Thursday September 27 2012
Sleeeeeepy. Sleeeeeeeepy. Sleeeeeeepy! Wo mei you jingli (I
don’t have energy)! Slept terribly. End of story.
University class was quite educational because the teacher,
from a student’s request, taught us how to order drinks in Chinese. I recognize
the material from when my classmates were teaching me some weeks ago when
ordering bubble tea. At that time, I vaguely understood what they said but I
couldn’t remember all of it. Now, seeing it on paper in pinyin, everything clicks
together and it stays in my memory. So now I can order drinks no problem
whatsoever. Tis a good thing indeed!
For lunch, if not all, at least half of the exchange
students went to have lunch at a local restaurant near the university. At first
it was just four of us. Then it turned into ten of us. Then twelve. Then
twenty-five plus students! And know that this was in a small restaurant so it
became quite crowded very quickly. I’m sure we slightly stressed out the owner
with our sheer numbers but at least they got some good business. ;) As a
recommendation from a fellow peep, I ordered fried rice. I’m glad I did. Not
only was it a good deal, value-wise but also it was quite satisfying since its
large volume somewhat settled my grumbling tum-tum. I can’t remember if I got
the beef or pork fried rice, but regardless it was delicious. I could’ve gone
for seconds!
Afterwards, Eric and I headed off to Tatung in a feisty
downpour of rain, sharing my umbrella. We tried our best to fight off the water
but both of us still got wet, predominately on our backs. Nothing life
threatening of course. :P The rain would be extremely sporadic and just fall
down in sheets but soon after let up and then went back to pouring, etc. It’s
probably from the typhoon. The humidity following the rain made me think of
Texas. XD
The first class we attended of the day was Math. According
to my classmate, the teacher gave us half the class for free time. Confirming
this was true, I gave in and just put my head on the desk. Inwardly I
absolutely do not want to ever sleep at school, but I just couldn’t resist the
opportunity for some shut-eye when the teacher wasn’t lecturing or anything. It
always shocks me how many students go to sleep in class but most teachers don’t
do anything about it.
Once the day’s classes ended, all of the high school
travelled to the auditorium on the ninth floor for the Teacher’s Day
celebration. Just as a note, our classroom is on the first floor. As a class,
we walked up all nine sets of stairs to get to the auditorium. Doing this when
you are dead tired is not exactly an easy task. XD But entering the doors I
perked up a bit because I recognized the song they were playing on the
speakers. Not only did I recognize it, but I was temporarily obsessed with it
at one point, loving the music and the dance. The song was in Korean, titled
“You know me” by Tasty. Wo xi huan! (I like!) When the teachers had their entrance/introductions,
one of the songs they played was “Gangnam Style” by Psy. All the students went
crazy, dancing and singing along to the intriguingly, internationally popular
song.
The performances of the celebration were mainly karaoke with
some teachers and students dancing in a huge group. It gave me more evidence
that karaoke is way more popular than dancing in Taipei because singing was
about 90% of the acts. The exchange students were a part of that percentage as
our bit was a song we created, dedicated to thanking the teachers. Sorry, I
don’t have a video or anything but here’s a basic description.
We walk on stage, holding our country’s flag in our hands. I
was a bit of an exception since I didn’t have a big flag of my country like the
other students. They all had flags the length of their arm-span when I just
have an American flag that’s barely a foot long. It was itsy-bitsy in
comparison. To make up for this, I carried a big Taiwanese flag with my little
American flag in my hand. The song, as far as I know, went alright. I couldn’t
hear any of our voices at all, only the guitar (Erik) and piano (Rike). So
hopefully we were heard and even better, hopefully people could understand a
bit of what we said. The song was written in English with each of our countries
way of saying “Thank you,” ending in the Chinese “Xie xie ni men!” When we sang
our small bit in Mandarin, the crowd went wild. My guess is, we said our
Mandarin bit about four or five times, so that means the crowd exploded four or
five times. :P
Overall, I would say our performance was successful as the
audience seemed to enjoy it. I hope at least our message of thanks was
understood by the teachers since it is originally for just them. ;) As a part
of Teacher’s Day, the students make a class card for their homeroom teacher.
The exchange students made a card for our respective homeroom teachers, the
principal, the lady in charge of us and another lady that is like
second-in-command of us. We worked hard on creating all of them and I believe
it showed, as all the respective recipients seemed to really love the cards. As
a side project, I made small cards for every teacher, just to say thank you in
general. Since I didn’t see most of them today, I’ll give the cards to them
next week during each of their classes. It’ll be late but at least they’ll get
the card in the end, which is what matters, right? ^_^
Exchange students plus Redy picture love! The chica in the
middle is the second-in-command lady (whom I’ve mentioned before in another
post) named Redy. She is the one who looks after us so tenderly and helps us
with any questions or problems. Without her, we wouldn’t have survived! She is
amazing and deserves a million Teacher’s Days! We all really do love and
appreciate her.
At the end of the day, we were all so pooped. Once in my
bedroom, I immediately went to sleep.
Yeah I realize my tenses are getting jumbled between present
and past tense. My grammar, English friends are probably wanting to struggle me
right now. Sorry guys. :P I try to write all my posts the day-of but when
things go askew and I can’t, I attempt to write the posts in the same format
but it doesn’t always work out. Get my drift?
Actually I don’t know if that made sense but I’m too tired
to figure it out. And with that, I bid you a good night! ^_^
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