Who wants a paint pizza?!

Tuesday October 30^th, 2012

PERFECTION!!! I just can’t believe how perfect it was!!!

Last night I finally began something I should have done a while ago, a battery calibration for my Mac laptop. It was the first time I’ve ever done the process because a little voice inside me shrieks “DON’T YOU DARE LET YOUR LAPTOP GET DRAINED OF ALL LIFE! WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING? DO YOU HATE YOUR LAPTOP?! LOOK AT ALL THAT IT’S DONE FOR YOU! YOU’RE A TERRIBLE PERSON!” XD

So I had to fight my instinct and just follow what the Apple company recommended by following their guidelines. As a basic summary, you first charge your battery full then leave it charging an extra two hours. Then you run your computer dead so it automatically turns off. (I’m sorry my Mac baby!) Leave it off for at least five hours then recharge the battery to full before disconnecting the charger cable. This process required a bit of general timing on my part in order to fit each step into my schedule.

The experience went like this. My unfortunate Mac had to go through dying somewhere around 10:30-11:00PM. Leaving it alone, I simply just went to bed for the night. But I wondered if I should set my alarm for 5:00 in order to let my Mac recharge fully before I had to leave for school (6:40AM) so that it would be ready for work when I arrived home. The aspect of awaking early and not knowing if that would be a sufficient enough amount of charge time to reach full, it stayed my hand from setting an earlier alarm.

But gueeeeeeeeess what? I naturally woke up at 5:00! What?! What is this magic?! After a little bit of encouragement to get out of bed, I plugged the charger cable into my laptop and right after, dove into sleep again.

When my original alarm went off and aroused me from slumber, I noticed the LED light on the charger was still orange. Rats! That means it still was charging. I was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to leave it connected all school day because I know that can take a toll on your battery. This made me hope and pray it would finish fully charging before 6:40, the time I always leave for school.

6:25 rolled around and still no luck. Turning my laptop on with the charger still connected, it boasted having over 95% battery. That’s was nice and promising but at 6:35, the charging was still uncompleted and left me no choice but to leave it connected the entire day. Sadness! But I checked one last time right before I left at 6:40. And…

OH MY GOODNESS IT FINISHED EXACTLY AT 6:40!!! THANK YOU SWEET LORD! This just made me way too happy and created a bright start to my day.

Continuing the promises of today, a little adorable, puffy birdie perched on my windowsill in sight. It had such fluffy feathers and the darling sang a lovely morning song. Both seeing and hearing the little sweetheart brought such a smile to my face. Birdies are just THAT wonderful. ^_^

Another interesting and cool thing that happened today was at the teahouse I regularly go to in Tatung campus. Desiring a taste of the papaya milk again, I ordered one cup and paid the printed amount on the menu of $35NT. That’s what I’ve paid before for papaya milk as well as the same for apple milk and banana milk. (Remember the confusion of why each drink is the same price yet the banana milk has more volume?) The man working the shop gave me $5NT back. WHAT?! I’m so confused! But hey, I like it! It’s just another blessing I get to add on to today’s growing list!

Want news of another blessing? I went to 7-Eleven for the healthiest breakfast available I know of as a way to balance out yesterday (and for repenting XD). I planned on getting the same mandarin orange yogurt and a box of sliced fruit, most likely papaya. Well I left 7-Eleven with the yogurt but not the papaya. Why? Because 7-Eleven had something new in stock that I’ve never seen before. THEY HAD APPLES! DO YOU HEAR ME? APPLES!!! OH MY GOODNESS, LOVE!! Of course I had to buy one! See my photography of the apple and yogurt? I’m proud of myself because I made the apple look bigger than it actual was. XD Yeah, it was kinda of small compared to apples I had back in America but any kind of apple is readily welcomed by me! I think it was a ‘gala apple.’ Twas very yummy! My fingers are crossed for 7-Eleven to continually have those in stock! Let’s see what tomorrow brings on that matter! ;D

Education culture exchange presentation time! Joe, my group member from yesterday, was the speaker and got fancy with a PowerPoint! I didn’t know we could have PowerPoints! AWESOME! I know at least my dear sister Amanda knows of my obsession with doing everything on PowerPoint and having that as my life force in technology world. This means that I totally would love to make future presentations if I’m given time to do so! (more on that later ;P)

Joe did a great job with his part of the presentation! Kudos to you man! Next up was myself. Heading to the front of the classroom, I looked towards the back of the room in order to distinguish what the principal (our surprise guest) looked like. But I didn’t spot one man, I spotted two! So I still don’t know what my principal looks like. XD Either way, my part went well as I was able to milk out some laughter and exhales of amazement. Yay!

Passing by my homeroom teacher afterwards, a conversation started with asking if I wanted to continue doing culture work since next week will be my last assigned subject. I willingly agreed and offered up any assistance I could give in her English class (because she asked me to read aloud some vocabulary words to my class today). At one point I brought up how I wanted to do a thorough PowerPoint (told you it would appear again ;D) over the differences between Taiwanese and American high school since there is SO MANY! This was said in a way that I was going to create it more for personal entertainment and hobby rather than something to present at school. But my homeroom teacher instead excitedly began to take us in the direction of making such a PowerPoint with the intentions of showing it to her different English classes. She suggested working with Joe (you know him ;P) and how he would be keen to help out.

This all boils down to that I am going to be crafting a detailed PowerPoint over the differences of Taiwanese and American high schools. I’m super thrilled because I wish to share with both my classmates in Taiwan, as well as my peeps in America, this invigorating subject. Well, invigorating to me at least. XD And with Joe’s help, I might be able to get education details not openly available, like student population figures, class list, club list, etc.

With this being said, if I am to do this extensive project, I will need help on the Texan end. Things like taking pictures of various parts of Klein Collins (for example, the commons, hallways, textbooks, etc.) or what food is available for purchase at the lunch lines with general prices. That kind of stuff. I might shoot an e-mail to a past teacher or an office attendant to ask for things such as student population, the area/dimensions of the school, etc. As you might be able to tell, I’m going to put a lot of time and work into this since I really enjoy this subject and because my deadline is when my feet touch American soul again. This allows me to put all my heart and care into it! I’M SO EXCITED! But will someone, or does anyone know of a student at Klein Collins that will voluntarily help me with this? I can’t get into contact with anyone yet but I just wondered if y’all knew of someone. Do you think the Yearbook people would be able to share their pictures and info? I feel like that’s a no since they’re also so busy. Well just have to see!

Tuesday means Art class! I FINALLY FINISHED OUR ART PROJECT! YESSSSS!! Carving a few artistic dots and dashes to distinct the wall from the ground, I decided that would be the final touch. Moving on to painting, I chose the color blue (options: black, green, blue and red) and went on to spread a thin layer of paint with a roller. Afterwards, you press a large white piece of paper on top and rub a thing-ma-whats-it all over to imprint the paint design onto the sheet. Then, VIOLA! You have yourself a stamp painting! …that was reversed. XD Oh well! It didn’t really matter because I only had four small Chinese characters that were butchered anyway. Carving teensy-weensy Chinese characters is SUPER hard!

Here was my finished, blue product! This is the stamper, not the imprinted paper. I preferred showing the original, non-reversed version, though the classroom lights had a nasty glare on the shiny painted surface! XD I’m pretty proud with how it turned out. Sure it’s not the most artistic or beautiful picture ever but remember, I CARVED that with thin, looooooong, straight lines of death. On my original sketch, I drew some pencils on one desk for added effect. They ended up getting cut because it is near to impossible to carve something as petite as that. But I think it’s just fine with how it turned out.

I had a small photoshoot with my classmates’ hanged up pieces of art. Some are quite lovely!

For reference, my reversed blue classroom scene is on the door to the left! As the boy is doing in the picture, we ended up looking like artistic pizza delivery people since we had to carry around the painted stampers (I’m just referring to them as ‘stampers’ because they act as stamps and I don’t know their actual name :P) in this way in order to keep our hands clean. I carried mine as you would an apple pie being removed from the oven, by barely touching the sides but having a firm grip. That was my mistake because blue lines marked my hands afterward. XD So the pizza delivery method is a lot cleaner.

At the front of the room was the location of the painting and imprinting stations. The girl bending down is rolling her paint onto her stamper. The guy in the BRIGHT ORANGE uniform just finished rubbing the thing-mah-whats-it. The lady’s head poking out behind from he is our art teacher. More pizza delivery to the right!

Another example of my classmates looking like pizza delivery guys. This was just too good of a shot not to get a picture of because to me it seriously screams “PIZZA PIE!”

At the end of art, the class was bustling around finishing their work or chit chatting if already done. All of a sudden, I felt someone purposely touching my hair. Already sensing it was the girl whose been asking to cut my hair, I whirled around and swished my hair protectively away. This triggered a conversation in which she asked the reason for my action. I replied I was afraid of her coming up behind me with scissors. Even yesterday she asked again but added on that if her basketball team won an upcoming hard game, her reward would be to cut my hair. I have no idea of the game’s outcome but I am not going to let her murder my hair. Even though she explained today that she’s only been joking, I’ve become paranoid. Her loss. :P

Lunch was bought at the buffet line today. I selected leafy veggies, potatoes, tofu, one fried egg, one boiled egg and a small slice of ham. Yeah, I know, overkill on the eggs. But they’re so yummy and a great source of protein! :D As per usual, I snatched up some purple rice. There’s an abundance of white rice but there is nearly no purple rice in comparison. I seized the last one on the counter! My guess is that purple rice is not as preferred so therefore there’s a smaller amount set out. The interesting part of today’s purple rice was that it was very sticky and gooey. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing or ‘it doesn’t matter’ thing. It can be best described as if you set chocolate out in the sun for a bit and it all melts together into one big clump. That’s what the rice was like today. Very strange, very strange indeed.

Tomorrow holds the monthly Rotary Club luncheon I am to attend. Technically it’s weekly but exchange students only visit once a month and for me it’s the last Wednesday. Let’s hope and pray I can find my way a lot easier than last time! XD Wish me luck!

Have a good day everyone! Love ya! 再見! (Bye!)