Age 18 and 1 day :-)

So Fridays are probably my favorite day of the school week... For the sole fact that I only have 1 class on Friday, and that class is english :-D  So the day after my birthday was pretty excellent too. I spent most of it in the Library.  In the morning I got to talk with almost every freshman english class and help them find easy english novels to read. One boy in particular took a liking to me. I helped him find the book he was looking for, then I went back upstairs where my laptop was, he came up with me after about 5 minutes; told me "you are so beautiful" and then proceeded to run away. HAHAHAHA I love shy Taiwanese boys :-P
Then I went downstairs with Jane around lunchtime and I ate lunch with Fiona and my "living technology" teacher, whose english name is Jose (oh my god I know that is SO funny).  During/ after lunch I spent time with Jose, showing him pictures that I have taken and talking to him about working at Cooperstown Dreams Park-taking all sorts of pictures there and what kind of cameras we used, we also talked about photoshop.  He told me that he was a photographer himself, and he showed me his camera. I was shocked to find that the big, BEAUTIFUL camera that he pulled out of his sleek black backpack was exactly the same as the ones we used at CDP. Same camera, same lens, same neck-strap even; EXACTLY the same. I was so happy to see it.
Jose explained to me that there was going to be a huge emergency drill going on that day and that it was his  job (as head of the photography club) to take pictures and videos of the event for the school's website.  He asked me if I would help him by using his camera and taking pictures so that he could focus solely on taking videos. YES! I replied without hesitation, I could not wait another minute.  I was so excited.  Jose then convinced me that if I joined the photography club that I could use his camera whenever I wanted. He is one of my new bestfriends. Haha. I got some great shots of the whole thing, and when it was over: I went home, and then the norm :-P

My 18th Birthday in Taiwan

My birthday here was more than I could have ever imagined. I woke up to smell of my host mother making me my favorite breakfast I have here, 雞蛋餅, which translates to "egg cake". It is a sort of crepe with many different sorts of spices, topped with an egg that has been beaten, then you roll it into almost like a burrito and top it with some soy sauce.. SO GOOD. 


I got dressed, made an attempt to do my hair (which I knew would only frizz out of place the second I walked out the door), put on my makeup and jewelry and headed out my door. 早安 (pronounced Zao An- which means Good Morning) Chersea! (that is actually how they pronounce my name); 安(morning) I replied.  My home ma hurried to finish making my breakfast and putting together Joy's lunch, as Joy just started getting ready.  I made sure that all of my stuff was ready for Chinese class, Joy grabbed her stuff and we headed out the door, 雞蛋餅 in hand. 


We walked to the end of our street and waited for the bus together, her 612 and my 508.  When I got to my Chinese class I couldn't help but think study, study, STUDY! (I'm beginning to act more like a Taiwanese than I thought ;-D ) I was so nervous about my bo-po-mo-fo test.  When everyone else arrived, I got a German version of Happy Birthday from Fiona, a special hug from the Brazilian- Heitor, a Canadian "It's your birthday, eh?"(I love Faith), and many a "AWWW, Happy Birthday!" :-P


Derrick and I went out into the hall and studied our little New Yorker butts off! When it was finally my turn to go with our teacher and read the test paper in bo-po-mo-fo , my stomach was in knots.  BUT, I only made one mistake! (I later found out that along with one other girl in my class, I got a 99!!) Before we left my 老師 (teacher) said 生日快樂 (pronounced shengri kaile- which means Happy Birthday)- OH YEAH, now I remember; I almost forgot it was my birthday.


I made my way to school where I went straight to my classroom. All of 112 was excited to see me.  I got gifts from Jade (later found out that they were cute little jars), another girl gave me lucky stars, I got plenty of cards, a sign from the kids in my 2nd grade PE class, a card from Boba in my 2nd grade art class, 2 五十嵐 and much more.  And during the first 10 minutes of PE class with 112, they threw me a little party.. They brought me a cake, and sang me happy birthday (first in Chinese, then in English), they were all so excited. I (of course) had to make a wish before I blew out my candles. We then went outside with our teacher and play volleyball which was actually a lot of fun. It was a pretty short day after that. I left school at around 4 that day so that I could get home and shower before my host family and I went out to dinner at 7.

Dinner was probably the best part of the day. My ENTIRE father's side of the family was there.   We had so much fun together. It was a really nice dinner too, pretty much a 10 course meal- U hadn't eaten so much food since I had arrived! Joy and I had fun playing with my host cousins, and I introduced myself to my host grandma in Chinese. It was an all around good night :-) We had the coolest waiter at the restaurant too. He spoke in English to me and was very happy to hear why I was there and thought that it was just awesome that I was an American.  He gave me a taste of the special white wine, and a glass of red wine after getting my home ma's permission. When dinner was about over, my waiter friend brought out a cake and everyone sang to me. I haven't felt more love than that since my arrival in Taipei. It was wonderful. We made the long trek home and shortly after we got home and I took another shower, I was in bed. 

First Week of School- Oh Baby!

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.

OH BOY do I have some catching up to do...

So I have found that I really don't have enough hours in a day to blog every single one of them.. Maybe when things with Rotary/School/ Chinese class get a little more settled I will be able to blog more frequently. Alright well, here goes nothing:

Last Wednesday:

I went with my "cousin" Ariel and her friend DunDun (don't ask) to Taiwan story land.  It is a little place that is almost like a mini recreation of Taiwan in the 60's and 70's. It was pretty fun, we tried stilt walking and enjoyed a little vintage puppet show.  After we were done there, Ariel, DunDun and I caught an MRT and went to go shopping at a different department store.  We had lunch at Din Tai Fung, which is a place that originated in Taiwan but currently has locations in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Beijing, Shanghai, Japan, and many other places.  They are famous in Taiwan for hand making these very intricate dumplings- which just so happen to be delicious.  After lunch, we walked around just looking at everything. We sat on a bench/couch thing to take a rest for about 15 minutes, sitting next to an old lady who was napping. We then proceeded to take pictures of ourselves so that the old lady would be in the background. :-P  We walked around for another short while then returned home.  

Thursday was one of my favorite days: Ariel and I lounged around the house most of the day, just resting. It felt so nice!  That morning I woke up with my host mom at about 7 and her, her best friend Lilly and I all went to the immigration office.  We got my visa information all settled- no problem.  Lilly and I talked for a long time, she asked me tons of questions but I had no problem with answering them. She is one of the sweetest people I have met since I have arrived here.  She gave me a present before we went to the immigration office... It is pronounced "shuh dzuh"- a kind of lucky fruit... except mine is a paperweight :-) I love it.

That night Ariel and I caught the bus to my host mom's store-where we met up with Ann, her two kids, Ali, and Lilly. We all went to have dinner together at Lilly's husband's restaurant. They all called it barbecue but that is definitely not what this is.. It was this cute little place where you have steam pots in the middle of the table so you can boil and cook some of your own stuff (all that you choose from a refrigerated shelf in the middle of the restaurant and bring back to your table) or you can choose to have the chef's there prepare it for you. It was the most adorable place to have dinner. I really enjoyed myself.

Friday I got to sleep in! And home ma and I went to go to a Rotary meeting. Taipei Mu Lan Rotary Club. It was like one of those typical Rotary meetings: we sang songs that no one new the tune of, we ate SOUP (plus some other stuff for lunch :-P), and I listened to older people talk about things- of which I had no idea what they were saying.  Anywhos, I introduced myself to them, the interrogated me, like pretty much everyone does here when they first meet me; and home ma and I left.  Then she took me to meet the humongous group of people that are the RYLA students and Inbound TRYEX students for Inbound Orientation.. WHOOP WHOOP!! :-)

Orientation was a great time, filled with fun activities every day...

Friday: 

-Self introductions on the bus on the way to Aspire Resort

-Rules and crap in our classroom

-Dinner all together

-Games and team building stuff in the gym

-DANCE PARTAY!!!- complete with a really funky DJ, a emcee who didn't know the words to any of the songs he was singing, two dancers *cough cough* STRIPPERS who were on stage all night, and Derrick and I representin New York on the stage and right up front ;-)

-Much needed showers and SLEEP

Trust me, we had way too much fun on Friday to even explain in words.. Pictures say it best- check out Facebook-Inbound Orientation&&Dance Party

Saturday:

6:30am wake up call- Oh and wear your pink Ryla shirts-- JOY

Breakfast time-forever long- oh and meals were always interesting..

Cultural class intro/the attitude and ways of learning Mandarin (POSITIVE ATTITUDE- Taiwan really touch my heart :-P)

Then we had a Q&A session- filled with no Q's so a group of us went up to the front of the conference room and were interviewed as a way to get to know each other. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity and was the first volunteer :-)

Then was Lunch, followed by a ropes course sort of thing (and the epic beginning of a ongoing Facebook photo album "the many faces of nick paluba" ;-D)

Dinnertime

"Group Report Prep"-- in which we developed skits we would perform for the entire TRYEX group. My group's was about effective communtication.

--Again shower and bed--

Sunday:  

After Breakfast, we were scheduled to sit through another 2 hours of listening to people talk about the rules of youth exchange-- BORING!

First we actually were taught a dance by one of our group leaders, SO FUN!!!! We had a great time, everyone in our room was dancing and laughing.. Basically a great way to start the day.

Then there was tea time and "How to be a Competent Exchange Student".

Followed by closing remarks, and Lunch.

After Lunch we had group reports which were all absolutely hilarious (again refer to pictures.)

After that we had a short tea time and closing ceremony, which was a lot of just taking pictures.  

We all told our goodbyes and exchanged Facebook info and made our way to the busses to head back to the SYS Memorial Station entrance to meet up with our families.  

INBOUND ORIENTATION WAS THE BEST WEEKEND OF MY LIFE! By far.

So home ma and home pa picked me up at the station, and we made our way home.  On the way home ma and I talked about the weekend- I am definitely starting to understand more and more of her Chinese.  She then asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with Joy- OF COURSE! So they drove me to the movie theater where Joy was already there waiting for a friend. We found her friend, Zephyr was her name, and we all ate dinner together (PASTA- what a nice change of pace). After dinner we went upstairs where the movie theaters were, bought our tickets with still an hour long wait and played games in the arcade. I was completely boss at the claw game and won 5 little stuffed pink panther dolls (two of which I gave to little girls we found in the theater- I gave, Joy translated :-P) Then we watched the new Cats&Dogs movie (all in English, thank heavens.)

Then home and bed, as I had to get some rest for my first day of school the next day.. :-)