A quickie about the weekend

'Twas good on the whole. Saturday's Choir practise was all right, except in the middle she started yelling at us, and calling everybody (well all the guys) stupid in Chinese because they kept sucking at the notes/rhythm in the Taiwanese song of hardness. But then we kept drilling it until the whole first movement was perfect. All of it. And then she was happy.

On the advice of Anna who is awesome, I took the MRT to SYS then walked to a bank near Zhong-lun. And it worked!!!!!!!! I can finally get out money from a place I know how to get to. woo hoo. Mad props to her btw, for making a hilarious map in paint.

Anyway got to Guandu station early, so I wrote an entry in my journal in Chinese. So that might screw people (such as Alleah) who might try to read it later, but I got a Rotex to check it over & there were only a few mistakes/like 2 characters I didn't know & wrote bopomo for. The Christmas party was good. The food was really good, and the "White Elephant" was surprisingly fun. I sometimes like Samantha sometimes, though she picks the worst times to criticize or correct people. Like, we are singing Christmas carols and I'm trying to make up harmony as I go, and she's like "you're going out of tune." Or correcting my tones. Other than that, it's all good though. Almost everyone from down-Island was there but of course not people from the other district. Afterwards, went to a night market with some people. It was random 'cause I got hot tea again, in the plastic cup. I never learn.

Today, had to be at Wanfang early for the speech contest... that's 7 days a week this week & culture fair week as well... I think I've been there every morning for almost 20 days straight or I will achieve such soon :p. It was o.k., I made up my speech on the spot as a spinoff of the one I wrote as I promised myself to. The end result was weird though, because someone, this random German girl from down-Island got first. Like, Yujing took 3rd & Samantha 2nd which was fair... but this girl (though she practised it a lot) didn't write her speech & frankly her Chinese is not that good, nobody Taiwanese or foreign could understand what she was saying, & unlike Scott or myself she had no stage presence or life to her. But w/e.

Afterwards, went to lunch & stuff with Scott, Kaylee & their Chinese (+ calligraphy) teacher. We looked at a flower market and a jade market... I saw some neat stuff, but of course bought nothing. Also had a nice ice/red bean sweet dessert. Dinner was with the Chens (I was invited by Chen mama at like 11:30 at night by cell phone call Saturday). So me & Scott went with them to a restaurant where Chen mama sung a song. Then we all had a rocking dinner of BBQ + shabu shabu, at the same time. I even ate a snail... so I can't say I had "escargots" because only 1 but w/e.

Having finished eating, the Chens gave me a nice card and some stuff. Scott also gave me some REALLY nice stuff. I'll have to get him something nice for his birthday, still looking for the perfect gift; for Christmas we're just giving each other cheap fun stuff as he is Deist & I am atheist. Note how one takes a capital and the other doesn't in my mind. All in all twas a good day.

Tomorrow I plan to have a really awesome day. Calligraphy in the morning hopefully, then maybe a small celebration during choir @ lunch/during Music class... Chinese class apparently there are plans to party as well. [45 minutes]