週末快樂！

Happy Weekend! I celebrated the Moon Festival this past Wednesday with my friends. We went to a place south of Taipei to enjoy the hot springs, BBQ and moon cakes. This week on Tuesday I will celebrate Confucius Day or Teacher's Day. I will be getting up around 4 am to take a taxi to a temple to witness a ceremony. I'm excited but it makes me tired to think about the time.

I am really settling down finally after getting homesick for a little bit. Now I meet new people all the time although mainly these people are Japanese because they all say Chinese is a good language to learn since it's the next world power. We all think alike :)

To do a little recap of the highlights of my week, I had the chance to go to a night market targeted at clothes only. I didn't plan for this. In fact, I had in mind dinner, since the night markets are the best places to eat a lot for cheap. Instead, we arrived to the best clothes night market and had a rough time finding food. At least, someone got to buy themselves a new necklace. Afterwards I shared a bottle of wine with a friend from Honduras and spoke in Spanish listening to some Latino music.

Tonight, I just got back from a restuarant owned by my Japanese friend's parents. They closed the restuarant for us for the night and we tried a variety of new tastes...or at least I did. Everyone else was familiar with it accept for the one Korean boy and the Taiwan girl. I enjoyed myself and tried sake and plum wine for the first time. I spoke in Chinese and picked up a lot of Japanese phrases and I remember one Korean word! I find these encounters to be the best because I never hear such terms inside the classroom.

For the last two Weeks

Dear Bloggers,
I'm happy to be back online. In case you don't know. My computer's hard drive decided to shut down so thanks to my wonderful parents I am back online now with a new computer.

I want to put a few more pictures up than normal since so much has happened since being here. I have met so many more friends since classes have started and I recognize a lot of the students from my school "师大" at my dorm. It feels like college but better because everyone is super friendly and respectful and doesn't trash the place.

While I have been here my friends and I have had countless encounters with little boys asking us questions. One night on a cramped bus ride back to the international house a boy and his mother where talking about me and smiling at me. I heard them say I was American and then the boy asked me what color my eyes where in Chinese. I told him green! Because I can't say hazel. It wasn't a well lit bus so I have no idea how they might appear. The boy and mother thought my Chinese was quite good and it was just a great feeling to be complemented for having a pretty and different color. To extend off of the appearance here in Taiwan. Most are very conscious of appearance. I walked around with my Japanese friend Shiori in a Korean skin product Store called Skin Food. Some products looked quite good. And others where for whitening the skin. I see it everywhere. It's really important to be pale here for women at least. Most of the guys don't mind getting a tan while the women walk around with their UV Umbrellas and fake eyeglasses. Yes, they wear thick brimmed eye glasses without a lense... 奇怪! ~weird!

Talking about my new life here, I have met many new people staying for 1 + years for many different reasons. Some are English teachers, half Taiwanese and Japanese or Chinese and discovering their roots or going for their masters at another school but all are studying the language at what I found out from countless peoples' reactions is the best school in Taipei.

My first week of classes are over. And I switched from one level to another more challenging level. I did not feel bad about the placement test since half of the students have changed in every class. I love my teacher, she is animated and encouraging. I know when I speak well and when I need to work on my tones. She is very dedicated to helping us speak each tone with accuracy as well as writing correctly. I wonder if I had learned how to sing, if that would have benefited me
now!

Anyway, there is so much I could say about my interactions with people. But all I can say is, that I will always remember advice from a special advisor of mine. "If you truly want to learn a language you have to go out on the streets and talk with the people." And that is what I'm doing! Day by day it's better and easier.