinese Pop Songs, English Class (to help others to learn), and Nail decorating.

How freaking awesome is this? Other than learning Chinese absolutely none of it is academic. This year is going to be so fun. :D Balloon making? Mahjong? Chinese food? You can't say you're not jealous. :D I was scared this school year would be stressful with math and science but this way I'm really just learning Chinese, Taiwan culture, and random fun stuff! Sweet!

I'm about to leave to go to a barbecue for one of the exchange student's birthday. Gonna spend the night there and explore Taipei tomorrow. :] My goodness, it's gonna be hard to leave this place.

Oh! And I gave my speech for the Rotary! They all were very pleased with my Chinese even though it wasn't very good. xD They're all very nice. Now time to prepare for the speech at school. Heh. ^^;

所以。。

Well, I totally forgot to mention the fact that we get nap time at school. As well as school being over at 5:10. x] Two very odd things!

Well, Wednesday was boring. We had like three English classes once again. I feel so awkward when the English teacher who doesn't know English natively says something incorrectly or gets their grammar wrong. I want to correct them so they can learn from that along with the students but I don't want to embarrass them in front of their class. I swear, one of my teachers had us do a spelling test where the words were something like: billiards, earnings, punch, branch.. Just weird words. When she said billiards and earnings I had no idea what she was saying! I had to guess from what we had gone over from the day before. D; Then we had business. Ew. I really don't like this teacher. She's like five feet tall and built like a rectangle and is just rather unpleasant looking. She wears these ridiculously unflattering feminine clothes and mulitcoloured leather shoes. She comes into the class and we all stand up to bow and say "laoshi hao" and she's all "zaici" so we do it again and she's all "zaici" and I'm all wtf and she's all "zaici". She just couldn't be satisfied with our already immense respect. It just wasn't good enough. I swear, if I wanted to show 'em how this would play out in America I'd sit my ass down and glare at her for even suggesting that I get up and bow in acknowledgement of her supposedly glorious presence. Maybe even spit at her. Hahah, after business it was time for PE. We went to the gym, did some intense stretches, a couple jumping jacks and then we played.. ping pong. You can't say you're not jealous. :D I just love how they consider it enough of a physical sport that it requires stretching beforehand. x]

Today I had my first Chinese class here. We started learning bopomofo which is what they use in Taiwan to write the pronunciation of characters where as what I learned, pinyin, is what they use in China. It's difficult because it's an entirely different alphabet but I'll get it down. jiayou! After class some other exchange students and I got McDonald's. I was so disappointed, it tasted just like how it does back home! D; Meh, I'll just go with Mos Burger. Hmf. After this I head back to school where my first class was typing. Obviously I couldn't quite do it so I just surfed the web, ohh, the life on an exchange student. x]

People in my class/school/whatever:
Don't brush their teeth! In one of my fellow YEP's words, some of them look like they chew on bricks for fun.
Are very shy with the opposite sex. It's quite unheard of for a girl and a boy to be friends so they all think either Heitor or Kenese (other exchange students at my school) is my boyfriend.
Don't quite know how to be secretive. I swear, when they see us they just openly stare or whisper about us to each other. I dunno, we'll get used to it. I hope.
Oh! There's this boy in my class who is absolutely gorgeous. I'm not attracted to him because he's too young right now and he seems to be aware of and shows off his beauty. But I'm serious. His features are very striking and perfect. He's like a piece of artwork! I'll give him a couple years and then I'll come back to Taiwan to kidnap him. :D

Math class! I read Lord of the Rings the whole time. xD Then they had science but I was pulled out to look over the clubs to join at my school. A lady that works their was going through the list and translating it for us and when she said "balloon shaping" I was like, holy poo I wanna do that. Balloon animals club? How awesome is that. xD We didn't want to disturb our classes because they were in the middle of a lesson so we went and talked with one of the teachers that wasn't busy. She's so nice! She told us when the bell rang that Doremi (school teacher administrator guy) said us exchange students could leave school at 4:10, so we did. I went straight home (except for stopping at 7/11 and picking up a random drink and food item, so fun!) and when I got there my host mom told me how my homeroom teacher called to tell her I wasn't in my last class. Madness! I really think that lady doesn't like me. She's all nice and :D but just some things about the way she acts put me off.. I dunno. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I think I bug her. Maybe it's because I speak better English than she does and my teeth are prettier. (ooh, I'm mean x]) But, whatever, tomorrow I'll deal with that and tell her how a teacher (teacher!) said we could leave and I wasn't ditching. Gah, this is madness. I'm not even gonna be in her class all day for the rest of the year.

Tomorrow I'm leaving school early to go to a rotary meeting where I will introduce myself to a bunch of old Asian dudes who hardly speak any English. I'm going to try to do as much as I can in Mandarin, of course. Oh, and today I found out for sure that I have to give a speech in front of my school (3 freaking thousand kids :O) and I have to do my best to do it all in Mandarin. Writing it in Mandarin isn't the hard part it's the saying it in front of 3 freaking thousand students. D; dah. At least I have a week to prepare. Wish me luck!