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.

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.

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

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. :)

韓國的音樂。:D

Okay, 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.

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

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.

Chinese: 我是美國人

Korean: 난 미국인이다

Japanese: 私はアメリカ人だ

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

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.

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.

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.

萬聖節。。不太快樂。

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]

At school I was the only one dressed up, even the other two exchange

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

Later that night after school I went out with the exchange students for dinner and to hang out. I was quite happy that Friday. :]

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.

look how cute. ♥

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.

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.

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.

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. :[

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

Daddy, 祝你生日快樂！

Daddyyyyy! I love you and I hope you have an awesome birthday! :D

I think I will send a package home soon with some stuffs in it for the family. :]

什麼？！

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)

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!

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.

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.

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. ^^

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?

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

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.

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