Parts were good, parts were bad

Anyway, on 228 I went to choir practise then watched a bunch of Smallville: season 4 with Scott & Claire. Good way to spend a day, none of this exercise or experiencing culture in the rain. On Tuesday in my "waste random office staff's time" class I wanted this lady to explain what 228 was all about but she didn't know so she had to look it up online. I eventually figured it out with the help of a wikipedia article.

Wednesday brought about yet another culture class. Once again, I was punished for participating in class, yay. They were learning this coolio dance with fans, so Scott, AC, Kaylee & I all learned it, while the rest of those in attendance (some arriving at 11:00 or later) sat around. At the end of the class Water & Vino were talking about stuff and declared that if you wanted to quit culture class you could, and just go to school. I will probably do that, my school will block me two hours of Chinese class on Wednesdays, I just need to make sure my teacher is up to it. I am still shooting for 16 hours/week of instruction that I think is the maximum / ideal. Alex & Scott have got it already (Alex with 10 hrs of college + 6 hrs chinese class, Scott has 10 or more hours at his school) and so far I am partway to my goal with about 11 hrs / week. We'll see if independent study is possible & renders more time unnecessary--I don't want to monopolize the helpful intern's time. Nowadays in our Chinese class we are pushing and doing a chapter every 2 classes or thereabouts. It's easily possible... like 2 hours of time is for vocab & grammar, then 2 hours for tests, with us studying in between.

Thursday, being today, I got to school almost on time and we had a riotous "Domestic Science" class with S210. They were going skits about relationships, but almost all of them involved all guys with a guy playing one of the girls and the point, if any, was lost. I took this time to make some of the words & idioms I've been learning recently into flash cards. Third block I *thought* was going to be Civics, that's what my schedule says, but no, we had Earth Science. So I tried to figure out the words for continental drift and stuff by looking in the textbook, then I found an index with the word in Chinese, English & a chinese definition in the back. b'oh!

The MRT ride to Songshan was quick, saw some interesting people on the way there. I arrived early and so got to enjoy the use of the hotel's deluxe Japanese toilets (the expensive heated-seat electronic kind, not squat toilets like at my school). Club meeting was good on the whole. We had japanese food again, good sashimi & good coffee. Met Rtn. Printing's daughter, who is hot & just finished high school; she has yet to write university entrance exams. I also got another month's allowance which will coming in handy for paying the added costs of transit to & from school. I am still rolling in the dough though -- not to worry, 'rents.

They made me give a speech which was dumb, because people weren't really listening so I would just ask people at random to ask me a question about something. Go improv, none of this prepared BS. Except for the second speech contest, because then I can use idioms. I found one of the books I have been issued is a diary like my classmates use. So I will try now to write each day about everything I did in a day, to help learn new words & find out what characters I don't know how to write down. Hopefully I can get someone (i.e. one of my teachers) to edit for grammar & character errors; I rarely use wrong characters.

I talked to the girl (Heidi, but I can read her Chinese name) for a while when the speaker finally came. It was finally a guy who could deliver an entire lecture on something about plants & pigments and making colors all in Taiwanese. But, that also meant I had no idea what he was saying. He was a bit long-winded too, so by the time he finished I was ready to hit the road. Heidi suggested I hit up the bookstore at Ximending, or 101. Not wanting to go further away from my house I decided I would visit PageOne at Taipei 101's mall, because it is reputed to be "the largest English-language bookstore in Asia."

Walking from the MRT station to the building in the rain was no fun: I had an umbrella but that didn't stop my feet from getting wet. The hardcore raininess of Taiwan plus uneven streets with puddles is not good. I finally arrived and roamed around designer clothing stores and banners welcoming Bill Clinton & touting his book until I finally found PageOne. Of course, since this was the one day I decided to come, it was closed for them to take inventory. Needless to say, I found myself midly frustrated & pointedly irked. After unleashing a short string of expletives combining the three I know in Chinese, I got a bus from City Hall all the way back home.

And that's what's been up in the life of me. I've been trying to post more comments on people's blogs, but though I read every one on the list, I don't post to all of them all the time. Alleah's blog has been getting unprecedentedly high totals lately.

Please Note: Changes have been made to the links list to reflect my reading habits and the realities of the local blogosphere. Victor hadn't posted since January & Devin's blog just closed its doors. As always, it's arranged in alphabetical order. If anyone would prefer their blog not be linked to, just post a comment or send me an email & I'll remove it. Thank you for your patronage. [45 minutes]