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Published: August 8th 2007
Ok, I'm standing in the library lobby typing this. Air conditioning is a blessing which you cannot fully appreciate until you come to Taiwan. Seriously, you do not know the meaning of heat until you've been here. I just checked the weather for the first time-It says that its 84 degrees here, but feels like 94. I find this hard to believe as I feel sweat pouring off of me. The only comfort in this is that everyone here sweats, a lot. I can hear a thunder storm rolling in (Yes, they have thunderstorms! Yay!!) and I hope it will bring some relief as I can't see how it can get anymore humid-but it probably will get more humid. This UV index is 10 plus-everyone here (the girls anyway) carry around unbrellas to help get shade from the sun. Umbrellas are everywhere, rain or shine-especially shine.
Today was the first day of classes. It's 4 classes back to back that are more or less an hour long. Each class has 4 kids, with four or five classes total. The teacher's are great and there's AC, so it's a win/win situation. I got to meet all the other chinese program students today. There's a lot of them, surprisingly. Aside from Graeme, Ryan, me , and this kid from NYU using the Umass program, there are about 15 kids from Puget Sound University. Their teacher came with them, too. They have a slightly different program than us-they have more things catered to them-but I like our program more. They have less of an immersion experience. I feel like my chinese has inproved 5-fold already, if that's possible. I've started thinking in Chinglish in my head. It's a pretty entertaining concept.
Everything is starting to come together now that classes have started-I'm going to go set up a bank account soon for my scholarship money, which is actually going to get to us, and I may start tutoring some random teacher's daughter English. But I'm not sure yet. The secretary of the Chinese program randomly asked me, quickly explained it was a professor (i think) and handed me a phone number. I know have to call this person in Chinese. This should be interesting. Not that I haven't talked on the phone in Chinese before (I've answered my roommates calls they get in the dorm) but I want to make a good immpression.
I've started taking pictures of the campus, which I can't wait to upload onceI get internet in my room. I took pictures of the wall that surrounds the girls dorms, too. They weren't kidding about the shards of glass.
When I was brushing my teeth last night (and not using tap water!) there were a bunch of lizards hanging to the outside of the screen, picking up bugs. I thought that was pretty cool.
I've been eating a lot of weird foods. My roommates have brought back some random things for me to try. So of course I have to say I like whatever it is and eat it. They gave me something last night that was akin to jelly/jello in texture and was ok until I got the bottom. It looked like bits of liver and bugs or something. I really wanted to puke! But for my own sake I didn't.
Ok, that's all for now. I still need to upload the first entry when I get internet. Leave some comments!
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Food
You brave(I think) girl.Not me.I'll stick with my bland plain diet.Great blog.Mom says she does not want to see you turn your nose up at another potato.Look forward to you getting your internet link.Uncle Butch wanted the blog address so I may send it to Cousin Mark or send you his email address.Which would you prefer?.