The end is nigh

Well, not really. But things are sneaking up. Jake is already back in the US, in time to catch all the end-of-year parties, clever boy. Over the next few months more & more people will depart. I plan to see lots of people off, though I certainly won't be the last to leave (speaking of which, anyone seen Last to Leave in concert lately?). But back in time a little bit. First I'd like to give you all this picture. It really needs no explanation:

Scott's father, while in Taiwan, would always insist on wearing his hat in the rain, even if it was mild. He jokingly proposed that the rain falling on one's head would cause baldness. So, here I provided Scott with an improvised bag, so he could look cool & play it safe while we walked around at Gongguan.

On Thursday I didn't actually get to watch Smallville with Scott. He had developed a fever & sore throat so was staying home (luckily his frail constitution could still handle a little Warcraft III). I think I just took it easy after the Rotary meeting.

Friday was another pretty regular day at school. The 2nd-years had a singing contest, so I went to see that. As Kenta was in S210's music class he participated with them. It was pretty fun to go see, and of course their class won (as it is oddly stacked with lots of good people from choir & people randomly talented at traditional Chinese instruments). Unfortunately every class did that stupid song "Winter Magic" as part of their repertoire. I never liked it in the first place so it got old fast. Moreover, I found it to be pretty out of place in a city where the weather has been in the high 20s & breaking 30 degrees day in day out.

Saturday morning heralded another day of missed choir for the sake of compulsory-attendance Rotary events. We had another speech contest, but this time fewer people put effort into their speeches. Of course, it is the same room as we usually practise in and naturally plagued with audio problems. The cordless mics are of course intermittent (Ms. Liu bought herself a cordless headset because the school microphones for the most part suck) so many of us spent half our speeches shouting as having half one's words disappear into the abyss.

Afterwards, I got the job of taking Samantha & Ada to the Chens' where they would be staying the night. We had problems deciding where to eat (I don't know the area) & trouble agreeing on what to eat as well--Ada dislikes pizza & Samantha prefers to eat vegetarian. We eventually went to the 'beef noodle' place, where we got a soup for Samantha called "beef noodle soup" which is actually just beef-flavoured, with no meat whatsoever. I of course shattered Samantha's slowest-eater title. Later I took them to bookstores, then hung out at the Chens' talking to Chen Ma. They even got me bubble tea without the bubbles (which I hate) so essentially cool milk tea. w00t

I then proceeded to chill at Zhang Jia for a while, and played some songs on the piano. I was going to go hang out with people (some were at Ximen watching Star Wars, others all over the place) but they didn't seem to be doing anything of interest. So we had spaghetti at Chen Jia and then talked for a while. Ada went to the night market with some guy after a while. It's interesting that although the two girls pwn me with Chinese, due to the extra-restrictiveness of their Rotary in Taizhong they are pretty helpless (hopeless?) at getting around places. Translating for Jake at Danshui was weird, but having to lead foreigners through the MRT? Definitely an unusual experience.

Today was kind of fun as well, though of course inolved lots of sitting around. The "party" was of course compulsory attendance & turned into another long-winded Rotary speechfest. I don't know about in other countries, but be prepared to be really, really bored at Rotary meetings in Taiwan. It is of course mandatory to introduce every single person in the room, and have them be applauded. Every Rotarian, rank-and-file or big guns, must deliver a speech. Of course, these are prefixed by acknowledging as many of the guests as one can name. Fwagh.

Anyway, we all got our [VCDs/DVDs/CDs] of the trip video. A few of the antics are on there, such as the (now infamous) kiss between two unlikely, probably intoxicated individuals. I still have to give French Alex a CD-R so he can burn me a VCD of the videos he took on the trip, which were made after the cameramen went to bed & the real activities began. Nice of him to offer, really. woohoo

It was good to see people, the food was pretty good & I had some fun. The speech Scott was going to make (he is still sick, it seems) was handed off to Samantha, winner of the speech competition & all seemed well. One fun picture:

Kyle was cleverly collecting addresses so he can visit people later. I shall also need to do this soon. I got some not-bad certificates, so maybe I can get some free language credit or something later. There were some great English errors on all of them, but I guess I can get a notarized translation of the Chinese.

Anyway, now I think I'll be off to bed. Tune in after a couple days for your next installment...