Bad Habits Return...

Well, last night I did not end up studying... Instead, I seem to have fallen back into school mode which consists of snacking and facebooking until the wee hours of the morning. I decided that I would wake up early and study; however, that did not happen either.

Last night we went to a noodle place. I cannot tell you exactly what I had because I really didn't know either. The noodles aren't really all that filling by themself but they come in a soup that you drink and almost instantly you are full. Also, since I have not yet perfected my chop stick skills, Lily asked for a fork for me to use. The waitress had to go to the restaurant next door to get one.

This morning for class, we learned about fruit. Taiwan is famous for its different kinds of fruits. Our teacher brought in a bunch of different fruits, some that we had never seen before and let us try them all. Our teacher also played a song called "Hong Dou" that is very popular right now and extremely catchy. We keep hearing it all over the place. A girl sings it but I like it better with a guy singing it. If you click on the name of the song it will take you to a youtube video of it.

After a long morning of class, we went to eat beef noodle for lunch. I must say that I am getting much better at eating with chop sticks. Slowly but surely I will succeed haha. After class we went back to our classroom to meet up with our TAs who spend the afternoon helping us with our homework. Today they informed us that we are to write a 2 minute conversation with a partner about what we have learned the past two days and say it in front of the class... Let me just tell you that two minutes is A LOT longer than it sounds!! After working on that for a while, we were dismissed. We headed back to the dorm for a bit then a few of us went to find fruit (since we are now hooked thanks to our teachers) from Old Sansia (the part I was scared to eat from). Don't worry, I am now OK with eating SOME things there.

While the others were at the fruit stand, I walked into the clothing store(surprise, surprise) right next door. This is where I had my first awkward moment with a local. When I walked in I casually said "Ni hao," which is "Hello" in Chinese and started looking at the clothes. The owner of the shop came up to me and started speaking in Chinese to me. I had no idea how to respond to her because I didn't know what she was saying! I frantically tried to speak a little of Chinese that came to mind. I said "Wo bu shou Zhongwen" or "I don't speak Chinese". I think she understood but she kept talking to me and all I could do was just stare at her dumbfounded. After about 10 minutes of that... I saw the others outside of the store and called them in quickly to be my translators haha She talked to them for a few minutes and came over to me and wrapped her fingers around my hair and said something about it being curly. After that, we quickly left and then laughed about the awkwardness on the way back home.

Right when we got back, Daniel, Rob, and I decided to get some food. Well, we walked to McDonalds... and as Daniel said, "Hey, McDonalds is international" so technically we are still experiencing the culture... Surprisingly it was exactly the same but wasn't all that delish. The first thing I noticed was how greasy it was. Anyways, on the way back we passed two boys about our age on bikes. They started talking to us but we really didn't understand so we just kept saying "Hi," and walked away. As we were walking, it started sprinkling. Then about a minute later it started pouring. We were sprinting back to the dorm! We were soaked but it was so fun to run in the rain again! Apparently there is a typhoon? or tysoon? underneath the island so it is going to start raining a lot here which I am OK with because then it won't feel like it is about 150 degrees here all of the time.

Well, I have a lot of studying to do tonight unfortunately. But thats OK. In addition to studying, I also have to clean off my desk. It feels just like home with all of my junk on top of my desk with no room to do anything.

Sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes that I have made. I know there are plenty!! I really appreciate everyone reading my blog!

In more important news, I missed The Bachelorette last night. Can someone please give me a quick recap of everything that I missed?!?!

Anyways, here are a few random pictures to make this post a bit more interesting:

Two of our awesome TAs, Hunter and Cloud:

Tiffany in the rain:

These are my awesome portable chop sticks that they gave us. You take them apart and keep them in this little case:

Rob and Daniel excited about the food:

A picture of all of us with my hair looking 5 feet wide(the humidity does nothing for my curly locks except make them frizzy to no end...):

OH How could I forget about our entertainment from last night?! I was in the boys room and we heard a knock on the door. I answered it and there were four high school girls who introduced themselves and said that they just wanted to talk to us. Well they ended up coming in and they said they wanted to teach us a game. The boys sat on the floor with them and they started singing a song and doing hand motions. The boys got pretty into it. If I remember where I put those pictures on my computer, I will post them. It was exciting to say the least. Well thats all for now! Tomorrow we are going to the science park which is like Research Park in Huntsville with a bunch of businesses there. Not really sure what to expect but we will see!!! Keep you posted!