Summary of Almost first week (9/9-9/13)

9/9: Plane ride, pretty good! i was in deluxe evergreen class (right about economy) so I felt fancy with more room and reclining capabilities. It only sucked when i got to Taiwan at 8:40am (1hr late) which would be 8:40pm in NJ.

9/10: So I had the rest of the day still which meant more than 24hrs awake. It was really exciting touching down in Taiwan, it felt really foreign (it's all farmland around the airport) and I was able to get through everything smoothly and found my driver, got my youth travel card and was on my way. Once I got there, my aunt and uncle were already there and had made friends with my host. They had brought a bunch of stuff and we first went to put all my things upstairs. Since no guys are allowed to be in the girls dorm, my host, Adam, had to wear a bright yellow satin vest that I imagined said "BEWARE OF GUY" in chinese in red. My dorm was um...not as nice as I thought it'd be. My aunt had said she was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the dorms so I'm guessing she had a really poor view to begin with. It's 4 people to a room- each person has a loft bed with a built in closet, desk and some shelves underneath. There's two big fans on the ceiling and an A/C unit but you have to buy a card to use it.
The rest of the day was Adam showing me and my relatives to the different offices for me to "sign myself in", and it felt like nothing was really accomplished at the end of the day besides people knowing I arrived and having lots of photo IDs of me (all of which I forgot to bring and had to go back afterwards to give them). I was realizing how important it was to remember the chinese I learned (which felt like none) and felt really out of place and lost. They provided lunch which was like sardines and two pieces of meat (it was restricted) and some noodles and rice and cooked cucumber. i was getting scared that food wouldn't be that great either. so as the end neared (for my guide and relatives to go home and leave me!) I got more and more nervous since I had no idea where to eat for the next few days before classes started. I kind of implied to my aunt that I could go home with her (to help her with stuff) and she said ok and also insisted I stay an extra day until I HAD to go back to school. I met one of my roommates at that point and she was really nice and offered to help me with unpacking (and said my chinese was pretty good) but I was overwhelmed at that point since the closet was miniscule and dirty and had only half a drawer. So i didn't finish packing and went home with my aunt and uncle and immediately felt better about my situation though REALLY tired. Maybe I wouldn't be a goner.

9/11: time to go shopping in Taipei with my aunt and then go sightseeing with aunt and uncle! I was happy with some things I got (one of those soft set of drawers you can hang from a closet that ended up fitting perfectly, and this towel thing that wraps up your wet hair). I thought I was burdening my relatives but they seemed pretty happy with taking me aroudn Taipei. They showed me like every school my mom has ever been to, including their old apartment and possibly my dad's school. I also saw the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial (though we stopped only to take a picture) which the president had covered part of the name to hide its significance, but the overall area was beautiful and really magnificent (also included an opera house). Then saw the Dr. Sun Yatsen memorial where i got to go in and my uncle found an English guide to help me out (everything was in chinese). The English guide was pretty enthusiastic and ended up giving me a whole tour of the history of Taiwan which was only recently researched. My aunt showed where my family came from and moved to and also some other random things. That tour ended right when the last changing of the guard was happening by Sun Yatsen's statue (similar to Lincoln memorial) and so I got to see that too (they did some color guard moves). Then we walked around the grounds where these old guys fly kites REALLY high and kids run around having fun. I think it'd be pretty cool to get to grow up playing in that place (which my cousins got to do). Then went to Taipei 101 to eat and walk around the mall part. It's interesting because my aunt was telling me about all the random details that were significant in taiwan's culture, and i told her that I had seen the architect say he built it like bamboo. They were both shocked and never heard that, and then agreed that seemed true since it was green too. Apparently the current government did not let that idea through because bamboo is considered very mainland China and so not good. Speaking of which, I also saw the President's House which is awesome and nicely placed at the end of a road. He had some new motto and symbol that was like UN for Taiwan but the symbol was like a pitcher throwing a ball. That was to try to show the Taiwanese guy Wang who playes for the yankees who EVERYONE in taiwan loves. The first day I heard of him 3 times through different people and before that I had never heard of him. They were surprised. Apparently the president tries to be buddy buddy with him but Wang's like whatever. Also someone had just set up flares on the road outside the Pres's house that wrote out the word "Pi" which kinda means fart because of some other thing he did. I also got a prepaid phone. i saw on TV them show 9/11 and it was said yet overly dramatic so it bothered me.

9/12: went back to school in the morning to unpack then go to the international student orientation. I was excited for this, hoping to meet some more international students. and figure out more stuff that was going on. i was also happy that everything I brought now had a place in my room! so i ended up meeting another american from VA beach, Josh so it made me happy to be able to talk to someone who was native English. otherwise i've been having to speak very slow simply english and it's tiring. this is on top of having to think very hard with speaking, listening and reading chinese. but the orientation was funny when everyone introduced themselves and seemed very eager to meet new people and be friendly. the pres of international student association was also very friendly and welcoming and showed some events they hold. then people jetted right after so i was sad to not see them, but I talked to some of the students from South America (guatemala, nicaragua...and i forget) and I was trying to use my spanish and was COMPLETELY blank, i could only think of chinese. I only have so much room for foreign language i guess. i talked to my professor and was completely disappointed because I don't have anything remotely resembling a project to work on. he did however give me a paper to edit for $3000NT (~$100US). then i met his students and it was awesome because they were really happy i could speak and understand chinese and they could also use some english. they were so excited and they signed me up on MSN (using chinese...so I have no idea how to actually use it) and i tried to get down their names (MSN, english, chinese, and pinyin names for each person) and then had us take a group picture and then took me on a tour of the campus (which is really small) and there was a student club fair going on. they showed me how to "dian cai", or order food from the food court which i was nervous about. then we went to go to dinner in Chung Li. I GOT TO RIDE SHOTTY ON A MOPED. It was so cool! it really does feel like you could die at any moment though. Esp riding shotty all you have is holding on with your hands to the back handles or to the person in front of you but its fun to feel the wind and see everything not through glass. At all the red lights you can talk to your other friends too. we ended up going to the night market there and got some food from a food stand. Stephen ended up paying for me ($70NT = $2 for dinner!) then we kept walking and stopped at this stand you throw darts at balloons. I hit 3 balloons so I won a nice tall can of asparagus juice :) The next guy hit 2 balloons and got a tiny bottle of soy milk, then next guy hit only 1 and got a small pack of gum. I got the big prize! asparagus juice...haha. then we got bubble tea and I treated everyone and they were like omg that's too nice (even though they had taken me here, etc) but like each one was about 75cents US sooo I spent about $4 for 6 teas! then we played this basketball shooting game and i lost miserably. lots of cool things at the nightmarket, I hope I can go back later to actually buy things. then we drove back and the dropped me off. it was still early so I went to the library to use the internet and like ALL the international students were there so I was just talking to Josh for a while. Then this asian old guy came over ( i thought to complain about us talking) but he jsut wanted to know about us, why we came, what we study, etc. So it was pretty cool to have someone be interested in us. then walked home with the belgians. saw my roommates (met the other one for the first time) and the freshman was SUPER excited to meet me. Besides that she's excited about everything anyway. btw EVERYONE dresses nice and has nice hair and looks put together. meanwhile i'm sweating and have my hair tied back and am really dark.

shitty part of the day? no A/C in my room so it was humid as hell and i couldn't sleep and the fan kept banging the blinds into the wall whenever i was about to doze off. that was awful...seriously. 0 hrs of sleep.

9/13: first day of classes. i was supposed to have class at 9am and Stephen was going to show me and also introduce me to the teacher to say i had to leave at 10:30am for my health exam (which involves getting a stool sample...really gross). But then apaprently the grad students had to go get this exam at 9am so he thought class would be canceled. actually they started roudn 9:15 and then he finally realized half the class was gone so he moved class to 10:30am. So...i already missed class on my first day. The health exam was crazy elaborate and ended up taking about 2.5 hrs to get through everything (2 urine sample tests, 3 blood draws, blood pressure/pulse, height/weight, vision, lungs, skin, chest xray, i think that was all). then i went to have lunch with the Belgians (jerome, cyril, and benoit) and it was funny cuz they were singing SpiderPig (my FAVORITE part of the simpsons) but in FRENCH (suprecachon or whatever) so i learned it in french and they learned the english and they'd randomly break into song the rest of the day. one of the workers came up to ask me about them and i ended up buying food from her. i walked with them to this hypermarket (waaay better than a supermarket, for reals) called Carrefour which ended up being a 30min walk in hot taiwan day dodging cars and mopeds and eating their dirt. i was really tired and we went to the library after. i talked to Stephen and Paul No. 1 on MSN and then Stephen and GaoLung (they call him Milk) came over because i told them the Japanese students were here and Stephen is in love with them. and he tried to help me register for classes but it didn't work. they finally left and i agreed to go get dinner with them. but then i felt really tired so i said i might just go with josh + belgians but instead i went back to my room to lie down. my roommates were there plus a girl named 228 (no joke...she was both on Feb 28 and apparently thats an important day so everyone calls her that), the freshman is called 101 (her name is the same sound as chinese 1, 0 and so with taipei 101, she's 101). i can't imagine calling people a number, let alone 3. anyways we had a great time trying to teach each other english and chinese and ended up going to get an A/C card (thank god) so our room would be nicer. they invited me to go to some ChemE organizing club meeting (that's the best i could understand that they were describing) but i was already goign to dinner so i said i'd go next week. then went to dinner downstairs and i said hi to the lady i got lunch from, but didn't buy so i felt bad. but we had dinner and they invited me to come to a bbq with them on "Mondesday" (monday) then i went back to the library to meet up with Josh+Belgians and now its now.