Tuesday November 6th, 2012
Holey Sha-mole-ly it was crowded on the subway today! You
should not ride on the MTR if you have a big bubble space. XD If gets a little
nerve-racking when it’s so crowded because I’m afraid of losing my balance and
falling into a person, who then falls back and creates a domino effect. That is
why you hang on for dear life on a rail. XD
Breakfast was eaten at the school cafeteria with my usual
favorite shops. First stop as to purchase a triangle sandwich at the breakfast
shop. A friendly “Zao an!” (Good morning) was exchanged with the nice employees
who recognize me. Next was going to the teahouse to try something new that I
needed. Since I’ve been getting to bed later than normal due to special events,
I got an iced coffee. Yeah I shouldn’t drink too much coffee but in my defense
I haven’t had coffee much, especially when compared with the amount other
people intake here. :P Vitamin C and other good stuff was inserted in breakfast
with an apple from the house. Twas a good meal.
The teahouse’s iced coffee was pretty darn good. As I was
drinking it I kept thinking, ‘Oh dear. If I’m not careful I could easily get
addicted to this stuff.’ Seriously, I could. I better not though. Getting
addicted to stuff is not fun to reverse. Once I got addicted to the caffeine
drink of Mountain Due…delicious stuff…terrible withdrawal. I was jittering up a
storm and probably looked like a crazy person. Let’s not repeat that. XD
The culture presentation of food went fine. Nothing special
but I don’t think it was bad. It was fun to see seat buddy go up and talk. When
being involved with me, you can’t stay quiet for long. ;) My influence is
converting him! Muhahaha! >:D
Look! I captured a Seat Buddy smile! Ninja Camera Skills!
As a random encounter, a student from another class gave me a small treat. "Kalingo" seems to be the name. Twas very sweet of him to do so. It was a nummy chocolate circular thing with a chewy middle. Good stuff but I can't seem to find it at the school store. Darn it. Oh well, here's a pretty picture. :P
Art class. *disgruntled sign* Ok here’s the thing. Last
Tuesday is when I finally finished my project and was quite proud of its
turnout. The thin lines were clear, there wasn’t too little or too much paint,
etc. Nothing went wrong. I was very happy! Required to tape our pictures on the
wall, my teacher had me put mine on the door. Fair enough. But then on
Wednesday or Thursday, two people covered up 2/3 of my picture with their own
even though there clearly was available space elsewhere in the room. I found
that kind of rude, especially when the pictures were duplicates and not the original
ones. But whatever, no biggie.
Today we had to take down our pictures and turn them in.
That’s when I found out. Someone had ripped the top part of my hard work.
Thankfully it mostly stayed in the white border and didn’t cut too much into
the painted part, but still, it’s not appreciated at all. I just went on with
my own business until the teacher called me up. She told me I had to redo the
picture again because of the tear… -_- Andrea is 100% not amused. I’m sure all
my art friends can relate. You work so hard on an art project and finally
produce something you like. THEN it gets ruined by some nim-wits that force you
to do it over again. And not just that, but having to do it during a naptime
when you’re really tired. I wasn’t emitting steam from my head yet, but I was
on the path.
So I regretfully skipped naptime and went to restamp my
picture. I did the same process as last time. Roll on the paint, arrange on
paper, rub the paint on and uncover. Sounds simple as heck, right? Well much to
my dismay, the result was not the same as my original. Apparently there wasn’t
enough paint so white splotches littered the picture. Trying again I paid
careful attention to adding a bit more paint and rubbing it in with more force.
This time the picture looked completely blue because it was overdone. My
stamper template was now ruined with paint staining the white lines and it
couldn’t be fixed. FML. The art teacher still had me re-do it with terrible
results and it’s all because of a careless student’s fault for ripping my
original, fantastic picture. Frustration filled my head as there was no way to
correctly reproduce it with the ruined template. It was not a happy time. It
frankly sucked. Moving on…
Something happier, I finally started making Chinese
flashcards for me to study while in class. Between Chinese phrases, Pinyin
vocabulary and traditional characters. They should help me even if just a
little. By the end of my exchange, I may very well have a box-full of
flashcards if I keep this up. XD Is that a win or a lose? :P
Home is now the highlight of my day. I adore the family
atmosphere, the friendly people and Internet access that makes homework 100x
easier (I can do it immediately instead of planning out a library visit and
rushing with limited time).
Even though not everyone was at home, I still had a lovely
Chinese dinner with Yavanna and Xiao Di. ^_^ The meals always have rice, meat,
veggies and soup, which are all super tasty. Allen came home towards the end of
dinner and increased the smiling company by one. We had a special treat of
dessert with sugary num-nums. Normally we’ll have fruit but the family went to
Costco and bought some treats. One type was a sweet roll and the other…BROWNIE
APPEARANCE! :D Made me happy! I learned how to say it in Chinese and had to
laugh at its simplicity. The full name literally translates to “chocolate
brownie cake” but the way you pronounce ‘brownie’ is great. It’ll be
“boo-lun-knee.” ENGRISH! Funny enough I had trouble remembering the
pronunciation despite the similarity. I guess my mind has retained its English
and hasn’t quite converted to Engrish…but for how long? XD
Next up was a bit of TV and some appreciated homework help
from Allen. Two questions in my Chinese University homework made me very
confused. The answers seemed way too simple or not formal enough to be correct.
So Allen happily helped me figure them out. We actually spent a lot of time on
them because he wasn’t too sure either. But we found the solution and all was
well. I just love how not just Allen, but the other family members were so
willingly to assist me in homework. They even were interested to see the
assignments to look at my handwriting of Chinese characters. The level of care
and intimacy of these people makes me feel accepted like a daughter/sister.
I’ll let you imagine my feelings on this. (Hint: they are very, veeeeery fond
feelings. ;D)
When Uncle Eric came home he performed something quite
interesting, making tea. Though it is not nearly as elaborate and technical as
Japanese tea ceremonies, it was fascinating to watch him. The stand to brew the
tea was a sight I’d never seen before having several different parts and stages
of tea making. I don’t know all of it but there was the boiling of water,
sanitizing the cups, pouring water on the tea leaves, reheating a pot by
pouring tea on it and transferring the liquid to an Asian teapot to pour into
the cups. Not a short activity for sure!
Uncle Eric was very thoughtful and diluted the tea with more
water in order to limit the caffeine present in the tea so we could all fall
asleep properly. It was already kind of late when we drank the tea so having a
lot of caffeine wouldn’t be the brightest idea. XD The beverage was of tea made
from leaves grown in Taiwan mountains and had a very nice flavor. Good stuff!
All throughout the tea making process and drinking the finished product,
pleasant talk was exchanged between Uncle Eric, Allen and I, later joined by
Yavanna. One thing they taught me a bit about was some history behind Chinese
simplified vs. traditional characters. The subject connected to a civil war
fought in mainland China between two sides. The losing side fled to Taiwan and
the ones who stayed behind were heavily discriminated and imprisoned. Just a
little history lesson they told me, which I appreciate considering that is one
reason I’m here in Taiwan, to learn the history.
Before we knew it, the clock reported that it was the late
hour of 11:00 and it was time to shut down for the night. Time flies when I’m
with this family! Seriously it does! So I bid everyone a good night, took a
quick shower and knocked out.
And so concludes the day and this Taffy. Sweet dreams my
friends! Bye-bye!
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