Karaoke, Class Hopping, and Gelatinous Material

Sunday

I rode the bus to Taipei County and met up with friends for Sunday afternoon fun. On the way, I stopped at Starbucks and had a wonderful taste of home...it was so amazing how with just one sip I was transported to Barnes & Noble with Brittany, early morning at debate tourneys with my brother, and heart to hearts with Amy. A friend sent one of her friends to pick me up at Starbucks, so in what seemed like a few seconds a guy arrived on a scooter, tossed me a helmet, told me to hop on, and the next thing I knew I was having another scooter experience, but this time while holding a Starbucks cup!

We later decided to go sing karaoke (well they decided and took me along) and I was transported to Holiday KTV via motorcycle! We spent the next 3 hours at this karaoke place eating, singing, and drinking slurpees! They sang a gazillion songs in Chinese and then told me to sing a song in English. The selection was kind of odd...I guess they don't get that many people singing karaoke in English, so they opted for me sing "Let It Be" and then all joined in to make it less awkward for me. It was a pretty hilarious experience!

I had an unfortunate accident Sunday evening...Laney had bought me a Taiwanese dessert- colorful gelatinous material layered with not so colorful gelatinous material, interspersed with beans of two colors, and then syrup- which I was eating it on my bed while skyping with my parents. Trying to eat would be closer to the truth...I find food that wiggles kind of disturbing and I so the questionable dessert already had that going against it. Well somehow I managed to I spill it on my bed, which led to it quickly soaking through my little mattress and squishing in weird colors on my sheets. For someone who already doesn't like jello or food that wiggles on its own...I really dislike this dessert now and probably won't be trying it again in the near or distant future!

Monday

Nothing much to say except I did laundry and my clothes came out the same size and color! My neighbor and I were told to fill out a dorm checklist form and had to get the RA's help deciphering which bookshelves were actually cabinets, which cabinets were actually closets, and if the desk drawers were considered different pieces of furniture! We made a pretty comical team as we tried to figure out what exactly our rooms came equipped with!

Tuesday

I started classes on Tuesday and was originally registered for 2 on Tuesday and 1 on Friday, but that all changed after I started class hopping. We were told to try all the classes we might be interested in and then choose after hearing the first lecture, so I tried 3 classes on Tuesday and spent about 8 hours finding out that 6 of those hours were classes I did not want to take! I dropped them (well I actually don't know how to drop them because the form in in Chinese, but I will drop them) and have decided to take classes focusing on intl political economy and development. Both are topics I really like and I'm going to try to incorporate my past years of research on Latin American development into papers and projects for a comparison between Latin America and Asia.

I had fantastic Korean food between classes with classmates and I'm loving the diverse cuisines available in front of the school...I get asked often if I miss the food back home and it always surprises them when they find out that I don't really like hamburgers etc, so I'm really loving all the Asian food! I do miss the abundance of vegetables in the US, but I often go to the fruit stand to buy fantastic fresh fruit!

I need to get a haircut, but I'm a little concerned that if I don't go with a friend who speaks Chinese, I might not have hair left when I come out! I'm sure this will be a great experience, so expect me to blog about my adventures as I get my haircut!