tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39947980296949131512024-03-13T08:55:57.821-07:00Isabel in Taiwan.What I do, man.isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-32490291076196500082011-05-19T05:09:00.000-07:002011-05-19T06:53:11.375-07:00食物 :DWhy, howdy thar. This weekend I'm going to Kanding! For free! You're jealous, huh? You totally know where Kanding is, dontcha? It's okay, I don't really even know where it is now. It's a small city in the south with apparently beautiful beaches. I'll take pictures. <br /><br />I've just recently realized that I haven't really talked about Taiwanese food too often in these blogs. No better time to start than now. :) Well, I must first start by saying that the pineapple right now here is absolutely scrumptious. Except pineapple is something naturally grown so you can't quite credit the Taiwanese for how mouth-orgasmic the pineapple happens to be currently. One thing the Taiwanese can take credit for is rou song. Probably one of my favorite things in the world. <br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://0426764276.tranews.com/images/Info/Y001113000001_3_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />肉鬆 (rou song) or pork floss in English, is a ground, dried, fluffy pork substance. Don't quite know how it's made. It's a bit crunchy and light unless it's packed together, and it's pork so of course it has a meaty flavor. It's a strictly Taiwanese thing and they mainly add it to rice porridge, bread and sandwiches. Not so popular among exchange students. Most of my foreign friends give me strange looks when they see me eating this mixed in with rice porridge, and the Taiwanese give me more of a shocked look. I myself thought it was repulsive when I first got here and now I find it heavenly. Mmm. Another one of my favorites is anything made with Sesame in Taiwan. A very popular way sesame is used is in tangyuan or sweet dumplings, as well as your basic sesame candy. Both are amazing. <br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.3158i.com/uploads/101122/7_151256_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />芝麻湯圓: Sweet dumplings. Eaten during winter season mainly, served warm in a sugar-water broth. Specially eaten during the lantern festival in January. <br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 310px; height: 310px;" src="http://img02.taobaocdn.com/bao/uploaded/i2/T1ZglMXiVwXXc0FQYX_115832.jpg_310x310.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />芝麻糖果: Sesame candy. Popular just because it's freakin' delicious.<br /><br />Something that's been one of my favorite things here in Taipei are the bakeries. <br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 338px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4269172312_fec86e45d5.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />When I walk into one it's like entering a baked goods world full of endless possibilities. So little time to try them all without getting fat. Oh, woe is me. It's also helped me to come to terms with another dream I have in life. Owning a bakery/restaurant and baking/cooking for a living. Food's a big part of my life, what can I say. It's like a tumor that I've managed to shrink over time with diets and learning more about food, but it's never going away so I have to accept the little bugger. Food's just too much fun and when it comes to what you can do with it, the sky's the limit. :) So, how does that sound? Part linguist/baker/chef? I think I can make it work. I've also decided when I come back to Taiwan and I'm going to become a Chef's apprentice and learn their ways. <br /><br />Onto other subjects, the humidity is raising steadily in Taiwan. Last week was awfully hot and sticky, and this week it's been raining non-stop. People are getting cranky, including me. It doesn't help when the main time's I get spoken to by a certain host pop it's about a mistake I've made. There I go, complaining again, sorry, can't help it. You're the only one who understands. So far, things I'm not allowed to do or have to do better include: I can't enter their bedroom at all, even if it's just to put away the internet cord in it's place a mere foot from the entrance. I can't put anything on the shower rack or else it will fall and the world will end. I have to turn off and unplug the microwave before I open it or else the sensor could break and I unleash a blast of radiation into the house. Not only that, but everything must be unplugged if it's not being used, reason not primarily being to save the environment but that if there's a power surge and electricity goes out something could break and explode. What I have to do isn't so difficult to make it better, I know, but if I forget anything or mess up it's worthy of a sit-down lecture. Now, everybody's different, and I've learned enough to know that I've gotta grin and bear it.. But just to spite 'em I've stopped using a sponge when I wash my dishes. Hah. Currently poppa bear is riding my ass to get off the internet, so I gotta finish this up. <br /><br />I'll post again soon with some more on food, and maybe a bit more complaining. :] See you soon.isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-51032707382457365812011-04-27T05:31:00.000-07:002011-04-27T06:26:39.589-07:00笨死了.In recent news, I've just changed to an unexpected fourth host family! It's insanely close to my school, meaning I can walk there and back. This makes me very happy because I don't have to spend money on transportation. :) They've been good so far. My school's area is part of the ghetto in Taipei, so that's where I'm at. My new host Dad loves to talk. A lot. He can also speak English well, so he tends to use it too much. :/ Just today they started realizing that my Chinese is actually good enough that they can speak to me in that alone. Believe it or not, it's actually really annoying to have to hear them translate everything they say. My host mom brought me to the library very close to the house and got me a library card! Just in time, too. Got two months left. x] I saw Dean Koontz and immediately nabbed one of his books "The Good Guy". Started and finished it today, makes school go bye much quicker.<br /><br />My first semester of the exchange I didn't so much notice how awful the education system here is. Well, I noticed, but it didn't affect me too much because we'd spend most of our time in the library or *hem*skipping class*hem* haaah. This semester, though, we spend most of our time in the main classroom. It's boring beyond belief. We do still get library periods, and on occasion go to other classes where they're so happy the foreigners are there they stop lessons for the hour, but definitely no sneaking out of scheduled class time. Stereotype in America is all Asians are smart and good at math and stuff, right? Only applies to those in America who worked hard enough to get there. I'll walk you through your typical Taiwanese student's day at my school. <br />5.30: Wake up to get ready for the over an hour journey to school because you couldn't test well enough to get into a school near where you live.<br />6.15: Leave the house to take the MRT, bus, what have you to get to school.<br />7.30: School starts, if it's a monday or thursday all the students gather in the courtyard to listen to the principle blabble on about the same stuff every time.<br />8.20: Real class begins. Teacher is awfully boring, pretty much teaching the blackboard the lesson because only 20% of the class is listening. You're either sleeping, or messing around with your friends in class. This continues on for four hours.<br />12.10: Lunch! You go with classmates to get in line for a lunch box or noodles then return to your classroom to chat and finish your meal.<br />12.40: Bell rings, nap time. You sleep or mess around with your friends.<br />1.20: Class back in session, goes over the same as in the morning. Maybe you have a test or two, and if you studied hard the night before, you pass. After passing, all previous knowledge is forgotten.<br />5.10: School's out! Now, you either go home, or head onto cram school where school continues. This Cram school, however, wouldn't be necessary if you'd actually listen to what the teacher was saying during actual school and not goof off/sleep in class. <br />10.00: Get home, study some more if you've got a big test the next day, and tomorrow the cycle starts again.<br />All true. You can't blame the students, though. The teachers are really horrible. They don't make anything they teach interesting, or interactive. There are no group activities, students don't ask the teacher questions ever. Nothing. They get hardly any homework, it's all tests. After the tests they forget everything they needed for it. Now, us exchange students do even less. Even if we wanted to take part in the lessons, they don't let us. We're not even acknowledged as real students or take part in real classes, but they expect us to conform to all the rules of the school and act like one of their own when we're not treated as so. <br /><br />Just yesterday, a couple from my school attempted suicide together. They had apparently run off a week ago, but just yesterday morning they, whilst holding each other, jumped off of a 12 floor building. The boy landed on top of the girl, who landed on top of a car. Girl died, boy is in intensive care. Why they did it, I'm not exactly sure. I don't remember seeing them but my classmates often did even if they weren't close. I'm not exactly sure what the procedure is for schools in America when a student commits suicide, but nobody seems to even care here. Of course, suicide is much more popular here in Asia than in the States. Still, nothing's happened, nobody said anything except for the day it happened. I just can't believe the boy survived jumping off a 12 story building.. <br /><br />My situation currently is okay. I have exactly 60 days until I go home to the states and I honestly can't wait. The problem is, I know within days of my getting back I'm going to be severely depressed from missing this place. Living here for me right now feels the same as if I was living in America, just subtract my real family and good friends. I'm so used to everything here, it's all just so normal now. <br /><br />This has been a really horrible blog. Eh. Things can't all be roses and sunshine. D; Lemme think.. Something happy. My third host Father is taking me with his Rotary club next month to visit beautiful Kanting and Gaoxiong. I'm very pleased. :D <br /><br />When things get bad, I just remind myself why I came here. To learn Chinese, and I'm very satisfied in how I've improved here. It's not fluent, but it's decent enough. I've gotten the extra bonus of learning this culture which is often times bad, but of course is also often times good. Some times I just can't remember the good bits. ^^;isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-77194281066028611952011-04-04T23:15:00.001-07:002011-04-05T07:26:33.087-07:00什麼的.Just moved into my third host family today. I almost cried when my second host parents drove away but I held myself together because I'm strong! My host mom made me an album of some photos and it's so sweet. :] Just gotta find a way to get the pictures online. <br /><br />I originally thought this would be my last host family, but it turns out I have another! I'm moving again in ten days and I'll be living in a fourth host family for a little over a month, then come back to the one I'm in now. Reason for this being, a host family was originally supposed to have three exchange students, but one went back early. They still want a third, so I'm going to stay with them. It's close to my school and I'm already packed so I don't have much to complain about, it's just odd. <br /><br />I was packing to come here to my third host family and I realized how much shit I have. Pardon my language, but it's true. I don't know how I went from two suitcases and one carry on to two suitcases, four carry on size bags, and many other small ones. This is even after I got rid of the clothes I don't wear.. I don't know what I'm gonna do when it's time to go back to America. 82 days left! Haha. It makes me excited but then really depressed at the same time. :/ I'll be arriving in San Diego airport at 2:29 pm Monday, 27th of June. Y'all should come to the airport to see me. <br /><br />I've taken to downloading movies lately, seeing as my social life has been cut in half by so many of my friends going home. :/ I've got the Kill Bills (超好看), Brokeback Mountain (很好看,但是看完了的時候我好難過), Karate Kid (我聽的懂!)and of course, my favorite, Lord of the Rings (是當然最好看的). Reminds me, when I watched Karate Kid for the first time the file I got had no English subtitles for when they spoke Chinese, but I was so proud when I didn't need them! :D Of course, I couldn't understand everything, but enough to know what was going on and shenme shenme de. One night when I was eating lunch with my second host family the tv was on in the background and I heard Lord of the Rings! I asked if that was what it was and they all looked at me weird because I knew what it was just from listening. I'm getting my name in Elvish tattooed as a tramp stamp when I turn 18. Heitor says I'm retarded for wanting a LOTR tattoo, I say he's retarded for not wanting one. <br /><br />I had today, tuesday, and yesterday off for what the Taiwanese like to call Spring Break! Woo! Two days compared to two weeks in America. Tomorrow going back to school. Probably gonna take me two hours living where I am to get there, Jeeesus, Mary and Joseph.<br /><br />My current host family's grandmother is in the hospital as we speak, so I'm not particularly sure how to act. Just be polite, I suppose. Well, supper is about ready, so here I must bid thee adiu. Until next time.. ;)isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-89801194669690916922011-03-30T01:14:00.000-07:002011-03-30T02:43:10.892-07:00誇張的輻射.Home sick today. Figured that as I'm sitting around doing nothing waiting for Kill Bill to finish downloading, I might as well blog.. seeing as I haven't in what appears to be almost two months. Hah.<br /><br />A lot has happened. Obviously. Unless you're not environmentally aware, you already know about the disasters that happened and are still happening in Japan. There are a lot of scares about radiation here in Taiwan and therefore many exchange students' parents, or themselves, are freaking out and going home. Most of the scare is rubbish and exaggeration, no radiation increase in Taiwan has been detected, so I won't be going home early. I have less than three months left now and unless something here blows up you'd have to force me home to leave before my time's up. That being said I am now extremely excited to go home. So excited. I love it here in Taiwan and love just about everything in Taipei, but half of my friends have gone home. I've already decided that I will be coming back to Taipei for a year or so for college, so these months won't be my last ones here either. <br /><br />I'm changing host families next Tuesday and I'm more than just a little bit worried. I love my host family that I'm in right now and I'm scared to go back to a host family that doesn't like me. I've discussed it with my current host family and they told me they're taking me there to have lunch together and they'll tell them how good I am. It makes me less worried but not completely content. We'll just have to see. My third host family is also the farthest from my school. I have to take a bus, MRT, then bus again to get to school. We're talking one and a half to two hours here. 3-4 hours a day of commute. That's just ridiculous on Rotary's part for family/school location. I mean come on.<br /><br />School's chill. We have our new Australian exchange student, Claire, with us and it's been fine with her. She's half Chinese so she doesn't get the same kind of experience and attention from the classmates as Kenese, Heitor and I do. She says she's enjoying herself here and it's good to learn Chinese, of course. It's also fun for me because I now have somebody to talk nerd with concerning the amazingness that is Lord of the Rings. She loves it too. :D <br /><br />That's all I can think of for now. I promise there won't be another two month gap between blogs. ^^;isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-65214319829193811052011-02-03T07:48:00.001-08:002011-02-03T09:09:51.772-08:00恭喜發財!So, today is Chinese New Years day. :D The year of the rabbit has begun. :o gong xi fa cai! xin nian kuai le! <br /><br />My winter vacation has gone well. One thing I've really enjoyed is spending more time with my host family. They're all really chill and I actually enjoy doing things with them. They're really different from my first host family in that my first one would have simply expected me to spend a lot of time with them, whereas this family doesn't expect as much from me and are happy if I choose to stay home. :) Different experiences. It also helps that I'm major crushing on my older host brother, haha. xD He's so cute and such a gentlemen! The open and close the door for you type. Yet, just my luck, he's already taken. His girlfriend isn't even pretty. Sorry, I know that's rude, but she's not very nice either. :/ Ah, well, I'll come back to Taiwan and steal him someday. ^.^ A girl can dream.<br /><br />Hmm, I hope my host family doesn't look at this. Hah.<br /><br />How my Chinese new year went down;<br />New year's eve I woke up to eat luobogao. Which is a type of turnip cake that's really good. I'll fry it up for you sometime, promise. My host mom then called me upstairs to see them hang up their good luck banners around their door. After this my host brother told me the story of New Years and the traditions behind it. The Chinese legend is that there is a big scary monster that comes out only on New Years and likes to eat people. This Monster is scared of red, fireworks, and a lot of people gathering. So on New Years they decorate with a lot of red, including the door banners, fire fireworks, and get together with family. It works! :) I then helped my host family prepare all of their food (more like carry the food Rinny, the maid, prepared to the shrine) to offer to their ancestors and to worship. They didn't have me worship because they think I'm a hardcore Catholic and I'm not gonna tell them I'm not. Oh, I forgot to mention to my mum that I've been going to church these last couple weeks! It's a Catholic church and the English masses have a different priest, usually from a different country, every week. It consists of a lot of foreigners, not just Americans. They don't have wine. It's not in a basketball court. We get free coffee afterwards. Taiwan Mass > Vista Mass. But yes, I watched them worship then had lunch with my host family. Chicken soup with rice cake type noodle things in them. Also good. After this I watched tv for a while. I then helped once again to bring food to another alter in the house. It was so much food. The point behind the food is that they prepare a lot of it and set it out for their ancestors to eat. So they put it out and wait as their ancestors eat the food. While waiting we just sat around and talked. Thennnn, came the money burning. Yes, money burning. They have a lot of this special paper money that they burn in order to offer to their ancestors. They go outside and burn it all in a metal trashcan like thing. They also burn money for the souls who have no children to burn money for them so that they won't steal their ancestors' money. After the money, dinner. So. much. food. It was all good, not extremely delicious, in my opinion, but good. They thought it was amazing, though. It was extremely expensive dishes. I know because they kept on telling me. xD<br />What we feasted on; jellyfish with cucumbers, beef and cow stomach, cabbage, this really expensive fish that was 5 thousand NT (170 US) per kilo (two pounds), more vegetables, shrimp, sausage, wine and brandy. Oh, and to finish it off, shark fin soup. :D hao chi, hao chi. I then went downstairs with my host brothers to play majiang with their friends. I played until about 11:30, then went upstairs with my host brothers to receive our hong bao, then went back downstairs. I played until 2 and with the assistance of my host brother won 2 thousand! Yay! Then slept. <br /><br />Today I got up and ate another kind of cake for breakfast, don't quite know which type, but it was good. Then practiced my Chinese listening skills when my host brothers discussed how their majiang playing went last night. The younger one lost quite a bit so he was a bit upset. While dressing I tried my hardest not to put on black, which is difficult for me, because my Chinese teacher told me you shouldn't on new years. So, I followed this rule, only to go with my host mother and brother to longshan temple while they both wore a black something. Before longshan temple we went to a less famous one where I was randomly given a hongbao with 1200(40 US) in it. At longshan there were so many people my host mom & brother just decided to do their worshiping outside before we left. I then got a call from Arantxa who asked me to go shopping with her. I originally told her I couldn't because I was going to my Aunt's sister's house for the evening, but my host mom told me it'd be a good idea for me to go with her because I would be the only one there. I still don't know exactly what my host family did tonight if I was going to be the only one at her sister's house.. hm. So, I went shopping, then went to Arantxa's host family's house for dinner where I got 1000 NT more in hongbao! Yay! I lost 50 NT playing majiang. Oh, how quickly my luck left me. D; Hahah. Well, all in all it was a good Chinese new year. Not that I have anything to compare it to, haha. <br /><br />Happy rabbit year!isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-51841162135073896612011-01-17T15:01:00.000-08:002011-01-17T15:42:14.476-08:00農曆新年就要到了So, I'm currently sitting in my room waiting to get ready for a Rotary meeting. A bit nervous because I don't exactly know if I, along with Kenese and Heitor (other exchange students at my school), are in trouble or not. I'll let you know how that goes eventually. ^^; <br /><br />I'm sitting in my bed because it's the only place I can sit without freezing to death. It is so cold here. My friend from Michigan told me it felt cold enough to snow even though it technically isn't. It's only about 40-50 degrees farenheit here but the humidity and wind make it feel sososo much colder. Lately I've been wearing two shirts, two sweaters, a jacket, a scarf and gloves just to survive inside of this house seeing as they don't have a heater. Kill me.<br /><br />My maid is out in the kitchen talking to somebody on the phone in Indonesian. It's a weird sounding language. Maybe that just goes for all the southern asian languages. I'll have to try to learn one eventually. hah.<br /><br />The major upset in my exchange right now is our Australian friends leaving. Their exchange year is different from ours in that it starts in the beginning of the year not in August, so they come in January and leave the next January. It's upsetting because they were like Gods to us when we first got here and they came to be our good friends, and now they're gone. We do have new Australian students coming, though. One is coming to my school and another lives very close to where I do. I hope they're chill. <br /><br />I'm about at the stage that Ben and Eva (Aussies) warned me about a couple months in. You're out of the honeymoon stage and the culture shock bit and now things get to just be a tad annoying, and you realise, oh poo, I have a whole more five months here. I still love it, don't get me wrong. Things can just get irritating. <br /><br />This aside, life is good. I realize because I'm so lazy I never posted about how my holidays went in glorious Taiwan, so bear with me and I'll share now. Christmas Eve was spent at school during the day where we had our regular classes followed by parties. After school I attended a Rotary meeting that was all eating, drinking, and karaoke. I can now say I spent Christmas with around 50 drunk Asians singing horrible Taiwanese songs. Is that something to be proud of? It was funny and entertaining in its own way, especially when you've had quite a bit of wine yourself. ;) Actual Christmas day was okay. Got up to skype the family and I opened my presents that meiyouyong. Internet connection was so awful that we stopped. It was okay, though, because when I went to my friend's house for the day I got to skype them there and they opened the presents I sent. :) I got to watch in amusement as they all tried a piece of the Taiwanese gum. It's crazy, the mint gets up in your nose.<br /><br />New Year's Eve was better. Surprisingly, even new year's isn't a big celebration here. Everything is saved for Chinese Lunar New Year. Which is coming up now. :o Crazy times are about to begin in Asia. My host family had some people over last night and they were teaching their niece's baby how to wish a happy new year in Chinese along with the hand motions. It was entertaining to see the baby do it for two seconds, then go off to play with a bunch of wrapped candy or start crying. :P<br /><br />Well, apart from today's meeting and having to go to school randomly this Friday, I'm on vacation! Hope it goes well. :]isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-75626267009626903892010-12-23T03:16:00.000-08:002010-12-23T07:05:15.312-08:00聖誕快樂?還不知道。Been a while, haha. hao jiu bu jian, duibudui? :P I think I just won't apologize for my infrequent blogging anymore because all of my posts start like this. Gonna have to deal with it. ^^ Well, I'm settled in my new host family. I'm really happy here, too. It's me, host parents, two host brothers, and their maid. The host father is a Chinese herbal medicine doctor and the mother apparently teaches flower arranging as well as helps her husband with his job. I don't really know how it all works, but they're rich. The house is a three story apartment in Guting, (I'll post pics soon) which is a very convenient part of Taipei because it's pretty much in the middle of everything. My host brothers are both nice. One is 18 and attending high school, the other is 22 and goes to university but comes home on the weekends. They have a maid who's from Indonesia but has been working with them for 10 years. Her Mandarin is very good, but she does have an Indonesian accent so it's a bit more difficult to understand her sometimes. One thing that confuses me about the maid situation is that she only gets to visit her family one day a week and her bedroom is about the size of a large closet. It doesn't even have a proper bed. Maybe this is okay for a maid? I'm not sure. Not gonna question my host parents.<div><br /></div><div>Like I said, I'm happy here. I'd probably cry if I had to go back to my first host family and I probably will when I have to leave this one as well. Although, because of my first host family I'm really paranoid they secretly have beef with me. I doubt this is the case, because I think I'm being better now, but still. I talk with the maid a lot and the host dad and younger host brother some, so I think I'm okay. They're all really nice. :] My host mom is too but she's somewhat odd. She just returned from California today, she spent the last week there for business, so I haven't spoken with her much yet. Shouldn't judge so quickly, Isabel! We were just eating dinner and she told me my nail polish is too red for my age and that I ought to use pink instead. She also insulted American food.. how dare she? :o </div><div><br /></div><div>Tomorrow is Christmas eve and I have to go to school. The only reason I have Christmas off is because it's a Saturday. :/ Oh, well. My plans for tomorrow are to bring my laptop to school and goodies for watching Christmas movies. First period we'll have origami, then mahjiang, then class, library, then lunch. After lunch we have several little Christmas parties to attend around school. For dinner after school I have a Rotary Christmas party! Ooh, sounds like fun, right? Hopefully I get money and good food. x) Christmas day I'll wake up and skype my family and open Christmas gifts. Eat breakfast and give the gifts I bought for my family and maid to them, then pack on up and head over to Savanna's house. She's grounded because she's naughty and I'm saving her from a lonely Christmas, ohh, I'm such a good friend. That night I'm not sure yet. Maybe dinner with the host family or going out, I dunno. Sunday I'm gonna go shopping with Arantxa and dye my hair! I've decided it! It's going to be a cross between dark purple and red. :D I've gone cray cray. It'll be pretty. </div><div><br /></div><div>I wish everybody a feichang hao Christmas!! :D I'm learning how to sing jingle bells in Chinese! :D </div><div><br /></div><div><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/av5EAWVOVZo?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/av5EAWVOVZo?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>Merry Christmas! </div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-55879692748810647972010-12-08T06:53:00.000-08:002010-12-08T07:07:23.435-08:00換家庭。Soo, I'm changing host families the day after tomorrow! I'm really excited because I know they're really rich (:D) and live in a good part of Taipei, but I'm also nervous. I had some drama with my host family that I won't go into, but I'm really settled where I am now. It's a bit scary to shake that up. I know it'll be fine, though.<div><br /></div><div>I realize I've had a bit of an odd exchange experience. Like, I didn't get any culture shock at all the first few months here, I guess it was more of a honeymoon stage. Everything was fun and all. That's all over now, however. Culture shock has hit me full force. Hah, it's nothing I can't deal with, though. It's mainly just me getting sick of how things work for Taiwanese people when dealing with problems or official things. There are so many secrets and nothing is clearly stated, you're supposed to just know. Whether you made a mistake or anything.. I knew it was this way beforehand but it just hasn't affected me until now. :/ Just gotta stay strong.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Hm. It's Christmas time! D; It's okay, though. I realize that this time would be a lot harder if I was in a country where they actually celebrated Christmas. Hardly anybody does here so there aren't many things up to remind me. Even the stuff that is, it's all just for show so it doesn't feel Christmasy. The closest thing is Starbucks. Hmm, I'm also working on a package to send home to my family for Christmas.. So they should appreciate it! It's hard work! :P</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Well, tomorrow is gonna consist of a lot of packing and working on my family's xmas box as well as writing thank yous for my host family. Busy busy so I should sleep! Wish me luck with my next family. :)</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-71001920220130857192010-11-22T03:16:00.000-08:002010-11-22T04:45:35.048-08:00韓國的音樂。:DOkay, okay. I think this is the longest time I've gone without blogging. I'm terribly sorry but if this doesn't make up for it I don't know what will.<div><br /><div><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/skZxb5sBoiU?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/skZxb5sBoiU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Latest song from SHINee and it's all over MTV right now. They are soo adorable. :D At least 100 of the views on this video are from me. Heeh, the most popular music here tends to be Taiwanese, S Korean, Japanese and American. The boys above are Korean, of course, the best ones are. xP </div><div><br /></div><div>Ooh! I got an idea! I'll show the difference between the Eastern Asian languages, because I know quite a few probably can't differentiate. </div><div><br /></div><div>Chinese: 我是美國人</div><div>Korean: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">난 미국인이다</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Japanese: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">私はアメリカ人だ</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); "><div id="gt-res-tools" class="g-section" style="width: 620px; vertical-align: top; display: inline-block; zoom: 1; margin-top: 8px; "><div id="gt-res-roman" tabindex="0" class="gt-icon-c" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 204); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; float: left; margin-right: 1em; outline-style: none; "></div></div></span><div><br /></div><div>They all mean the same thing but they all look really different, right? Once you compare them, they do. Yay~! You learned something today. xD</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, well, what have I been up to lately? Nothing really significant has happened in the last couple of weeks. Yesterday we had a culture fair with Rotary. All of the exchange students from my district got together at a school and each country got their own booth to show our culture. It was awfully boring. We had to be at the place by seven so I had to be up by five in order to get there. There were a lot of Americans so I mainly stayed at other countries and pretended to be from there. I was Spanish for a couple hours and Brazilian for a while too. Hahah, it went so long. We had it so that Taiwanese out bounds could determine which countries they wanted to go to. It was supposed to be over at five but us exchange students being rebels left at four, oooh, we so bad.</div><div><br /></div><div>This week I have Wednesday and Thursday off because my tongxue have exams, which is perfect because of Thanksgiving! Should be fun, celebrating the day with the family that is my fellow exchange students.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also just found out that I will be changing host families on either the 11th or 18th of December. It's supposed to be 11th but there's a Rotary meeting that day so it might not be. I'm excited but I'm nervous to change! I'm settled here. Hopefully they'll be an at least okay host family. Eep, wish me luck.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-24422676113144361602010-11-06T19:31:00.000-07:002010-11-06T20:33:01.512-07:00萬聖節。。不太快樂。<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>So, Friday I got up early to give me enough time to put in the red contacts and eye makeup because I knew it would take forever to do properly. I got them in, cried for a little while, then did my makeup. I looked pretty dang ridiculous, judging by the strange looks I got from the Taiwanese on my way to and on the MRT. I just stare back when they stare at me, it's funny to see them get nervous and finally look away. x]<div><br /></div><div>At school I was the only one dressed up, even the other two exchange </div><div>students didn't do anything. And one is American.. can't believe him. xP They don't celebrate halloween here so a lot of them were confused by my choice in dress which led me to have to explain that it's halloween coming up. In English chat room class we discussed the Taiwanese Ghost Month, which is in September, and Halloween. This English chat room is a bit pointless now for me, at least, I just end up speaking Chinese with them. Unless they're in English major these kids don't really care about learning English, and theirs is quite bad, so I steal this as a learning opportunity for me. :D</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Later that night after school I went out with the exchange students for dinner and to hang out. I was quite happy that Friday. :]</div><div><br /></div><div>Then Saturday! Saturday was the day of our Rotary Halloween party as well as the gay pride parade for Taipei. We went to Ximen first to buy some last minute things for our costumes and also the watch the parade. I was so proud of myself when crowds of gay boys would walk by screaming "wo men shi tong xing lian!" and I understood that it meant "we are gay!". Hah, tongxinglian is a big word for gay. </div><div><br /></div><div>look how cute. ♥</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs909.snc4/72289_1619960029924_1564112854_31536602_5233059_n.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 536px; height: 720px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>Awww. I got angry when walking through Ximen, looking around and seeing an odd amount of attractive men walking around, momentary happiness, then depression when I realized that they're from the gay parade. Oh, woe is me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then we headed to the Rotary party. Started off pretty boring. We did an hour's worth of a fashion show where everybody showed their costumes, then had a break to eat almost cold pizza, then went back to our fashion show. When it was over we were all so bored we wanted to dance, because that's the fun thing to do at parties. We started a rebellious congo line and ended up being able to dance for five minutes, then rotary was all you have to stop now. We were then told to split up in groups with Rotex (young taiwanese who went on exchanges before) where we were asked to talk about our problems in Taiwan or our host families. I just pretty much blew up. This was my friend, Sammy's, last night in Taiwan, and this didn't end up being even a party, is was a meeting therapy session. Not only was it therefore boring, but it's ridiculous to have Sammy's last night here be talking about his problems when he's going home anyway. If we had known before hand what this was going to be, nobody would have come. Ugh, I was angry. So we pretty much just ended up leaving. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sunday, I got up at 5 in the morning to go see Sammy off at the airport. I had to be at Taipei main by 6:30. I got there and called Derrick and Arantxa and they were looking for the buss stop and they got there before me and bought their tickets so they had to leave then. So I ended up walking around Taipei main, Derrick on the phone with me the whole time, trying to find this bus station. I eventually found it and made it to the airport. I'm not gonna go into detail about why Sammy's going home, he didn't do anything bad, he just didn't really like it here and his Rotary clubs were bad. So yeah, he went home. At the airport all the exchange students started crying and hugging him and talking while his host family just stood there, practically emotionless. I don't understand some people. </div><div><br /></div><div>Later that day I went to a concert my school was participating in and saw some of the bands. It was a legit screamo concert and a lot of the boys were wearing makeup and metal type stuff. It was either one of the coolest or funniest things that I've seen from my classmates. Oh, and practically all the Taiwanese students smoke here. I think it's just because they think it's cool and it's the easiest way for them to rebel in Taiwan. After this I met up with exchange students and just had an emotional and fun day, trying not to be sad about one of my good friends leaving. :[</div><div><br /></div><div>Week at school was pretty typical, except that I'm really trying to stop spending a lot of my money, so I was pretty broke until Friday when I got my Rotary moneys. :D Today I'm going out to Taipei City hall for some strictly window shopping. I'd like to save some more money.. ughh, so hard. D; Wish me luck!</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-80672816651292477112010-10-25T06:19:00.000-07:002010-10-25T06:57:06.944-07:00萬聖節!Halloween is coming up! How fun! They don't really celebrate it here but we're having a rotary party this Saturday. Ooh, fun fun. I'm going as some creepy person thing with fun fun makeup. I've got red eye contacts and loads of makeup. Add some fake blood and you have total awesomeness. I'm gonna dress up Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Should be interesting to be dressed up like that at school.. Ooh, fun weekend coming up. :D<div><br /></div><div>The last few days have been your typical fun stuff. Lemme see if I can remember what I did. Ice skating! So fun! There's a small skating rink in Ximen and I went twice in the same week with exchange students. It's hilarious because when you get there you discover that most Taiwanese don't know how to ice skate at all.. They're all clinging to the sides for dear life. I'm okay at ice skating, but it definitely doesn't compare to the magic that happens when the Europeans hit the ice. Them and the Canadians. </div><div><br /></div><div>Kenese and I have gotten into the hobby of walking around campus during our "self study in library" periods. It's mainly because we crave attention and think it's funny when all of the students freak out when they see us pass the classroom. Well, not all freak out.. Some just stare. I wonder if they'll ever catch on that we mess with their minds for fun. Hope not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Just this Sunday I went with the Danish girl in my Rotary club to KTV along with a bunch older Rotex (previous outbounds from Taiwan). It was a lot of fun. Julia, the Danish pastry, is excellent at English so we sang a bunch of songs together. It was a lot of older music and it inspired me to download my beloved Backstreet Boys again. Oh, the memories. It was a girl's birthday so we had traditional Taiwanese cake. It was so good. It had like pudding and taro in it. Mmmmm. Hao chi.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today I went on a shopping spree for all of my halloween stuff! So excited! Tomorrow I think I'm going to go out and get my hair done again. I can't take it much longer. Ugh. I'll let you know how it goes!</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-587378388119647392010-10-16T07:45:00.000-07:002010-10-16T07:58:49.085-07:00Daddy, 祝你生日快樂!Daddyyyyy! I love you and I hope you have an awesome birthday! :D<div><br /></div><div>I think I will send a package home soon with some stuffs in it for the family. :]</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-33112353394477068122010-10-12T04:10:00.000-07:002010-10-12T06:13:26.462-07:00什麼?!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs794.snc4/67478_1666277139426_1312213943_1771584_1277950_n.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs794.snc4/67478_1666277139426_1312213943_1771584_1277950_n.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Check this outttttttttttt! To the left is a picture of a bunch of exchange students during the parade on double ten which was Taiwan's independence day. We were told to be as crazy patriotic as possible. I'm on the far right, can you see me? :D This picture made it on the front page of a bunch of newspapers! So cool! We realized during that this is pretty much the only country where something like this would happen for exchange students, and I'm not complaining. x] To decorate myself I had an Irish flag on my forehead, USA on my cheek, CA and two Australian flags on my chest.. Don't ask why. I was made an honorary Australian by the Aussies. Oh, I also tied an American flag around my neck like a cape. Pretty cool, I know. We walked for five miles, screaming and waving at people that lined up. Even after all of this, we went out after and partied hard. (Not really, but we did go out afterwards x)<div><br /></div><div>Here's a video an exchange student posted of the parade! I'm hardly in it, (I know, sad) but you get to experience what we experienced!</div><div><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TRdBJS5jsb4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TRdBJS5jsb4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><div><div><br /></div><div>That was Sunday, but on Saturday us exchange students went to Danshui for biking then we had an Ocarina class. I can now play God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on the ocarina.. Go me. Skip back over to Monday, Chinese class, then I went to my school to watch the English Singing competition! They were all so cute! My class didn't do so well (neither group placed) they were too nervous and shy! I felt so bad because I knew how angry my teacher would be with them afterwards.. When I went home my host family informed me that we were having a meeting with some Rotary members to go over some issues that came up recently, so we ate dinner then left to meet up at a coffee place. (the meetings are normal, so don't freak out on me, Mom) They discussed my only being home once for dinner last week and how I talked more with my host family when I first got here, and that most exchange students are home more. I then explained to them that most exchange students have more than just their host parents at home. I'm like an only child here, it is so boring in this house. They never take me anywhere either, so why would I wanna go home and just laze around when I could be out exploring Taipei? They didn't really care and said I should try to be home four nights a week. I'll try, but it will be difficult. Oh, and guess what came up in the discussion? Yup, the floss issue. My host mom knows how to hold a grudge. </div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Today was good. School was fun as always, but I didn't want to hui jia. Came home.. had dinner.. Now I'm doing this. Yeah, it's boring. I think tomorrow I'll have dinner with them then go to Starbucks to study for Chinese class. Something. Maybe go walking. Oh, the possibilities are endless. Until xia yi ci. </div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-37281427319340426262010-10-06T08:28:00.000-07:002010-10-06T09:19:04.407-07:00牙線。So, a few days ago my host mom told me not to flush my floss along with my tissues down the toilet because she's scared it will stop it up. Don't exactly understand that logic, but I went with it and stopped. This morning, almost out the door on my way to school, she gets up and stops me. She told me she heard me flush the toilet after I brushed my teeth this morning. This is creepy already because I thought she was sleeping. She then proceeded to ask if I put my floss in there. I explained that I hadn't and that I threw it in my trash bin in my room. She made me show her to be sure even when I explained I flushed it because I used a tissue to blow my nose.. Holy hell, I'm in a mad house. I don't even really know how to comment on this event. She's simply starting to get on my nerves in how she doesn't drop anything and sometimes she just drones on and on. Oh, well. I'll put up with it and be a sweetie until I switch families. ^^<div><br /></div><div>Another discovery of a not-so-nice person: my homeroom teacher. Oh, it's awful. I'm glad I don't have to see her that much. The stress she puts these kids through is amazing and the way she talks to them I easily concluded she would either get a stern talking to or would simply be fired were she a teacher in the states. She told them they were selfish, shouted out who had the worst lianluobu to the whole class, wrote down all of their english mistakes on the board and crossed them out screaming "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!".. I mean, I thought this only happened in the movies. It's not always like this in Taiwan either, all of the students dislike her and she's the meanest in their opinion of all their teachers. It's just more put up with (if not encouraged) here for a teacher to act like a kid-soul-sucking monster. There are kids in my class with grey hairs.. I mean grey hairs. Stressed out much?</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of stress, one thing I really don't feel I've stressed enough is the amount of cute boys in Taiwan. One of my favourite parts of the day is after school when I take the bus to Muzha MRT station and see the boys from Muzha Vocational School. The school is basically all boys and so many of them are cute. So many. Throw in all of the hugging and groping these boys partake in here in Taiwan, and I'm the happiest little girl in the world. :D</div><div><br /></div><div>These last few days have been fun. Since Sunday when I did basically nothing, I've been going out nonstop. Monday I went to Ximen with some friends and saw Eat, Pray, Love. Tuesday it was Derrick's bday so we had a birthday bash for him. Then today I went to a night market with the Frenchies. My goal is to only be home tomorrow this week. I know, I shouldn't be avoiding my family but this week I find I just really don't wanna be home. When I'm home I do nothing. My host mom plays solitaire on the computer, host dad watches sports, and I go on the internet. Boring. Only thing good about it is how good of a cook my host mom is. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tomorrow should be fun despite my lack of plans. I've got Chinese class, then friends, then drawing class at school with some fun people. Until next time. :D</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-51257950308897675492010-10-02T09:01:00.000-07:002010-10-02T09:48:58.475-07:00對不起。I've been bad at updating my blogs lately. I'll try to be better. It's difficult because I'm so busy, but then if I don't blog often I have so many things to talk about!<div><br /></div><div>Well, on Sunday what did I do? Oh! I went to Miramar! It's a big mall in Taipei (didn't buy anything there, of course.. too expensive) and it has a gigantic ferris wheel. Except, it moves so slowly it doesn't even look like it's moving. I went with Faith from Canada and we just took it easy, went on the ferris wheel and a merry go round, then hit up a starbucks and flirted with the cute barista boy behind the counter. xD After this we got together with more exchange students and hung out until about 7:30. By this time it felt so much later than it was and we just decided to go home and relax. It was a good lazy Sunday.</div><div><br /></div><div>School was pretty much the same as it usually is. More interesting, funny, and awkward moments with my classmates. Except more and more of them know our names now, which leads them to think we're best friends and they scream at us from great distances. High school buildings are really tall here, and they have balcony-like things where the kids go during breaks. It's a bit scary to have random Asian kids you don't know screaming your name from five floors up.</div><div><br /></div><div>They rescheduled our speech again. Third time now. I'm beginning to think we'll never do it.. I sort of hope so too. This apparently has happened for quite a few exchange students so I won't let it bother me too much.</div><div><br /></div><div>On Friday I had a Rotary meeting so I got to leave school early. The main benefit of these Rotary meetings is the free food. The thing is 90% held in Taiwanese, not Mandarin, so I wouldn't be able to understand anything if I tried. I'm supposed to go at least once a month, though, and I'm fine with that. Julia and I just talk, collect our allowances, and eat whatever is put in front of us. All I can say is thank god I haven't gained weight since I got here. When this was over I went out to Ximen and got my hair did! It's not that different but I got my bands chemically straightened so they're not insane anymore. So happy. I got layers too. :] After my hairdresser was done cutting it and everything she curled my hair and I swear afterwards I looked so Asian. All I needed to complete the job was fake eyelashes and a ton of eyeliner. After this I went to a little night market with some classmates. They're so cute. :D</div><div><br /></div><div>Then today I left the house at 8 to go to a Rotary gathering where we sewed flags onto a big banner for Taiwan's 100th birthday parade. Met a couple more people from a different district. :] Later me and a couple others went to Zhongxiao Fuxing, then went to Taipei main station and hopped on the MRT to Danshui. Upon arriving we then decided after the hour long ride we didn't want to be there so we went back to Taipei main then to Ximen. Here we just walked around, went to a starbucks, and got sushi. When we were sure we'd stuffed ourselves silly we went to Taipei main again and went shopping with a classmate of mine. We went to a shop that was going out of business so everything was on sale! It was really cool, too. Everything was hand made and really pretty. I got a pair of hand painted vans for only 15 US dollars because I got the store clerk to like me and she lowered the price. She even gave me a pair of hand made earrings for free. Oh, it's good being me. :D </div><div><br /></div><div>Hahh, tomorrow I'm getting up early to spend another morning with Rotary. Going hiking! Excited to get some exercise, that's for sure. It's with a bunch of old Rotarians so I'm sure it won't be too hardcore. Until next time! Hopefully it'll be sooner.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tommy, if you're reading this, what kind of cheesecake did you get on your birthday? Love you and I hope you had fun!</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-53723107807575783982010-09-25T16:42:00.000-07:002010-09-25T18:11:41.037-07:00豬血糕很好吃。<div style="text-align: left;">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</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://blog.travelandleisureasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pigs-Blood-Cake-3-600x400.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 400px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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!</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>English subs trailer:</div><div><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GQCtXY1q_oo?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GQCtXY1q_oo?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll update sooner next time, promise!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div> </div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-61819876084063067612010-09-21T08:02:00.000-07:002010-09-21T08:34:34.605-07:00一個月在台灣。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]<div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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:</div><div><br /></div><div><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OTV68GBqjjI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OTV68GBqjjI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>中秋節快樂!</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-6214797012104446432010-09-18T18:32:00.000-07:002010-09-18T19:25:17.503-07:00颱風。<div style="text-align: left;">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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>"Hello!! Isabel~~ Is me Yaris. :)</div><div>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."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>"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"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>"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</div><div>nt to tell you: Happy birthday. </div><div>Cute boy, Albert. </div><div>I'll miss you, don't forget us, okay?"</div><div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>I didn't get any pictures of them but I'll steal some of the other students':</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs611.snc4/59171_499071534195_720909195_7046037_2808470_n.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 540px; height: 720px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs315.ash2/59569_499071639195_720909195_7046042_589353_n.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 720px; height: 546px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">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;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Until I write again.. :]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-80084997060079412602010-09-16T08:36:00.000-07:002010-09-16T09:32:39.514-07:00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.<div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>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 </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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) </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-65146541994409346332010-09-12T22:35:00.000-07:002010-09-12T22:56:11.453-07:00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.<br /><br />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;<br /><br />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<br /><br />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<br /><br />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<br /><br />Until next time... ;)isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-83926693376126051442010-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:002010-09-11T08:19:30.761-07:00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. :]<div><br /></div><div>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] </div><div><br /></div><div>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. ^^;</div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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) </div><div><br /></div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-12773743333312363872010-09-09T04:47:00.000-07:002010-09-09T05:34:22.056-07:00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. <div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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])</div><div><br /></div><div>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]</div><div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>Okies, well, this is all I can think of for now. Until next time!</div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-53781640036736274512010-09-06T09:55:00.000-07:002010-09-06T10:29:10.352-07:00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.<div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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] </div><div><br /></div><div>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</div><div><br /></div><div>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. :]</div><div><br /></div><div>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. >.< </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-82673444280911610442010-09-03T00:50:00.000-07:002010-09-03T01:08:34.829-07:00我不可以喝啤酒。My school schedule:<br /><br /><b>Monday:</b> Chinese Class, Study in the Library, Fine Arts then PE.<br /><br /><b>Tuesday:</b> Practical Chinese, Traveling Taiwan, Calligraphy, Music, Intro to Culture Shock, and Chinese conversation.<br /><br /><b>Wednesday:</b> Cross Culture Interaction, PE, Chinese Food, Chinese Origami, Night Market Culture, and Houscraft. (wtf is that?)<br /><br /><b>Thursday:</b> Chinese Class, then Drawing for the rest of the day.<br /><br /><b>Friday:</b> Mahjong, Chinese Tounge Twisters and Balloon making, PE, Chinese Pop Songs, English Class (to help others to learn), and Nail decorating.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. ^^;isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3994798029694913151.post-11246266085880712742010-09-02T07:19:00.001-07:002010-09-02T08:32:25.813-07:00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!<br /><br />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]<br /><br />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] <br /><br />People in my class/school/whatever:<br />Don't brush their teeth! In one of my fellow YEP's words, some of them look like they chew on bricks for fun. <br />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.<br />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.<br />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<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!isabeldorothyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17160371405491288770noreply@blogger.com2