Breakfast that morning was okay; lunch was on the good side. The placement test was held after lunch. We were given 3.5 hours to complete the two sections. I, along with the majority of others in my testing room, required less than 5 minutes to complete the written section. They were blank sheets with our names on it. The second section of the test was the oral exam. When it came to my turn to be rated by the oral examiner, she needed only 20 seconds to place me; I spoke to here in Taiwanese. (The average for the oral test was 4 minutes.)
That afternoon was spent in my room. Wil beat me back by a few minutes to be the first one back into the room. Keli'’i was a close third. From what I recall, these are the class seatings, (1=best, 9=worst), Keli'’i=2, Warren=2, Henry=3, Del=5, Wil=6, me=8.
Dinner was okay, at best. Sat with the 1318 crew (which is my room), sans Del and Warren. The Welcoming Party, another scheduled event, was a chance for the counselors a chance to spell out the rules of DON'Ts. Afterwards, Henry and I ran to the night market to find the CDs that Ann asked me to find; Henry bought many Tarsi Hsu memorabilia. (It's Tarsi, not Traci.) We returned a little more sweaty than when we left. Henry called his girlfriend, who was at the other camp.
Shortly after 11pm, Belinda had us head out to 2Kinky, a club. This was the first, and last, time for me to go clubbing in Taiwan. At first, I didn'’t want to go. However, since Keli'’i was going, I went. Wil was hesitant as me, but he was soon convinced. Warren was wiped out by Snake Alley, so we didn't want to wake him. Our first task was to find a way to sneak out. There were some who tired to jump the fence but the security guard caught them. We just walked out the front gate. Taxis were easy to find.
After a little explaining to the taxi driver, we had a fairly easy time finding the place. I needed a couple of Coronas before I started dancing. Some girl by the name of Lucy dragged me on the dance floor. Belinda got Wil to dance eventually. I was there for a total of 2.5 hours. The highlight of the night was when they played Erasure. I also ran into Cris Chui from the airplane. She teased me by asking where my mom was. Anyway, Keli'’i and I left the place a little after 2. (Belinda had one cooler before she got really buzzed. Some guy bumped her on the dance floor and she lost her balance. Guess who had to catch her?)
Keli'i wasn't feeling well and I was getting
tired so we decided to head out. My Taiwanese had to come to the rescue.
The driver didn'’t know where Chien Tan was. I had to describe the location
with my broken Chinese. I have to say I think my Taiwanese is getting better--
pronunciation need a little fixing, but it does the job. I took a quick
shower when I got back and crashed. (I had to get that smoke smell out!)
My first class as an A8 student was enjoyable. The teacher, Mrs. Chen, was very nice; I had to learn the beginnings of the "boh-poh-moh-foh" phonics. We completed seven simple syllables and then combination sounds to form words.
Afterwards, I had to attend a socio-economic lecture. The lecturer was very apologetic that he would present material in which he didn'’t have real expertise. Other than the odd question, it was true to word-- it was long and boring. I sat with Jimmy, another Texan and also a classmate in my language class. Many know him as the smiling guy from Houston.
The trip to the National Palace was so shit. The only saving grace was me walking through the museum with Joyce, the EE girl from Illinois. Didn'’t say anything very meaningful but it did help pass the time. I was stupid to wear my navy Tommy t-shirt. Reason: I walked down from the museum to the gardens below. It was so damn humid and sunny. I was drenched in sweat; the SpeedStick didn'’t help at all. I was glad to see my friend, Raymond, was there.
Dinner that day was absolutely awful. However, the people I ate with made it bearable. Del and Henry were there, the T.O. femme triad: Connie, Cris, and Sam, and some of Henry’s friends, including another person named Joyce, a spitting-image of my cousin. I sat next to Joyce and was amazed to hear she was only 18! We guys came to the conclusion that Joyce was in the race as one of the "best" here. However, Henry was quick to point out another nameless pale-skin girl. (She has a Chinese name, which has me curious as to her identity.)
There was a spectacular martial arts presentation
at the auditorium that night. Since we had a couple of hours of free time
after the show, Wil, Keli'’i and others headed over to bowling mania while
Del and I stayed behind. Henry kept trying to call her girlfriend, Melodie,
over at Ocean. The bowling people returned in time for the 11pm bed check.
Getting this morning wasn’t so difficult,
considering all the sleeping I did the previous night. I ate breakfast
with Keli'’i because the others did not start class until later or they
just didn'’t want to eat another crappy meal. The items: bread, eggs, hot
dogs, and fried seafood patties. Keli'’i liked the food so much, he risked
demerit points by ripping off extras from an unused table.
Chinese class had the teacher show us quite a few more phonics, plus a quiz on which tone was spoken. Connie and Chris are in my class, so I have good conversation during the break, and occasionally during lecture. Today, we chose our class rep for Student Committee. It was a race between Yolanda and me. After the democratic "paper-rock-scissors", I got the nod as class rep.
The ROC lecture talked about the ideology of the Taiwan government and relations with the rest of the world. Belinda’s roommate, Lily, brought up a couple of good flaws in the propaganda we were be subjected to. In the process, a couple of students sitting by me were not amused by her comments and questions.
Keli'’i and I went to lunch, along with the rest of the gang. We tagged along with people that Belinda knew. Once again, Keli'’i got extra servings for us. [Earlier, Henry got his uncle to get him out of Chien Tan for the day. He wasn’t too happy with the situation there.]
My folk art class is figurines. I made a Totoro, a rabbit, and a seal. My Totoro already lost a foot and his tail; my rabbit is just plain demented and my seal was made because I couldn'’t form a dolphin’s nose properly.
The Introduction to Chinese Economics lecture had another dignitary talk to us. He was very apologetic because the material covered was very boring, etc. Since he lectured entirely in English, I found it not as bad as he portrayed it would be. I learned a bit about Taiwan.
After dinner, which was on the shit side, there was a dance performance. They had girls aged 7-18 years old-- an excellent show. Once again, we had a couple of hours of free time prior to bed check. This time, I headed down to the night market to buy clothes, since I ran out of clean laundry. Wil and Belinda came along. They came away with stuff, while I was empty- handed. Looks like I’ll be doing laundry in the very near future. I’ll probably do my stuff with Wil’s.
Also, the counselors were cracking down
on those people who sneak out to clubs after bed check. Last night's hotspot
was"Sex-a-GoGo". Belinda got busted, as well as a whole ton of others.
Students were stuck in the stairwells and lobbies thinking about what to
do last night. One story I heard: a group heard about the crackdown, so
they decided to hang out at the 24 hour bowling alley until 5:30. The counselors
stayed up all night-- they all got busted...
I gotta seat beside Cris today. The teacher returned our test from yesterday. I knew I got a 100 on it-- listening for one tone isn't difficult. Picking tones out in a conversation is another story. The teacher taught us the remainder of the phonetic sounds in about 20 minutes. The quiz today was much trickier than I thought.
Free time today was doing laundry. It took freakin'’ forever. So many people were doing their stuff-- rapper types from T.O., etc. Some Taiwanese woman wearing a nasty yellow shirt took a spaz when we moved her clothes out from the washer to a table. I did Wil’s and my whites. A classmate, Yolanda, had a few whites so I threw her stuff in as well. I came back from lunch to get the stuff. Lunchtime was interesting, to say the least. The food was surprisingly edible. Keli'’i and I were in a rush, so we did the "dine-and-dash". (I find that’s kind of rude.)
Afternoon time started with the folk arts class. Our instructor with the missing teeth taught us how to make a pig and an ear of corn. I am kind of actually proud of my pig. The ear of corn, however, is on the "ass" side. The Totoro made yesterday lost his other foot, so at least he’s symmetric now. Free time (again!), I came back to finish up my homework, writing out characters.
Later, I went with Henry to the "gym" they have on campus. What an absolute joke! They had perhaps 8 pieces of equipment, half of which were broken. They even had pool tables in the same room. We were so disappointed, we decided to head back to the room. Of course, it started to rain so Henry and I had to run from building to building back to our room.
Dinner was eating with the group SANS Henry. It was either a group of 8 or 11, depending on how people are grouped for 10. (Does that make sense to you?! People wanted to sit together...) For the first time, I absolutely pigged out here. Wil and I afterwards bought dessert from the grocery store in the lobby.
Tonight’s scheduled event was purchasing the various equipment for our heritage class. I had to pay 500NT (about $25 CAD) for a sword and kung fu pants. After everyone got their stuff, we headed to a KTV for karaoke. Initially, there was a large group of people going, about 15. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up as to the location of which KTV we were supposed to go. I was with Henry, Laurence, Ken (meds at Toronto), Emily (good singer), Joyce (Wellesley college), and Shing-Cha (the pale skinned one that Henry mentioned). For a change, Henry's call on females was correct. I found Shing-Cha to be very personable and articulate. I had a pretty good time. We sang some crazy-ass songs: the Love Boat theme, Careless Whisper, Fame, etc. We had to rush back because three of us had a council meeting. I paid 400NT for drinks + taxi.
The meeting we went to was absolute shit.
Because there were people who did not want to take part or were indifferent
to everything, things did not go as smoothly as possible. We had to decide
on what song to do for a variety show at a military college, and other
stupid activities. Lily was elected as president.
We got back to our rooms at around midnight. I took a shower and finished writing up the day’s activities. It’s about 1:30am now and Del and Keli’i are have a great debate over what is wrong with the world (in particular, sexism). Keli'’i is arguing that things are causal whereas Del wants to blame the individual. Henry was trying to sleep while this was going on too! (Warren and Wil went to a club.) I still have to memorize the damn phonetics.