Example: My ability to take a picture of shoes and half the sign of “bus” on the ground has turned into masterpiece.

He’s got the whole worldddd….dum dee dum

The Lord driveth away (on a grand selection of Taipei scooters)

Wow! Genius photo! What a sensational tree!

Ahhh, Ximen Square, pure professional!

A tired, yet beaming face of some random girl back at the room. . . ha ha

Today I took my Chinese placement exam, and discovered that I would have to start praying. All of the instructions that were announced were given by a woman who spoke not a word, number, or alphabetical letter of english. So, that being said, even if I knew the answers of the writing or listening part, I would not know where to mark them, which set of 123′s to bubble in, or when to start speaking into a microphone.

I left disheartened, feeling like a language failure, and from there could not find the class I had already missed 1.5 hours of. I asked for help of course, and a Taiwanese guard led me all over one building looking for the classroom. When we asked another for help, we were in the wrong building, naturally… After locating the classroom, no one was there. La dee freakin dah. I couldn’t find my phone in my bag to check the time, and in this moment I shed quite a few tears in my own self-pity. I then grew furious at the day, and kicked my bag when I continued the search for my phone. After this, I remembered that I had brought my laptop to school with me today, and had just beaten her for no reason other than my own ungodly and bitter temper.

Eesh.

Well I can tell you, my laptop is still trucking along, considering I am writing this blog post. I am alive and still breathing, now that the sweat has dried on my body and I have washed my face.

I loathe my anger today. I have to remember that I am in Taiwan, my frolicking phase of adventure and a new world slipped away from me today, and I forgot that I am one damn lucky American girl. Realizing the good things about my day and my life in general is what I should focus on, as opposed to destroying my baby (laptop), and bitching about a placement exam that doesn’t really matter in the long run anyway. I had a good tuna wrap today on campus. I drank a nice cold iced coffee at starbucks. I made a friend today and we had a pleasant conversation about traveling. Despite the humidity it was so sunny today and did not rain. I have the opportunity to actually live in Taiwan. I have family and friends from home support me and love me very much. See? Why so upset?

So, after pouting for a good half an hour and discovering it was all ridiculous, I bought myself a milk tea at 7-eleven and a 5 dollar tee-shirt on the side of the road, and called it a day. A very good one at that.

We also played a little ring toss (below)
(Photos courtesy of Danielle Sleeper)

(Chicken Butt Stand!)

(Green Tea and Vegetable Sherbert Topped with Black Beans and Sugar Sauce!)

(Ring Toss!)

(The Crew!)

(Me with the Oyster Omelet, Bubble Tea, and Squid Soup!)

(Mandy, my Buddy!)

Last night a group mixture of Dutch, English, German, Danish, and I went to Roxy 99. It’s okay to say that it was a pretty western place. This has been my first real night outing here other than a drink or so somewhere in the evening. Before we entered they checked my ID and scanned my forehead to read my temperature for the H1N1 Swine. For some reason this is hilarious to me–they do it everywhere. At least 15% of the people here wear doctor masks, and someone got the idea to print cool designs on the masks and now they are mass produced in plaid, polka dots, stripes, etc. I feel like a lab rat but Im starting to like knowing I’m not sick and no one around me is. Taiwan, you’re so smart!

So anyways, cool venue, and yeah, all western music– Lady Gaga, Michael J, Katy Perry, etc, and I was corrected for saying “American music” by the English because they played one Oasis song.

Alcohol is expensive here, around 200$NTD per drink, which I had crossed my fingers to be half that when I got here. I mean 6 dollars, you won’t break your bank account but after eating a whole meal for 50$NTD’s i did get excited.

The bar scene was all Asian women with all European men. You will see Euro men with Asian women, Euro men with Euro women, but you will never see Euro women with Asian men.

Anyways, hurting today. Realizing that since I am drinking and eating less here, it is probably a good thing to continue to drink and eat less here.

Roxy wooooooweeeee Tawain hott spot!!!! ow ow i found these classic photos online:

see what I mean?

“Manifestation is an act of trust. It is the soul pouring itself out into its world, like a fisherman casting a net to gather in the fish he seeks; with each cast properly made, we will bring what we need to us, but first we must hurl ourselves into the depths without knowing just what lies beneath us.”– David Spangler

pow pow

I am still horrified.

……….!!!!!!?????!!!!?????

I didn’t know what to do, go hold her hand, go tell her it was ok… I was so confused. I don’t know if culturally this is how accidents are handled, where everyone has to remain reserved until an ambulance comes.. 10 minutes. It didn’t come for 10 minutes of her anguish and not one person, by the time I had arrived there, went to just hold her hand. I feel like I wasn’t human tonight for not comforting her. I am ashamed for being as stoned cold as the Taiwanese in this moment. There was nothing medically I could do for her, but there is something to be disgusted about for watching a poor girl suffer in public. Does no one have a fucking soul? Do I not have a fucking soul? Who was more paralyzed? She or her damn audience?

I will never ride a scooter, and I refuse to watch a human being hurt like that again, like she’s some sort of road kill, forgetting the civil responsibility of my nature, whether I’m in Taiwan or not, whether I can give medical help or not.

I mean…. fuck.