Dried off and went back to the room to clean up. Blew my nose, hung dry my stuff and went for breakfast. Something out of the ordinary happened during breakfast. Emmy, one of the 6' rowing triad, accidentally bumped someone holding a bowl of rice porridge. You figure out the rest. The standard formula for b'fast: congee, eggs, pork shreds, cabbage.
Went to language class in the new room. Not a powerful A/C and fans would cool us. Definitely a possibility that I would severely sweat a ton. Today's class was to write a letter home. Let's say this: I realize that calligraphy is one hell of a hard discipline. My letter writing was just plain ass.
After language, I had sword-fighting class. We learned more moves to add to the confusion. However, today we began to learn a routine with the stick-fighters. The only thing to mention about class: Albert, a fellow council member sparred with me. He tripped me in front of the whole class. (No, that wasn't embarrassing!)
Lunch today was okay. Del and I waited for Henry to sprawl out of bed because of his messed up back. (He is still bitching about his bebe gun to Danny.) At the lunch table, I felt badly that one girl who helped get the rice was displaced because a couple of people sat down in empty seats. Menu: sweet/sour pork, fried fish steak, bamboo, watermelon and "roof-leak" soup. (The roof leaked water into the soup.)
The afternoon was another swim practice. Time trials were done after the warmup-- I did a 50m sprint in 30 seconds. There were a couple of guys faster than me: Morgan (not the roommate) swam a 28 and Joe did a 29. Pretty good times for people out of shape. I figure I can shave about a couple seconds with a good start and mental preparation. The girls on the team are pretty good. The only one seriously into swimming was Amy Chang, the one I met at the military college. During practice, I showed a couple of girls proper freestyle technique and flip-turns. I was in the pool for about 2.5 hours... definitely got dark.
I went back upstairs and crashed before the Ocean Festival. The festival was a bunch of stalls with various foods to eat. We were given tickets that would buy us certain things. After I had my fill of 7-Up, radish cake, "toh-tsiang", moi-tsee, and bao-tse, I watched Henry and Laurence duke it out in a darts game.
I returned from the festival and took a much needed shower. I laid in bed for a good 2 hours. Henry and Morgan went to watch the kung-fu movie at Ocean Hall. Danny got a few calls from friends and got the shaft from some chick. I talked to him for a while about family, the future, etc.
Had council meeting at 10:30 in the second
floor lobby. Discussed trivial things like the servant auction. Went back
to my room for bed check and then returned to the council meeting. This
is where the action begins. Apparently, Serae (pronounced Suh-Ray)
totally went spaz on Christine, our counselor advisor. Some nasty 'ho counselor
in a black T was very accusative about how we did things and was very inflexible
to our suggestions. I couldn't take any more of the senseless partisan
debate so I went back to my room at 12:30am. Serae came back to my room
afterwards to talk to Morgan. Henry and Danny came back afterwards. (Danny=scoping
out; Henry=call g'friend)
Breakfast was on the bad side. The warmed soy drink was burned severely. Otherwise, the rice porridge, meat shreds, cuke preserve, and veggie were the usual. Got back to the room to change clothes (still in my post-swim wear) before class. Language class was more of the same. The counselor, Angela?, will cheer me on tomorrow in the pool.
The sword-fighting class was exceptionally hot. We finished the routine, plus we are working with the stick-fighters on a coordinated routine. That is much more fun that our solo part.
In the afternoon, we were scheduled to head to Wonder World, a Taiwanese Disneyland. Two sections to this theme park: an adventure park and a water park. The bus ride took 1.5 hours. During the trip we watched Point of No Return, starring Bridget Fonda. The SoongScore on the film 6/10. I've seen better but I've definite seen much worse.
At the park, I was supposed to head for
the adventure park but I was convinced by Lily to go to the water park.
Was I glad I was convinced-- the other place was crap. I spent the majority
of the time hanging out with Belinda and Lily. I went on all the various
slides. The really tall slide was the most fun. I did manage to get in
a few minutes of tag in the "wave pool". I was impressed that Alan was
able to tag me... someone who can best me in my medium... a novel
idea.
(Thanks again to Alan for holding my
wet shorts on the way back home; Belinda for getting me a locker to hold
my dry stuff; Lily for convincing me to the "good" park; Albert and Morgan
for $$ 'cause I "lost" my wallet.)
Yes that's correct, I lost my wallet. Or so I thought. After we ate dinner at the park, I quickly went back to the bus and asked the driver, in Taiwanese, if he'd found a wallet. It was my lucky day... he found it. He also mentioned that my Taiwanese was pretty good. (I need those confidence builders)
Tonight we headed straight to Chien Tan to see an acrobatics performance. I was really impressed by the performers. Special ones to note: the guy who jumped over 17 people (one of which was Warren), the chair guy, spinning dish clowns and the magic guy (he stole a watch from an audience member's wrist without being detected).
The ride back to Ocean was really fast.
When we got back, Del and I had to go to the servant auction meeting. It
was just a organizational meeting; we still have to think up of something
to do, something like a skit. We did some brainstorming, but nothing concrete.
After council meeting, which was very painful, I asked Danny to get me
some food from the McDonald's in town since he was headed there. (My craving
for American food was overwhelming.) The food arrived at 1:30 but that
didn't stop me from devouring all that tasty grease. I went over to room
418, so I wouldn't disturb my sleeping roommates. Over there, they were
having a raman noodle party. Couple guests were already there: Belinda,
Lily and ... (forget name).
After practice, we ate breakfast. People were scared that they would cramp up, etc. I knew I would get tremendous hunger pains if I didn't eat. Stayed away from the excessively greasy food; that kept my selections to a minimum. Roll call was supposed to be at 9am but didn't really start until 9:45. During that wait, I went back to my room and got the others out of bed. Once opening ceremonies finished, I went back upstairs to get some rest and get all my gear in order. Danny came back with Grace so I got the impression that they wanted to be alone. So, I headed up to room 909, Amy's room.
Up there, I got a chance to meet her 3 roommates. One in particular was really self-conscience: looking fat wearing this, too hot wearing that. (Women!) The other two were a very encouraging, very friendly. All were very open in discussing the flaws with the ex-boyfriends in front of me. Amy and I headed down poolside so that we could get some warm-up in. Apparently we were racing at around 11:30.
My warm-up was loosening up tight muscles. The majority of the time, however, was figuring out a way to keep my goggles on. (I haven't done a competitive start in 2 years, okay?!) Luckily, the key was to tighten the strap and to but the swim cap over the straps. The highlight of the day: Soonger takes the gold in the 50 free in a time of 28.54 seconds. My relay appearance was a 50 backstroke warm-down. (Our girls were on the slow side)
After I congratulated all the participants, I took a shower and got changed. I went upstairs and hung up all my wet gear. I went down to eat lunch. Today was buffet-style... yum. I ate with Serae, Wil and Morgan. I pigged out on the lychees. After lunch, we all went to see the movie of the day, The Temptress Moon starring Joan Chen; SoongScore 5.5/10. It was a very strange movie. I did appreciate the Eastern representations of men and women (insightful... very refreshing to see a film taking about values similar to many.)
After the movie, I went back to the dorm and hung out in 418. My room was being occupied by 2 heterosexual people in 1 bed (had to make that clear). I naturally assumed the worst and hauled my butt outta there. I hung out with Del and talked about the computer game he bought (Civilization II). We went downstairs for closing ceremonies. It started to rain so we waited. We eventually got there, (late), but I did manage to pick up my award for the 50 free. This included a beer mug and a medal. (Guess I do have a souvenir)... Amy won the 100 free for the girls and wore her medal around.
Tonight, I helped with setting up for the post-Olympic party. I passed on dinner served in the caf and opted for raman noodles and lemon water from the variety store. After I ate I found Del to work on our skit for the slave auction. We did manage to go to the dance to make our appearance, albeit short, but we bailed and worked on our skit. Mike gave us a great idea and we used it. Del, however, added the finishing touches to make our skit sooo sweet. We got it checked by Mike, who was playing cards in his room.
Thoughts for tonight:
The sword-fighting class on the other hand... did some fun stuff practising with the stick-fighters but not very exciting stuff. I'm beginning to notice that all this time in the gym has taken a toll on me. Must have lost 4 lbs. from sweating alone over the past couple of weeks. So... I had to make it up during lunch. Lunch was an interesting situation. The boys of 1318, minus Henry, took a table and devoured its contents. The five of us, Wil, Keli'i, Warren, Del and I, were able to eat for 10. I was shocked to see how much we ate.
The afternoon was spent in Taipei at
the city government and world trade centre. The multimedia presentation
was quite good; maybe it was a few minutes too long. The trade centre was
a real bomb. Henry and I went to all the floors to find interesting things
to buy. We were later told that all merchants were wholesalers; we could
only buy in bulk. Blake actually did buy something. He bought a CD cache
for his computer for 400NT. (why??!)
The highlight of the afternoon for me was quite by chance. I got to know Jenny Kwok. She goes to Berkeley (like many others here on this trip) majoring in English. I couldn't believe how many things we had in common. It was so exciting to just talk and be ourselves; none of that clubbing bullshit. Since I am leaving on Saturday, we exchanged e-mails so I can suggest some movies to go see. Damn, I do hate leaving now. When I start to meet some interesting people, I gotta leave. =(
When we returned from the trip, Del and I had to quickly find materials to use for our skit. First, we went to the kitchen to borrow a pot. After a little confusion, I pulled out the necessary Taiwanese to get what we needed and headed out to town. We then went to the 7-Eleven to buy some candy to give out. We asked around where we could find freshly cut flowers-- they only sold flowers in Keelung early in the morning. We had to improvise; Del distracted one of the guards at Ocean and I pulled out some hibiscus flowers. (That was so fun!) It started raining, so Del and I ducked into a restaurant and ordered food. Del was brilliant and ordered tsiow-tse, or meat dumplings to you non-Mandarin speakers. They were so good! (and so cheap!)
Once it stopped raining, we noticed that it was time for us to be at the slave auction for final preparations. We quickly got all our stuff, including my sword from class, and ran to the auditorium (we practised our lines on the way there). Henry went along-- Keli'i signed him up and he's going solo... (what a brave soul). We were drawn seventh to go up.
When it was our turn, we did a convincing performance. Keli'i was our narrator (what an excellent job he did!) Our skit was based around the what constitutes the perfect servant. The perfect servant had to have harmony between body and spirit. The martial arts perfects this balance (that's where my sword comes in). I purposely butchered the moves I learned in class-- I could hear the approval of the audience by their laughter. Del's portion of the show was to demonstrate that the perfect servant should be able to cook (that's where the pot and apron came in handy) His joke: he was supposed to get the cooking class as his heritage class, but was stuck in calligraphy; the best cooking he could do was give out candy to the crowd (that's where the candy came in). Once he did that, I came back onto stage and we said in synch: "Quite honestly, we don't have any real special skill.. but if all you need is a smiling face after a long, hot day... or if all you need is a cheerful hello after a long night... then maybe we can be the perfect servant for you." The girls in the crowd ate it up; the guys knew we spread the bull on thick. To complete our skit, we handed out the hibiscus flowers I ripped out earlier. When we finished, the bidding for us began. The bidding alternated between Amy, my swimming friend, and Elaine, the fellow counselor. We were sold for 900NT to Amy and her roommies.
When the auction was all over, I realized that the bad-ass stuff doesn't necessarily get you very far all the time. (Guys who took off their shirts and flexed didn't get the highest bids.) Del and I had "masters" now and we were willing to individually take our masters back because it was raining. They were really nice and told us we didn't have to do anything... so far.
That night, I went to the arcades. I played many a game of Daytona USA, a car racing game. The place had a 6-player link so racing was really intense. What got my attention was that one game costed only 25 cents (a normal game at home costs a dollar). We got back for the most part sans rain, but I ran a bit at the end. (I took off my shirt to keep it dry). I hung around outside the hallway after bed check until 1. I learned how to play the game, Mafia. Definitely have to show the friends back home how to play. Afterwards, I went back to my room to do a little review of words before my exam in a few hours...