Monday, also the day of my chinese proficiency test was pretty eventful. Mostly because my host rotary club told home ma that I was supposed to take the test on Tuesday, not Monday. So we made the hour and a half long trek to my school, to the library; to get there and find out that I was in fact supposed to be taking the test that day: at that very moment to be exact. So we hauled it outta there, and home ma was furious. She hailed us a cab and we set off on the 45 minutes ride to the testing center. On the way there I got a call from my friend/ROOMIE :-) Faith (from Canada EH). Basically that conversation consisted of "where the hell are ya?", and the quick response "i'm coming, i'm coming have you started yet?", "nope", "OKAY GOOD WAIT FOR ME!"
First of all, the stupid test was WRITTEN IN CHINESE! Please, get real.. You think I can understand what that says. Basically the German girl behind me and I just started circling random numbers of answers that could be right :-P For the writing part, I just took some of the prettier symbols that I saw on the test and put them together. I'm pretty sure that the teachers must have had a good laugh grading my exam.
After the exam was over, and I said goodbye to my friends; home ma and I made the second trip of the day to National Chung Ho Senior High (oh yes, that is the name of my school ;-D). She left me at the bus stop, and after about 5 minutes of repeatedly asking me "are you sure you know how to get there?", home ma finally went to work. By the time I got back to my school it was about 12:30.. So I ate the lunch that my mom prepared for me and waited for Julia to arrive as I sat in the Library with Fiona. Julia arrived, and Fiona, Julia, Julia's counselor and I all went to get our school uniforms. They are pretty ugly, I'm not gonna lie. Pics of it will be uploaded soon..
Then Fiona and I went to my class room: First grade class 12 (or 1-12). But, the people who were in there was a French class, so not my real classmates. After sitting through French (I actually read a passage aloud with another girl in the class-shockingly enough, by pronouncing all the words as they would sound in Spanish, I had read everything correctly :-P) I went back to the Library with Fiona, and got my locker(s) and desk. After a short while Julia joined us. Our counselors left and it was just Julia and I in the Library Director's office. We talked about our Taiwanese experiences, and ate yellow colored watermelon (much better in Taiwan). Then there was an earthquake. It only lasted for about 30seconds, BUT it shook the entire building that we were sitting in- SOOO COOL! We expressed our excitement about it being our first earthquake, continued talking as we waited for our counselors and eventually just went home.
Tuesday was better.
Tuesday was my first full day of Taiwanese school. I was wearing my super duper ugly uniform (a forest green PLEATED skirt that falls to the knee, and a short sleeve white button up polo) grr. I was able to finally introduce myself to all of my classmates! Which was absolutely amazing. I loved every single minute of it. The boy who sits next to me has the weirdest english "name" I have ever heard of. Da.. That's it. Not dan, just Da :-P All he usually says is "HELLO!" to me. Lately though, he has been using more English..
I made a lot of friends in my class. The whole rest of the week kind of blurs together. I traded wearing the ugly green skirt for a pair of my own black pants (which kind of match the dark navy pants that most of the other people wear.) I made good friends with Jade (sits behind me), Savannah (who sits on my right side, up one seat), and of course Da :-P We pass notes in class :-P I have started to help him with his english homework, which turns into him translating every question into English and telling me he needs help answering them all. Haha I love it. Friday I went with home ma to the Rotary meeting of Taipei Mu-Lan RC, where they gave me my allowence; and sang the Chinese version of "Happy Birthday to You" to me and the other people in our club with September birthdays. :-)
This weekend was AWESOME. Friday night with the fam, Saturday was a nice resting day, went out shopping Saturday night. Sunday I went school supply shopping with David- I didn't think that shopping for school supplies could be so much fun!
David met me at the Shipai MRT station and together we went to Taipei Main Station, went to 3 bookstores and I had gotten everything on my list. Then we went to Starbucks to take a break. After our break, we went to two more department stores. We met up with one of David's friends at the last department store and we all went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery :-P By the time we were done having our ice cream, it was about 4:00 and we were both thoroughly exhausted, so David rode home with me on the MRT home. What a great day.
Monday I went to Chinese class, went to lunch with Derrick(NY), Faith(Canada), Katelyn(Canada), and Jesse(TX); then off to school. After school I went home to change quickly then Joy and I went to go get our hair washed, which is oddly common here- maybe because it is very cheap and you get a full scalp and shoulder massage! :-D
And today, was another full day of school. Except it was a lot of fun. We played Volleyball in PE, the rules were totally different than in America. They are allowed to catch the ball and throw it back to the other team over the net :-P I had a Chinese calligraphy class with Fiona during my free period at the end of the day. I LOVE TAIWANESE SCHOOL! --Minus the uniforms and Math class ;-P
Oh and today, my English teacher offered me to go with her to her house in Southern Taipei. She goes almost every weekend to see her family and her baby. I really hope that I can go with her sometime, she is one of the sweetest people I know here. OH and last week, maybe Thursday, I met a girl named "Haiwei" (yeah like highway) on the bus. She was an exchange student to Ohio last year and she goes to my school. I'm pretty sure we are going to become really good friends ;-)
That's all for now.
I made a lot of friends in my class. The whole rest of the week kind of blurs together. I traded wearing the ugly green skirt for a pair of my own black pants (which kind of match the dark navy pants that most of the other people wear.) I made good friends with Jade (sits behind me), Savannah (who sits on my right side, up one seat), and of course Da :-P We pass notes in class :-P I have started to help him with his english homework, which turns into him translating every question into English and telling me he needs help answering them all. Haha I love it. Friday I went with home ma to the Rotary meeting of Taipei Mu-Lan RC, where they gave me my allowence; and sang the Chinese version of "Happy Birthday to You" to me and the other people in our club with September birthdays. :-)
This weekend was AWESOME. Friday night with the fam, Saturday was a nice resting day, went out shopping Saturday night. Sunday I went school supply shopping with David- I didn't think that shopping for school supplies could be so much fun!
David met me at the Shipai MRT station and together we went to Taipei Main Station, went to 3 bookstores and I had gotten everything on my list. Then we went to Starbucks to take a break. After our break, we went to two more department stores. We met up with one of David's friends at the last department store and we all went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery :-P By the time we were done having our ice cream, it was about 4:00 and we were both thoroughly exhausted, so David rode home with me on the MRT home. What a great day.
Monday I went to Chinese class, went to lunch with Derrick(NY), Faith(Canada), Katelyn(Canada), and Jesse(TX); then off to school. After school I went home to change quickly then Joy and I went to go get our hair washed, which is oddly common here- maybe because it is very cheap and you get a full scalp and shoulder massage! :-D
And today, was another full day of school. Except it was a lot of fun. We played Volleyball in PE, the rules were totally different than in America. They are allowed to catch the ball and throw it back to the other team over the net :-P I had a Chinese calligraphy class with Fiona during my free period at the end of the day. I LOVE TAIWANESE SCHOOL! --Minus the uniforms and Math class ;-P
Oh and today, my English teacher offered me to go with her to her house in Southern Taipei. She goes almost every weekend to see her family and her baby. I really hope that I can go with her sometime, she is one of the sweetest people I know here. OH and last week, maybe Thursday, I met a girl named "Haiwei" (yeah like highway) on the bus. She was an exchange student to Ohio last year and she goes to my school. I'm pretty sure we are going to become really good friends ;-)
That's all for now.
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