Tidbits from Taiwan

This week I was working to finish up the essays and recommendations for a couple colleges. It all got finished smoothly I think, but I still have a lot of work to do.

On Friday, Philip and I headed to Jiantan station to watch the Fire Performance on the open roof of Orange Cafe. It was wonderfully beautiful with several performers. Some of them used balls of Fire, several used staffs with fire on the ends, and the last performer used no balls, but instead the entire length of the ropes were set aflame. Fantastic, just fantastic.

Saturday was my school's 50th anniversary so I had to get up slightly earlier to be at school by 9:30 in the morning. There were all kinds of performances like KongFu type stuff, gun twirling (really sweet), dancing, and others. Gaston and I performed the extremely famous (I hear it everywhere) love song called "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo de Xin" with him singing and me playing the piano. After, Liz and Elisa sang Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" while Frodo (exchanger student but at a different school) played the guitar for it.
After the performance there were loads and loads of foods stands for each class and more mini-plays and some performances by students who had bands. We stayed there till around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, doing kind of a photo shoot as wierd as that sounds. Every one wanted pictures of us after our performances on stage.

Rotary had a party that night at a private KTV. We sang songs, ate dinner and got presents. Afterwards, a bunch of exchangers (say 20) happened to meet in the MRT station (that happens alot actually) and we all went and had some fun. Afterwards, me and Zach headed toward my house in a cab (cause I was a wee bit late). I found my door locked from the inside (later found out my little brother locked it) and my mom's cell phone didn't pick up which meant I would have to spend the night outside the apartment. I left my bag outside the apartment to tell her I was home and headed downstairs to the lounge room. Zach stayed to talk a little, but we somehow ended up talking, eating rice, and watching Ocean's 11 till 7:00 AM in the downstairs lounge room. At about that time I fell asleep on the couch while Zach talked with friends and family back home, on my phone. I was woken about 8:00 by the smiling face of an elf. Upon coming to more consciousness I realized it was the security guard who had been watching us all night long, wearing an elf hat (you should see the bus drivers in Santa Suits). He asked me why we were there and upon telling him my house was locked from the inside, he said, "Ok, I give you this place to sleep". That proved my Chinese has sunk in some since I was half awake on 30 minutes of sleep and was able to communicate. At 9:00 Zach and I went up to the apartment where my host mom just leaving. She had been wondering where I was obviously, and she let Zach sleep in our apartment. We slept till about 2:00PM, and then Zach headed home (in a spot of trouble with his hosts). All in all an interesting an fun night/morning.

Today, Monday, I got up late, bought some breakfast at the 7-11 a block away (I couldn't find the noodles in our place) and watched some TV. I headed out to see King Kong with Elisa and Liz (not too good I think) and just got home.

Not much else. I haven't had time to prepare for Christmas, but I think I will have time this week. Have a good night.

MERRY*late*CHRISTMAS
How's it going? give me an email, i forget where your's is, mines, taiwanxchanger@gmail.com

dude, i'm going to Denmark next year!! can you believe it?? I'm excited for sure, but Taiwan will always have that special place inside of me....i miss it so bad, but chin up, i got life to live right?
ciao

stan