Wanfang Gaozhong 92, 90, 89 ...

...and the announcer's voice is drowned out by screaming as we leap to our feet. Today was good, because not only did I get my first hugs in MONTHS (& plenty of them at that) but our choir achieved the best possible outcome for the day, that is winning our Taipei city choir competition. This means we move on to the nationals in the Spring for a shot at the second year as nation's best. It was pretty neat.

Of course, we practised a LOT this week... not only has it been 6 days a week for months, but Saturday mornings was always 3+ hours. This week, we did four+ hours Tuesday & Wednesday, then nine hours on Thursday, and probably 5 today & then the competition. I was crazy busy. I apologize for not posting.

I just bought some CAT5 cable today, so now I'm back online. I've moved to Nanshijiao with my second host family. They are cool (a mother & son) and speak to me in Chinese. Sometimes I can make more than one sentence in a row & a couple of phrases back and forth with people before running into words I don't know. Like a while ago I said to our accompanist (really, really good) "You play the piano really good-sounding." To which she replied "Thanks, you sing well. Do you have an umbrella?" to which I replied "At home." Not so exciting for you, but for me, it was good. Like grammatically good phrases. I can speak more with broken stuff & random English words to my mother or brother.

I'll post more later, it's time for bed & my throat is sore from screaming. but w00ty w00t w00t