In the Eye of the Storm

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Hi everyone!

I'm not sure how many of you were aware of this, but on Friday the biggest typhoon of the year hit Taiwan. Because Taichung is protected by mountains to the east, we didn't feel the effects of the typhoon until Friday night, and even then they were weakened by having to go through the mountains first. Weakened maybe, but still ferocious in their intensity. Our teachers warned us of the typhoon, so we prepared by buying food in preparation to stay in all day Saturday. Instant noodles, chips, and other snacks were very popular at the convenience stores as students around campus prepared for a weekend inside. On Friday afternoon after class, I joined three other girls on a trip to the bookstore (one of the girls wanted to find a book in case the power went out, and the rest of us considered getting coloring books. I still might get one before I leave, but I didn't buy one yesterday), and then up to Dongbie (the small night market/shopping area right outside of campus) for food to bring back for dinner later that night. The afternoon was cloudy, making it more humid, and slightly breezy, but it wasn't raining. We had all grabbed our raincoats just in case, but wearing them was unbearable because it was still so warm. Most of the shops in Dongbie were closed by the time we got there (around 4pm), and I'm sure the rest probably closed early. Later that evening, but before the sun went down (around 6), the wind began to pick up, and my roommates and I all went out on our balcony to watch the trees sway. It was also interesting to watch the clouds, which were moving so fast that it seemed almost surreal. The clouds were like something you would see in an apocalypse movie, as they sped across the sky unnaturally quickly as the sun set for the last time. It was pretty eerie to watch, but also really cool, because the clouds higher up did not seem like they were moving at all in comparison.

As night fell, it began to rain and the wind kept getting steadily stronger, occasionally blowing hard enough and in the right direction to rattle our balcony doors. Meanwhile, the wind moaned and echoed through the bathroom. Unpleasant, but ignorable. However, the banging of the laundry room doors became steadily more eerie, as the wind made it through the windows of the room and slammed the (closed) doors against their frames again and again. At about 2:30, as one of my roommates returned from the bathroom (the other was asleep), an alarm started to go off down the hall. Seconds later, the power shut off. As we didn't have any lights on in the room by that point, this was marked by our fan falling completely still. The lights in the hall also went dark, save for one emergency blue light that gave the hall an eerie blue glow. At the sound of the alarm, the previously asleep roommate woke up, and we all looked at each other, unsure of what to do. Two of us went to investigate, and found the alarm was on the fire extinguisher container. Other than two other girls from our program and one other girl not from a room down the hall, nobody came out of their rooms. I'm assuming they all slept through it, somehow. None of us were sure what the alarm meant or how to stop it. We considered trying to call someone with the phone in our room, because the landline was still working, but didn't know who to call or what we would say to them. Eventually we just stayed in our room and the alarm went silent at one point or another. The previously sleeping roommate decided to go back to bed, while the other one and I watched the storm from our balcony doors. Even in the dark, you could see the trees shaking with the force of the wind, and we were surprised to see that there were people actually out driving in the storm. Sometimes they would stop to wait out an exceptionally intense gust of wind, but for the most part, they just kept going through the storm. We also saw a few bright bursts of light a ways across the street, where we think power lines blew or something. The wind was blowing really hard, and at times would rattle our doors so hard that my roommate would take an involuntary step back.

Without the fan, our room began to feel stifling, so I decided that it was time to go to bed, before it got so bad that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. I woke up a few times that night when a particularly strong burst of wind would rattle our doors or slam the laundry room doors loud enough that I could hear them at the other end of the hall. At times, the wind was so strong that the building shook, which I could feel in the movement of the bed. It wasn't a peaceful night's sleep, that's for sure! On Saturday, I woke up a few times but always made myself go back to sleep, both because I hadn't gotten much sleep and because in sleep I wasn't aware of how the room felt like a sauna. By the time I finally gave up trying to sleep and got up at 12:30ish, the wind and rain had died down enough that we could open the doors a bit, though it wasn't much cooler outside. Finally, at 1:30 pm, we finally got power back, and we all cheered when the fan turned itself back on. Sweet relief! Because the rain (pouring rain, that is) and wind were on and off all day, we stayed inside, working on homework and watching videos and the like. As night fell again, the wind and the rain began to pick up again. I was a little worried we would lose power again, but luckily we didn't.

Today has been cloudy and drizzly. My roommates and I went out in search of food at around 1, and campus is a mess. So many of the trees have been stripped of branches, and there are even some that broke in half some time during the storm. Parts of the paths are obscured by branches, and around some of the buildings are broken remains of shingles that blew off the roofs. It almost seems surreal, because I've never before witnessed the aftermath of a natural disaster in person before. It has always just been images on the TV that are seen but never really comprehended. Seeing the destruction firsthand makes me so thankful that I had a safe place where I could stay out of the storm. Luckily we all weathered the storm safe and sound, ready for what will likely be our most difficult week yet.

Our week begins with a test tomorrow (Monday), followed by a rough draft for a presentation that we will give on Friday, with an additional test on Wednesday. As we have three different teachers, our tests are always a little different. I am not at all worried about the test on Wednesday, because Huang laoshi's tests are pretty easy. However, the test tomorrow is Yu laoshi's, and her tests are very difficult for me because she has a vocab section where she will give us characters and we have to write the pinyin. One would think that writing the pinyin would be easier than writing the character, but they would be wrong. At least in my case. For me, pinyin is pretty impossible because of the tones. This actually makes no sense to anybody, myself included, because when I am speaking, more often than not I say words with the correct tones. Theoretically, this should mean that I should be able to figure out the tones based on the way I say the word. For some reason, it doesn't work that way. When I try to think about the tones that I am saying by slowing myself down and thinking about it, I am almost always wrong about the tones. When I speak, I don't think about the tones I am using, because I have kind of associated the tones with the words themselves, so I say words the way I know they sound, not because I know they are third then second tone or whatever. This somehow means that when I try to think about what I am saying, I just mess myself up and start second-guessing the way I say things, which is counterproductive in the worst way. My only other option is to try to memorize the tones, and those who know me well know that I am absolutely terrible at memorizing things. Even with vocabulary, I learn so much better just by using the words over and over, rather than sitting down and trying to force them to stick in my brain. On Yu laoshi's last test, I ended up more or less guessing on all of the tones, and got almost all of them wrong. Guess we will just have to see what happens tomorrow...

Anyways, TL;DR we survived the terrible typhoon and have lots of tests and assignments coming up this week. Yay stress!

Hope everyone is doing well, and until next time!

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Photos

In the eye of the storm
Off to the left, the boy's dorm has shingles missing in the corners of the building.

Comments

[Terry May]

Typhoon Katie!
Hi Katie, Well, there's another thing you can check off your TO DO LIST: 'live through and sleep through a typhoon' - exciting, too exciting lah! Good luck on the exams! We saw your card last night as we Skyped with Lianne while she ate her Ling Ling dumplings from her Hello Kitty cup - real Asian cuisine! Terry