First week of class (and my birthday)

March 11, 2007

So the first week of class went by and it wasn't that bad. We kinda had a lot of homework but I think once I get used to it then it will be fine. I am the only American in my class though... There are 2 koreans, 2 japanese, a French, a Belgian, a Lithuanian, and an Argentinian haha. Last week and this week are probably going to be the easiest two weeks because starting next Monday I start a class on Taiwanese which should be fun and an Advanced Chinese Composition class which should also be fun. I also have to meet with 2 tutors every week... so basically lots of work ahead. I didn't do much last week though except work on my homework and lose my digital camera (oops...) and visit the National Palace museum and saw the famous cabbage made out of jade. So yesterday was my birthday and I had a few nice surprises. First my 3 roommates gave me something I really liked... one of them, Perry, Drew me and put it on a card and then the back they each wrote me a message saying happy birthday and stuff. And then there was a CD inside, and on the CD all three of them sang happy birthday in English and Chinese and sang "Hey Drew" to the tune of Hey Jude and made up new lyrics on it haha. I put it on my iPod and made all my friends listen to it the next day. So I got up and went to class and it was normal and they sang happy birthday, but then a Japanese girl brought these two reallllllly good cakes to class so that was nice and they got me a card. And then I went to the CIEE office here to buy my ticket to Thailand (I'm going to Thailand!!!!) and all the people on my program were in there and all of my new Taiwanese friends too. I kinda knew about it though because they forgot to take my name out of the e-mail haha but it was still nice. They sang happy birthday to me twice and it was embarrassing and then we ate a lot of pie mmmmm. I also got some gifts from people that I really liked especially a beer from Jimmy, a papaya milk from Philip, some candy and a spicy snack from Arial, a Buddha from Elise, and a book that I lOOOOOOVE from xiao Joyce about Chinese Idioms. After that I took a quick nap and got a haircut (A LOT more expensive than china and it looks terrible :( ) and then I went to an all you can eat hot pot restaurant with the japanese girl who brought the cakes, the 2 koreans and my Chinese teacher and it was reallllly really really good. By far the best meal I have had here. It might have something to do with the all you can eat hagen daas ice cream mmmmmm. And then after that me and some friends hung out for a few hours and just talked. And then today I had a test haha, we will see how that goes later I guess... So now what I have to think about is finding a new digital camera and planning my trip to Thailand from March 28 to April 7. Also most of my pictures are up so probably in the next post I will put all the links so you can go to them and see.