Goals: set 'em & achieve 'em

Well, I achieved everything which I set out to achieve on the weekend.

Saturday morning at 1:00 AM my time I took advantage of my IOS status at Mal-U & registered for this year's courses (goal #1). I've pretty much decided to go there, but I may see what kind of schedule I can put together at UVic as well. Right now I feel like I could use a year or two of good old Nanaimo--I have a great team of music teachers and I really like the town, even with all the awful intersections. Part of the reason is of course the people that live in it. :p

After a brief sleep I was up again for choir practise at the church. Our venue for the Sunday concert was a Chinese-language Baptist church near Zhongxiao Xinsheng station. A girl was leading the way & somehow we ended up near the Train station (by main station) before realising by exactly how much we'd missed the route. The building actually had a tin roof, but it's chief feature of awesomeness was an organ. The drums weren't bad but the cymbals had too much trashy attack & not enough splash / brightness / hiss. It's hard to describe, but hopefully someone will get what I mean. The practise was to stretch into the afternoon but no-one told us beforehand so I left for my next, and last, appointment with the Mormons (goal #2).

That evening, Scott came over for dinner & we subsequently went to see "Sin City" at Gongguan. There were more people in the theatre but it was still spacious & we got seats with legroom. Scott described it as "the ultimate guy movie" & it had pretty much everything guys like, but nothing girly or that girls would like. Afterwards I watched a movie... I don't know the English title, but it was about this girl who went to Germany to spy in WWII and stuff. Not bad.

Sunday I was at the church at 10:30 for the concert prep. Somebody (=everybody) neglected to mention I was supposed to bring school uniform as well as choir uniform. Ms. Liu had told me to bring a suit as well, so I had that, but I went home & back again to get the extra outfit. I was kind of irked, but I listened to tunes on my iPod & a hot middle-aged woman was making eyes at me on the MRT, so my foul mood soon faded.

The concert itself went pretty well. In some of the practise there was still anger on our teacher's part; however, I am pretty sure she didn't cut any songs. I sang for most of it except the second-years' section (they did some songs I knew & some I didn't from the previous year), the non-choir section, & certain Phantom songs in which I played the drums. The costumes were hilarious -- most guys [most basses, really] dressed up as he Phantom, with big black capes and masks stuck to their faces. Some guys dressed up as Raoul, wearing tricked-out coattails with white frills & ruffles on their shirts. I was jealous, as I just wore my suit with a tux shirt, maple leaf cuff links (borrowed from G), and a silver tie to match some other guy. All in all it was pretty fun.

At the end, we tacked an extra song on to the end--a popular sentimental piece of soft emo with rewritten lyrics. It was great; Ms. Liu was really excited at the beginning and just got a hilarious expression on her face from the words (like "Liu ma is Big Face / She always loves to arrive late / She likes things in confused disorder / ...") but we made her cry in the chorus & I may have shed a few tears myself, and because of this condition encountered some difficulty in singing. Then we did an encore after that.

Following a lengthy waiting & clean-up period (in which I snapped some pictures) we headed to a steak house (St. Paul's steak) at Ximen.

Taiwan's steak houses are not exactly like regular steak-serving venues or even like western steakehouses. I mean, there is a basic-premise similarity to 'The Keg' or something, but not much else. Firstly, the meat is served on a hot iron plate (set in wood). The server brings it with a stainless steel lid, and then reveals your hissing, spluttering dish to you. Sometimes you get splattered with the sauce bubbling on the painfully hot metal. Also on this plate are thick quasi-linguine noodles & an egg. The egg is raw when they crack it onto the dish in the kitchen, but it quickly cooks. If you get the meal fast enough, you can scramble it. Other than the steak being kind of different, and the weird non-steak selections, it's pretty similar. There is still unlimited salad bar, soft drinks, etc.

I once again foolishy ordered fish (at a steak house) because it was 'iceland somethingfish.' It was ok, but it had a lot of bones in it. I don't mind picking out the big ones at the Zhangs', but little bones are trouble and irk me. I need some fish 'n' chips.

When I got home that evening, I watched "Alexander" with my host family. Did I mention there were pictures? Here's our accompanist for Phantom & some other songs:

And now for the requisite Taiwan girls. You'd be surprised at how many hits my site gets based on those keywords. The internet is a random, random place. You'll also notice my hair is a bit longer, and that I shaved recently. Also, my shaver rocks ... it's so nice & I swear I've only charged it about twice since I came to Taiwan.

Now, wasn't that fun? Anyway, today was ok. Apparently I was a little tired, because when I walked into the library this morning Alex & Ivan asked me if I had been drinking. I'm just a little out of energy since the weekend, but as I get more sleep my disposition improves. Hurrah! Also, tomorrow I plan on cutting the afternoon to go play pool with Scott. We'll see if I can really escape or not.

Well, blogfans, rock on for now. K out

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