Well, that took a while

Don't you love it when you think you'll have free time, but you are actually really busy? (And when you think you can sleep in but you end up being woken up earlier than you regularly get up) Sorry for not posting earlier, but I'll give you the details of my "Moon Festival Weekend." Feel free to call me 'neglectorb.'

As you may already know, earlier in the month my school had class on a Saturday morning, so I didn't have to go to school on Monday. Since Tuesday was a holiday/festival, that meant a "4 day weekend;" however, I put that in quotes because unlike conventional weekends, I didn't do all that much sleeping in or lolling about.

Saturday: Got up at about 8:00 AM, hopped on the subway to school. That's right, my high school choir practises every Saturday morning from 9:00-12:00 (did I mention that last year they beat out the nation's other high school choirs to be #1 in Taiwan?). Practise was fun, and as I was leaving, a couple of girls stopped me & I got invited to two class barbecues [烤肉]. I forget what happened in the middle, but in the evening, I went to 中和 with my mother.

We went to her older sister's house, because her brother-in-law is like a citizen's leader there. There was a community event of some sort, at which my mom was playing Chinese fiddle (two strings with the bow in between). Most of it was random people doing karaoke very badly, so for the most part I barbecue'd with some people. Said people were a small group of college students as well as people from my extended family. The only things we could talk about in Chinese were what kind of girls I liked and music... I learned the Chinese word for Evanescence & how to play the card game that everyone plays here; surprisingly easy.

Sunday: Slept in until...[drumroll]... 10:30 AM, yay. Went to a concert at my mom's church... it was a mixed bag for performers, but I got a feel for the acoustics as I'll be soloing there later this year. It's really big, but fairly new, nice stained glass and stuff, & not so cluttered as the European cathedrals I've visited. I don't have a picture. There was an amateur Christian Rock band (I don't know why they needed 4 vocalists, but w/e), several choirs, a youth band of kids playing many different xylophones &c. all hardcore. And some guy who played the soprano recorder (except about 10 million times better) on some classical song.

Went to Gongguan afterwards to meet up with people from S109 to go to BBQ #2. This time, it was at a restaurant, so the grill was powered by electricity. Dinner was good & I ate a lot... afterwards I went out with a bunch of the girls from that class to a photo place and we made lots of the small groups photos in the Japanese booths. <=== that was an awkward sentence, suggestions?

Monday: Choir in the morning again; however, today, I was to meet people outside Wanfang High School, so I didn't want to spend 1.5 hours travelling between home & school in a 3 hour period. So, I hung out with some students & our choir teacher afterwards. She became fascinated/delighted with my score for "Stardust," so I lent it to her. We all went out to a noodle place, where I discovered that the Korean spicy vegetable stuff I have with my beef noodles is also available as a soup. w00t. It being "Teacher's Day" (as well as Moon Festival & Confucius' birthday) the next day, I insisted on treating her to lunch. As I am a quasi-guest in this coutry, she likewise insisted on treating me. lol

The barbecue with the other class later that day was good. It was under a bridge and two classes from my school showed up. There was some mud to walk through and also it was raining outside the bridge, but it was really fun. I don't think I got to try BBQ'd squid though. Some people offered me vodka coolers, but naturally I was obliged to decline.

That evening, exchange students came up to our house from down-Island, including the Canadien that I like a little; she's neat. They decided that "since we're in Taipei, we HAVE to go to the night market." Some were staying with Scott, so we dropped off their bags at his house. He was in his housecoat about to go to bed when we got there, but I was like, "No, f*** that. You're coming with us, and getting as little sleep as we do." We went to the 'snake' night market, with lots of snake restaurants. Scott took the opportunity to do some air rifle shooting for fun (the prizes were cigarettes but we didn't want any). We got to bed around 1:00 AM

Tuesday: My father woke us up at 4:30 AM, and we got a taxi to the Confucius temple. The ceremony (starting 5:50 AM) was a little dull, so after a while we got bored and took pics of the people with the cameras, & not the ceremony. The day was random, and I fell asleep almost at an Imax later that day. Still it was fun for some of it. Afterwards, Scott & I watched most of the Cowboy Bebop movie at his house, but my mom made me come home right before the end.

My family was going to another barbecue (with the proper full moon so it's the 'Real Moon Festival'). She said my father would come pick me up on his scooter in 15 minutes, so I decided to take a nap. That was maybe 5:45 PM. At 9:55 PM I was awoken to the sound of everyone returning. I couldn't sleep after that for a long time, so I finished reading Steal This Book online. Afterwards I got into education theory & homeschooling articles/essays, such as this thing by John Gatto. That's been my interest since. I went to bed again at 4:30 AM.

Wednesday & Thursday have been pretty regular, maybe I'll discuss them later but now it's time for bed. That's my weekend, so post a comment.