Monday October 29th, 2012
Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh. I’m on a sugar high. My leg won’t
stop bouncing. Oh dear! I need to burn all this energy off! Uhhhhhh, uhhhh,
uhhhhh…RANDOM DANCING GO!
*ten minutes later*
Meh, better but my leg is still bouncing and now I’m hot.
There’s only one thing to do when you are hot! *dramatically whips out a fan*
Goodness gracious I LOVE THESE THINGS! :D Where can I learn how to make these
wonderful creations?!!
Whoops. Sorry for getting sidetracked but I’m seriously on a
sugar high. My body is full of energy yet my mind is slowly shutting down. Not
the best combination. XD Perhaps I should just start talking about today’s
events before I get really drowsy. ;P
University class was pretty normal for the exception of some
Halloween candy Mika brought. The candy was
Oh no, my fingers are tapping the keyboard up a storm as if
typing but my mind is drawing blanks. What’s that term when you feel tired
after a spurt of energy from sugar/caffeine? Withdrawal? Aftereffect? Sugar
hangover? XD
Ok Andrea, focus. Foooooocus. You can do it chica!
The sweets that Mika shared were hard, sour candy ranging
flavors from sour apple to lemon to grape. At first when I was offered a sour
apple flavor there were anxious yet devilish grins on Mika’s and Brittany’s
faces as they had apparently already tried a piece. Intrigued with curiosity to
as how sour this candy could be, I popped one into my mouth and my audience’s
eyes grew wide with anticipation. Several seconds passed and the flavor was
still being analyzed by my taste buds. A bit more time passed and I came to
enjoy the slightly sour taste that the candy had. But then BAM! Even though it
didn’t taste all that sour my jaws began to contract and hurt. I was then found
needing to massage my tense jaw muscles in order for them to relax. This
feeling of pain only lasted about ten seconds until the candy went really sweet
as the sour taste was gone and its wickedness finished.
Enjoying the experience and taste, I announced that I quite
liked the candy. Not satisfied with my fairly subdued reaction to the sour
apple flavor, my friends bestowed the challenge of having a lemon flavor. Did I
accept? Duh! Was the lemon fifty times more sour? Ye……no. Not even close. My
jaws didn’t tense even the slightest and I found the lemon having a lot less
punch and more sweetness. Strange huh?
So let’s keep a sugar tracking record. At University I had
two small pieces of sour candy and one small sweet piece. Moving on…
For lunch some friends and I had a hankering to try
somewhere new yet local to the University. The place we went to was very small
with a limited food selection. It was a gamble but we were feeling adventurous.
Today’s lunch crew! Everyone should look familiar here but
just in case... From left to right we have Erin from Canada, Will from The
Netherlands, Akiko from Texas and Mika from Japan. I feel I don’t need to
announce who the person is in the BRIGHT ORANGE shirt. ;P
Speaking of BRIGHT ORANGE, look at those awesome chopsticks!
LOVE! According to Will, orange is super popular in the Netherlands currently
because of their queen. It’s something like their family name having the Dutch
word for ‘orange’ included in it. Therefore we needed a picture with Will and
the chopsticks of beautifulness! I’ve never been to The Netherlands but I like
it already! Come on, just think about it. Not only is my husband from there but
their mock national color is orange! Sold! XD
The dish I ordered at this shop was what I like to refer to
as an Asian tomato soup. Inside the bowl was, tomato obviously, green leaves,
chicken and noodles. It was pretty good, the broth being very satisfying as it
graced my throat.
Afterwards our group decided to go by a nearby café for some
coffee. Because I usually rush off to school immediately after lunch in order
to access Wi-Fi at my high school, I decided to forfeit it today and spend some
more time with my fellow exchange students. So I tagged along and ordered what
I think was an iced chocolate latte. But I forgot one important thing…lately
I’ve had the bad luck of my order always taking a long time. Seriously for the
past four or five times I’ve eaten food out, I was ALWAYS the last one to get
my individual order. That actually happened today with the Asian tomato soup! I
was the last one again! Now of course there’s nothing wrong with that but when
it was like yesterday’s waffles-of-taking-forever-to-come, it gets really annoying.
Thankfully beverages seem to be excluded from my late food
delivery misfortune but I nonetheless had a short amount of time to drink the
coffee before needing to leave for the MTR. It ended in my chugging half a
glass of coffee quickly. I am very thankful I had food in my stomach because if
I didn’t, I might have fallen over from a terrible stomachache. Nonetheless I
still got a slight stomachache, as I’m not used to drinking coffee like that.
The recorded updated: three small pieces of candy and a guzzled
glass of coffee.
Since it is Monday, the exchange students normally would
have ‘Spanish class.’ But instead Redy had scheduled a little picnic between
all of us. We each had to bring some sort of food for the two-hour picnic. The
most convenient and easily shared type of food was sweets. Oh great, more sugar
for Andrea. This was the main cause for my sugar high.
The food I brought was as American as I can get in Taiwan.
OREOS! Oreos are American, right? Are they? I think so… Someone tell me please
because I don’t know. Even if they aren’t, they are at least popular in
America. There, I dodged that bullet. XD Where I went to purchase them, the
store had several flavors. Still feeling adventurous, I grabbed the most
foreign looking one. On the package it boasted the label of “Ice Cream” but the
cream between the cookies was purple. I couldn’t tell what that meant. At first
I thought it was taro flavor since it is a popular flavor in Taiwan. But later
I found out from Redy that it was blueberry ice cream flavor. WHAT?! I don’t
even know what blueberry ice cream tastes like, much less a blueberry ice cream
Oreo! It goes without saying that I was thoroughly intrigued. ;D
The taste test went like this. It began with having a
strong, zesty flavor then gradually started to remind me of a sweet medicine.
That particular type of Oreo is good but nothing to drool over. No matter how
many flavors of Oreo the company spits out, you can never beat the traditional
Oreo and milk combination. ;)
Our picnic site! See all that in the middle? Alllllll of it
were sweets. Add that onto my sugar tracking record. XD Everyone was pretty
tired, especially poor Camille (the blonde chica). The picnic was a very lovely
time, taking a break with a nice chat and sugar. It very well might happen
several more times! ;D
The view from our perch! This is more the University part of
the campus rather than the high school section. At least I think so. XD It’s a
quaint little garden with a pretty little pond. The building surrounding it is
a super popular place where people come for wedding photos. Everyday you can
see brides-to-be in their exquisite dresses with their tuxedoed up loves in a
photo shoot around this building.
Following the picnic, it was time for the weekly culture
exchange! On the schedule I received regarding the different subjects for each
week, I was to have a discussion over ‘food and restaurant’ today. But since
Erik was one week behind on his assigned topic schedule and no longer in
Taiwan, I was to take up his group this week. Their subject was ‘photography.’
I’ll admit I wasn’t too heave-ho on this topic because I don’t know much about
photography. I just take pictures for memories. Plus I can’t really think of
cultural differences in that area other than people using lots of cutesy hand
signs near their face in Taiwan for pictures.
To my surprise, my homeroom teacher told me today that the
topic would change from ‘photography’ to ‘education.’ WOAH! The discussion
immediately went from having barely anything to say to having LOADS AND LOADS
to converse about! I could go on forever with differences between Taiwan and
American school! Eventually I would like to create a picture PowerPoint over
that subject but it’s going to take a heck of a lot of time plus I would need
pictures of various parts of Klein Collins for comparison. Is anyone reading
this still enrolled at KC? Are you interested in assisting me? ;D
Anyhow, I was thrilled for the topic of education but one
thing was a little frightening. Since it was such short notice, I didn’t have
any time to prepare some related vocabulary to help with the language
difference. OH DEAR! How in the world could I express all the vast differences
between Taiwan and America? I felt a session filled with charades and
constantly retreating to my dictionary for help.
Upon arriving those worries were immediately banished as one
of my group members spoke excellent English. So I went from feeling kinda
stressed to downright enjoying the conversation! Of course I spoke as much
Chinese as possible (little as it was) and switched to English for more
complicated aspects of the discussion. Only once did I have to look up a word
in the dictionary, ‘ceremony’ if you’re interested. ;P In Chinese: “dian li” 典裡 At least I think that’s how the characters are written. The second one I
guessed on because it’s difficult matching a simplified character dictionary to
a traditional Chinese keyboard setting. XD
Overall, the
cultural exchange was invigorating! I could’ve gone another hour or two with
talking about educational differences! And my members were so nice! Before
starting our discussion, one of my members with the English name of Joe asked
me what I wanted to drink. Being utterly stuffed from lunch, coffee and the
picnic, I politely declined his kind offer. When all my members came back, they
brought a pink bottle of water with them. Oh it was so sweet! Then towards the
end of the talk, they offered a sweet that can be described as a small roll
with a tad bit of chocolate thinly lining the swirls (think like a non-glazed
cinnamon roll). Not wanting to seem rude and truly appreciating their kindness,
I just had to take one. That treat was the topper to my sugar high. Now do you realize
why my leg is uncontrollably bouncing? XD It has died down but still is
slightly bouncing. Don’t worry, I’ll work on that issue with some more dancing
in a bit. ;D BURN OFF THE ENERGY AND CALORIES! >:D
Andrea stop getting
distracted! But yes, all four of my members were really sweet and I enjoyed
their company. Finishing our talk, I was invited to go ice-skating with them.
OH MY GOODNESS YES 我 要！
(I want!) Asking when we would, they replied “today.” Oh snap. A little short
notice for me, as I need to gain my host parent’s permission beforehand. So
hopefully we can schedule an ice-skating outing later with a bit more warning.
XD
And here are my delightful
members! The guy to the left of me was Joe and the translator of the group.
Alex is the one in the white shirt. The other two dudes don’t have an English
name so don’t ask me to type their Chinese name because I don’t know how. :P
The boy to far right is actually in my martial arts club. And to the far left
is a guy that is a speaker of some sort. Several times ago he would read poetry
in front of the class as practice for a competition he had, at least, that’s
what I was told.
Something cute that
Alex did was quietly whispering something to Joe as if wanting him to translate
into English. Desiring to give my Chinese a shot at trying to understand what
he wanted to say, I inquired “什麼？什麼？” Some little smiles and laughs were
exchanged between Alex and Joe, which fueled my curiosity. Then Alex started to
form a slight blush as Joe revealed their secretive chatter. He announced that
Alex “is interested you. Do you have a boyfriend?” Chuckling as I guessed that
was headed my way from the way they secretly hid their one-to-one and the fact
that I’m always asked that in Taiwan (from either gender), I simply replied “我沒有” (I don’t have/mei2 you3). FYI, that’s the correct Chinese grammar. You
don’t need to say ‘I don’t have ONE’ but rather just ‘I don’t have.’ There,
that’s your Chinese for the day. ;D The reaction from my answer was more grins
and chuckles with Joe declaring in Chinese “good luck” to Alex. Pfft, it was
adorable. XD
Ah I just took a
break for dinner and I feel better now that regular food is starting to balance
out all that sugar. But now I’m sooooooo full! An extensive dancing and
exercise session is in order to burn off today’s food. ;P
Oh! Here’s a little
tid bit/teaser of tomorrow. During my group’s presentation over ‘education’ we
have a special guest. It’s the whopping principal! OH SNAP! Naw, I’m not that
nervous but I still hope I can do him proud. At least I have a good topic to
discuss but I just hope he doesn’t expect too much Chinese out of me. I’ve
never met him before so I don’t know anything about him or if he has standards
for the exchange students. Regardless I’ll do my absolute best! :D
“HERE WE GO! PUT
YOUR GUNS ON! ALRIGHT! LET’S HAVE A RIP-ROARING PARTY!” I’m sorry, I just have
to exclaim that quote. *winks at SB fans* ;P But I really think tomorrow’s
presentation will be fun since it’s such a great topic. Let’s just hope my
Chinese measures up. ;)
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