Kenny's fixed!

Today was Kenny's appointment with the vet to get fixed. I went with Drew in the afternoon with my coworker to the vet. It was a really quick procedure actually since Kenny already got his chest rays and x-rays taken so he just needed to go through the surgery and that's it. It only took about 15-20 mins and Kenny was put under. It was so cute though since they put his body in a green bag. I wish I taken a picture of it. After the surgery, the vet came out and had his body parts and see if we wanted to see it. I didn't really look but Drew did. He said it was gross haha I don't know why they let us see that. They even asked us if we wanted to keep them. It's like no, that's okay lol

Kenny was quieter when we took him home but he has to take medicine for a week which I'm going to have to give it to him since Drew will be on vacation. Right now, I don't hear him but he might be sleeping. Drew and I hope he won't be mad at us since he had his surgery but it will help him not to meow so much at night and not to spray everywhere..hopefully!

-Chihchat

Jay Chou Day..It's my Birthday

Today was a Jay Chou day. A bunch of my coworkers and I went to see The Green Hornet with Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, and of course Jay Chou. We saw it in 3D and it was a pretty good movie. Jay Chou did a great job in it and I really liked seeing him as an actor. Afterwards we walked around Taipei 101 and then went to his restaurant to eat dinner. I was definitely acting like a tourist by taking so many pictures but oh well lol The funniest part was that my coworkers told the server that it was my birthday although it wasn't. I was sung to and got a free cake with a card to write to Jay Chou. When it's your birthday, you write a card and you can tie it on the tree so he (hopefully) will read it. My coworker told me that he comes about once a month to play the piano and visit the restaurant. He owns two in Taipei. It's an odd location since it's near the hospital on a campus but I heard the other restaurant is at a strange place too. Pictures above are of the sign outside the restaurant, me and my coworker pretending to be Kato in The Green Hornet, the piano where Jay has played on and the tree with the cards that people have written to him, and my birthday cake haha I'm proud also that I wrote the card in English and in Chinese! lol It was a fun-filled day dedicated to Jay Chou :)

-Chihchat

Making a new friend

I had a two hour break between my 7 hour work day today and so I wanted to mail some letters to the post office and get some lunch for me and Drew. I've been going to this stand near this post office since it's cheap and good food. The first time I went there, the old man was really nice but the second time he was angry since I didn't have enough change. I was worried going there again but the last time I went he's been much nicer and friendlier to me and telling me that I should practice my Chinese (he thought I was from Hong Kong).

While I was waiting for him to get my food, this motorcyclist almost ran me over. Scooters/motorcycles can drive on the sidewalk to park their car and he was trying to get on the sidewalk but he didn't honk or wait for me. The old man gave him a nasty glare though and even said wait and didn't let the guy pass through as he tried to block him. I thought that was really nice since I had no idea what was going on. Drew said I made a new friend and I agree, he's a really nice person :)

-Chihchat

Fixed Apartment!

When I first moved into my apartment with my roommates, I wasn't really picky about a lot of things. Well first it's because I didn't have to find an apartment, my friends-current roommates helped me find a job here and offer a place for me to stay. But yes, the apartment was a tad bit shabby but it's Taipei, Taiwan and the rent is much cheaper than in the U.S.

The water from our kitchen sink had very low pressure so it was hard to clean the dishes and to even refill our water filter. Then this sketchy aluminum pipe from the stove got detached from the ceiling and then the drain underneath the kitchen sink started to leak. We told the landlord about these problems but he kept putting it off and making excuses.

As I complained about before, the apartment below mine was being remodeled. A couple of days ago, the hallways and the door outside of the apartment below us was newly painted. Yesterday, they repainted the walls outside in the stairwell and it looks so much nicer! AND the landlord stopped in today and fixed the sink and stove. It's so awesome! It just feels like we live in a luxurious place now..well to me anyways haha

-Chihchat

My own label

Today my coworker and I went to a bookstore and she wanted to order name sticker labels for her cousins. They basically are small stickers which have different designs on them which has your name on them. Since I was helping her order them, I decided to get my own too. They are really cheap, only costing $3USD for over 100 stickers. I got them with my Chinese and English name and of course the design is a cute bunny that looks like a version of Hello Kitty. It might be a character from the collection but I don't really know. I have to wait for 2 weeks until I get them but I can't wait. I feel so Taiwanese and like a kid for wanting these stickers haha

-Chihchat

Last Person Standing

I just love this game. I learned it from my coworker which she created and it's one of my favorite games. There's no winner but a loser and the students sit in rows and columns and if one person answer the questions correctly, then their row or column (I decide) can sit down. I've explained this game before but you have to make sure that you know the answer because everyone has to repeat the answer. It's funny because you can ask them funny questions and they will respond to it.

I've played this game with my K9 class and it actually took awhile since the grammar was difficult. It got down to the last 3 students and they were so close to the grammar but not enough to answer the question correctly. It would be hilarious because the students would mouth out the words because they know it but they don't want to say anything. When they actually got it correctly, people would cheer and say hooray. That's the first time I saw my students do that since usually they just get annoyed at the person.

It's also great because the students can hear the mistakes and to know what the correct answer is. But it's not a great game to play while I'm sick but the lesson was perfect to play it. I actually had a good day since my winter class is getting better and it's not so chaotic because people are used to the schedule. The first two days were rough though but I better not jinx it. I'm still counting down the days I still have to teach after Chinese New Year. Yep, I mentioned it already but you can tell I'm looking forward to the class being OVER :)

-Chihchat

Non-stop talking

I'm sure so many people who know me will laugh when I say this but I talk way too much, especially since I'm teaching lol I got a sore throat a couple of days ago and talking does not help at all. Winter classes started and it's pretty chaotic since it's a full class of 24 students, who are mostly young with an exception of two students. With my voice, I can't really yell because of my voice and when I do, I'm straining my throat. I had a class tonight too so I haven't really had a rest. My throat definitely hurts and I wish for one day, I wouldn't have to talk lol

I went to bed last night at 9pm though and I slept for 11 hours. It felt really good to sleep more since of my winter classes. Oh well, I just have to get by this week. Next week is Chinese New Year which I get 5 days off of work :)

-Chihchat

Bleh...

Today I woke up with a scratchy throat. Drew got sick last week with the flu and so when I found out that my throat hurt, I was paranoid that I was going to get the same thing. I taught my winter class this morning but my voice was very hoarse. I could barely talk and it sounded really bad. I had a full class of students and I'm teaching them phonics which is definitely not my expertise but I have had a sore throat before in the past and I always lose my voice lol

The class was difficult to teach since there are so many students and everybody are in different levels. Some can do the work easily while others can't even write a letter. I also have twin brothers in my class and they are about 12 years old. I feel bad for them since everyone is about 7-10 years old range. Oh well, there are only 9-10 days left! lol

I usually go to an exercise class tonight but after I got off at work tonight I decided to go home. I didn't want to overexhaust myself and make myself get worse. I'm pretty tired but I got some sore throat drops and hopefully I will get better and not get the flu!

-Chihchat

Celebrating a dog's birthday

Living and working in Taiwan has given me a lot of firsts and today was definitely an unusual "first". I celebrated my coworker's dog's birthday haha Her cute dog is named Kiki and she turned 3 which in doggie years is 21. My coworkers had people over with their dogs and it was a good turnout although the dogs were getting rowdy at times since a lot of my coworkers have dogs. Anyway we played rock band and I loved it since they had Beatles rock band and I was singing most of the time. They even bought a doggie cake for Kiki haha We even sang to her and she "blew" out her candle :) Outside is actual frosting but there's no sugar and inside the cake was lamb meat but Kiki didn't even finish it since she only liked the meat part and not the sweet parts of the cake. My coworkers made hamburgers and it was fun lol Pictures above are Kiki blowing out her candle, her cake, and my other coworker's dog eating Kiki's piece of cake haha

-Chihchat

"Teacher Lilly, you are strange"

Every Sat. I have the problem of prepping for my last class. It's only 1 hour but it's the most painful since it's a JK10 class and they are older and don't want to be there. I try to make fun games or activities but they got bored easily and are really picky. I played some kid games with them and some of them have been through it all. So it's hard to figure out a game to actually get their attention.

I created a game this morning where the point is to create your own "person" and each body part was either voc. or q/a. They had to make their own person by spelling the voc. or answer the questions and surprisingly my morning class liked it and same with tonight's class. They thought it was funny but yes, it was weird lol One of my students who always talk to me and gives me a hard time (but we're cool), went up to me after class and said, "Teacher Lilly, you are strange. Okay, not you but your games." lol He then told my CT that they are really complex and complicated. I guess that's a compliment? haha I told him I have to make them strange so you can maybe enjoy it, or maybe you think I'm strange. Either way..but it's always a challenge to teach them for that last hour and although I'm so happy I'm done teaching them, I have to prepare for next week's lesson lol

-Chihchat

Surprise Birthday

Tonight for my A11 class, my students planned a surprise birthday for my CT. Her birthday is on the 26th but since we only meet on a Friday, they wanted to celebrate since it's coming up. They came to class early and bought me a bubble milk tea. It was really sweet and they got my CT a drink plus cake but they had to pick it up and so we had to devise a plan to stall my CT from teaching for the second hour. First we decided that two students would have to leave early to get the cake. Since they start class at 8:30, I wanted them to leave 10 mins. early. Originally I was going to pretend that they would have to do a make up test but the only problem was that they would have to be outside the classroom but my CT would see that they weren't outside. While the two students were going to get the cake, I had my other coworker talk to my CT about her class and ask her what she should do to plan her class for tomorrow.

I talked to the secretaries to let them know that two of my students were leaving to get a cake for our CT. The only problem was that I couldn't have the students do a make up test since she would see them so I wanted them to pretend to be naughty to get kicked out of the class and be forced to be on the second floor. The only thing was that they are both really good students and it was hard for both of them to be "naughty." lol I yelled at them and finally I just pretended to get angry about something little and told them that they had to go outside to work on their voc. together on the second floor. At first I didn't think it would work since my CT looked at me and was surprised that I was getting so angry. But then the two students started to not pay attention and be "naughty" and then I said they had to go downstairs which then my CT agreed.

It was hard to get mad at them since they weren't really being naughty but luckily my CT fell for it and they left and got the cake. Then my other coworker distracted my CT during the breaktime while the other students were finishing up writing the birthday card and setting up the cake. Then I got my CT to go to the classroom and while were going to the classroom the lights were shut off and she goes, wow they are playing with me and it was funny since we surprised her with the cake. It was awesome since they bought streamers and they were thrown in the air. It was hilarious and it was funny since my CT says I never get angry and that she was going to call the parents of the two students that were acting up lol

Pictures above are from the birthday party. I just love this class. They are really best!

-Chihchat

*200th* post

It is my 200th post :) Wow, time really goes by fast. Today was a busy day. It was the last day that I subbed for my coworker and I really tired them out. I subbed for 3 days and all I had to do was do review games. I kept playing review games for them constantly and that's all I really did. I played everything to sticky ball, basketball, pictionary, word scramble, hangman, snakes and ladders...basically EVERYTHING lol They were so tired and it was funny because at the very end I would keep asking them questions and they were said it so quickly and be really annoyed lol It's hilarious though because I would ask "What is this?" and one of the smart students would quickly say "This is a kite. K-I-T-E KITE lol I was like whoa! haha So at least now they will remember the voc. and sent. patterns haha

Winter classes are tomorrow and I'm teaching a phonics/reading/grammar class. The main focus is phonics and reading and I'm actually a little worried. Well first it's going to be a class with lots of little kids but also it's because I'm not good with phonics. I'm bad at pronouncing the vowels and sadly I had my roommate go over vowels with me tonight haha It's every day for two hours so hopefully the students won't get bored and it will be fun..hopefully *crossing fingers* At least it will only last for 12 days.

-Chihchat

You're not wearing a jacket?

It's winter right now as Jan. is one of the coldest months but being born and raised from Iowa and now living in a tropical climate like Taiwan, my definition of cold isn't like that of Taiwanese people. Many Taiwanese people, including my coworkers think it's insane to wear a shirt when it's Jan. in a indoor building. Yes, it would be if it was actually cold! The past couple of days have been pretty warm and at times I would even be sweating walking outside. Even my students asked me today if I was cold since I was wearing a shirt. But then if we were playing a game, they would want me to put the air conditioner on since it was too hot in the classroom. Drew got the flu and today everyone was asking him why he was wearing a shirt and not a jacket or scarf.

I will admit that there are some days here that I would actually be cold and there is no insulation in most Taiwanese apartments so my room can get pretty chilly. But I just sleep with a sweatshirt and sweatpants and I'm fine. I haven't had to use a heater and it's not like below freezing like Iowa. I don't know, I don't mind the cold but I'm not looking forward when it gets humid and muggy. It was really hard for me to deal with it last summer and there is only one more month that it will be "cold" until spring comes.

It's just annoying when people think that if you don't wear a jacket or a scarf that you will get sick. They also think it's crazy when you eat ice cream when it's cold outside because you will get sick, btw Drew and I ate Coldstone tonight lol Taiwanese girls wear puffy jackets, high fur boots, BUT wear a skirt with leggings or no leggings which doesn't make sense since they are afraid to be cold but they can show bare skin on their legs? People look at me and my coworkers that we're crazy for wearing so "little" when we look at them because they are wearing too much! However it's about lower 60s and Taiwanese people are wearing puffy winter jackets, ugg boats, and wool hats!!!

-Chihchat

Sheer Kindness

Since I have a new class on Thurs., I can't go to my aunt/uncle for dinner that night because I work really late and by the time I get to their place, it will be around 8pm. Every day I work until 7pm or later but my aunt insisted that I still come once a week so tonight we planned for me to go to their place for dinner, regardless of the time. They are so nice to still have me come over to their house late since I got there close to 8pm. While I was going to their apartment, I needed a key to get into the building unless someone left the door open which someone usually does, but this time the door was locked.

I saw a lady waiting for the elevator and I waved at her to see if she could open the door for me. She was really nice and came to open the door although she didn't recognize me. We were both going to the same floor and she asked who I knew and I said my aunt and uncle live here. Ironically she is my aunt/uncle's next door neighbor haha That was still really nice of her since she could have gone in the elevator and not even bother coming to get me because right when I was locked out, the elevator door was opened.

-Chihchat

Torturing my M8 class :)

My Monday night class used to give me a huge headache ever since I started teaching them in the summer but I've learned to accept their misbehavior and learned that no matter how much I yell, reason, or talk to them, they will still be naughty. My Chinese teacher is gone on vacation and so I had a sub. I'm sure the class was quiet when I was gone and someone subbed for me too, but I want to bow down to my sub for tonight.

One of my coworkers who is good at keeping control of the classroom subbed for my class and the class was actually well-behaved and really quiet. Obviously a big part of the reason is because they are afraid of her. They did all the work and even when we played a game they were pretty quiet for the most part. One of my students, Patrick, always gets out of his seat and finally he stayed in his seat mostly because she yelled at him. It was great. I know this is mean but this class NEVER listened to me or my Chinese teacher. They would just yell and be noisy all the time so I'm just really glad that they had to "suffer," get yelled at, and feel a little nervous.

I wish I had the power to have control over them but I guess I'm not intimidating enough. It was just awesome to see them be unhappy for once, I mean it's karma. What goes around, comes around and luckily tonight I got to see it! :)

-Chihchat

Nacho party

Today I had a luncheon with my relatives since it was a celebration of my cousin already getting married. We had a nice 10-12 course meal and there were a lot of food. Then later this afternoon my coworker held a nacho party. Basically we all just ate nachos lol It was delicious since there were a lot of toppings and there was a lot food and leftovers. Above are some of the pictures of the food. The second picture doesn't do its justice since most of the food was put away by this point on the table. We ate, watched TV/movies, and played card games/mahjong. I rarely eat cheese since it's expensive to get and not that many people eat it here in Taiwan. The last picture is of me with the huge bag of cheese that my coworker bought. I missed eating it a lot and it was great to eat cheese again haha

-Chihchat

It is difficult to...

I taught all day today and today was even busier since I subbed an hour for my coworker since he's on vacation. I taught 8 hours, 5 classes, and I'm surprisingly not SUPER tired. It was a busy day as I taught all different levels of English (beginner, intermediate, advanced). A lot of things happened including one of my students peed herself in my classroom. The funniest and miraculously thing was getting my JK10 class to actually talk!

It was a perfect opportunity to play this game where it made everyone talk. Basically it was called last person standing and I would ask questions and you would have to repeat it, word for word. If you didn't repeat the answer correctly, you would have to continue standing and the last person standing has to do a punishment. It got down to the last 4 people and it was funny because we were playing it so many times lol I would make the questions harder like "Is it difficult to go hiking on Big Bear Mountain?" I try to make them super hard so no one could answer it quickly. It was really funny though although this girl lost 3x but she wouldn't do the punishment. She would have had to do the chicken dance and I told her I would do it with her but she didn't want to. So that was the only problem, other wise I've never seen my students talk so fast in my life and wanting to participate lol

I wish it could be like that all the time!

-Chihchat

30 word sentence

I love challenging my favorite A11 class since they have been studying English for around 8 years, they are older, mature, and they want to be there (I think lol). For our voc. review game, I had them roll the dice and if you roll #1, you have to make a sentence with at least 3 words. #2 is 6, #3 is 9, #4 is 12, #5 is 15, and yes, #6 is 18 words. Everyone was freaking out but we played the game and usually they would roll a #1,#2, or #3. Two people rolled #6 and yes, I made them write a 18 word sentence using the voc.

Anyway so the word was funky and one of my students wrote a 30 word sentence. It was awesome and I was surprised but yet not surprised that she wrote the sentence. I thought it was great and I wish it was on a piece of paper but they were writing on the board and it was soon erased. I'm such a teacher nerd but it just makes my day when the students do awesome things like that. I don't know if I could write a Chinese sentence using 18 characters. AND my half-day class was behaved and played the rev. voc. game without complaining. They did have their final Chinese exams though but I was in shock! lol

Wow...today is the 7th month mark of being in Taiwan. I totally forgot today was exactly 7 months. I'm so used to everything now. I'm adjusted and for the most part assimilated to Taipei that time is going by too fast. Honestly, I feel like I'm in a movie and just going through all the motions. I'm doing all these things but it feels like a dream since I'm doing so many things in such a short amount of time. The months are a blur and I can't even imagine how I acted or was like the first week I was in Taipei. I've changed a lot but so far it's been for the best. I've changed my eating habits (stopped drinking pop and chips), am more frugal, and I always have to recycle now. I started exercising more and now take a regular exercise class. I also meet with my coworker one hour a week to practice my Chinese. I've done so many things these past couple of months, I'm excited for what the next month will bring for me :)

-Chihchat

Gamed out

I subbed for my coworker today and his class is full of young kids learning the very basics of English and I had to prepare them for their final. The class was 2 1/2 hours long and basically it was just games, games, and more games. I was tiring them out since we kept playing game after game after game. I don't know what I'm going to do next week since I'm subbing 2 more times for this class and since they will be done with the final, it's just more review and basically more games lol They are cute though!

Tonight after my kickboxing class, my instructor always ask everyone how they are doing. But this time I was with 2 of my coworkers and he was nice and asked if we could speak Chinese. Then he later was guessing who everyone was from and he knew my one coworker was Taiwanese but for my other coworker, he thought she was Taiwanese as well but she's Canadian. He was shocked. Then I go, and where do you think I'm from? He guessed Hong Kong and I told him America and he was really surprised lol I'm surprised though that he thought we were native, although my coworker and I are Asian because of our accents. He wanted to know how we knew each other and we said we were coworkers. He was even more surprised when we said we were English teachers lol Yep, he was pretty cute haha

-Chihchat

Smiles and tears

Today was a pretty high energetic day. My half-day class usually doesn't want to do anything but when you push them, they will actually do the work. It was a bad start though because we were playing this one game and they were just acting up. Then, during the break one, of the students threw their hotpad and it hit another one of my student's in the face. I scolded them and by this time I didn't think I would be able to accomplish this since they were extremely out of control but I miraculously got them to write a haiku. Yes, a Japansese style poem called haiku which is a 5-7-5 syllable poem. I first mentioned this poem a couple of months ago but they rejected it immediately and didn't want to do it. Today I forced them to do it and surprisingly it worked out well. I think it's amazing that these 10 year students can write a Haiku poem in English.

Moving on to my next class, they were super energetic when we were playing a review game. I started to lose faith in some of the students since they weren't understanding the material but they are finally pulling through (mainly because of my new Chinese co-teacher). This class usually never gives me any problems and it makes me happy when they are enthusiastic to play the games.

My last class however started as a mess and later ended up being okay. It was the last day of the level which means they just have to do final corrections on their exam and in the last 20 mins they can have a break and eat whatever they want. Most of the students with the exception of a mere 4 out of 17 didn't do homework corrections. The 4 students started to work on the packet while the others didn't even get a chance to start it. I pulled the 4 students out and asked if they wanted the others to do it for homework and they wanted to but they didn't want everyone else to get mad at them. So I said I will tell them that I am making them do it. I felt it was justified since I just don't think it's fair that they had to suffer and wait for their classmates without getting a nice reward. Then tonight I had to fail one of my students and he started crying. He was mostly crying because he was going to miss his friends in the class but it was still sad to see. He had many chances though to improve so although it's sad to see him be upset, he knew that it was coming and he needed to work harder. I never had to deal with a situation like this and I tried to explain to him that it's not a bad thing, you just need to keep trying and review the lessons.

It's Wed. which is my busy day of teaching and I actually had a great day. Although my students can be super naughty, I learned to embrace it rather than get angry. I used to be frustrated in the past and wonder why they aren't listening to me or why they don't understand the material. Sometimes I wonder why they are even there when they just don't want to do anything and I know the reason is because they are forced by their parents which makes it even sadder to see. As I've been gaining more teaching experience day by day, I've learned that you just have to stick with it and to know that everyday is really a new day. I'm still not a perfect teacher and I know I can easily lose my temper, but I've really built an immunity to misbehavior. I'm not stressed out about it anymore like I used to and Weds. don't make me exhausted by the end of the day. I really learned to just let it go because it will be easily forgotten by the next day and there will always be a tomorrow.

-Chihchat

Lucky Guess

Tonight my second favorite class, K9 is done with their level and next time they will start with a new level. They just had to do their final exam corrections and then we played a couple of games. The first game was hangman and it was a phrase. We were playing for awhile and they were freaking out since the words were long like "earthquake". They were playing for awhile and one of the students really liked playing the game since he was the only that wanted to continue playing it.

We played one more time and I decided to choose the phrase "The Eiffel Tower". They were learning about different countries and what each country is famous for. I wasn't even ready to begin the game when that same student raised their hand and said is it "The Eiffel Tower"? I was in shock! I said yes and everyone started laughing lol It could have been any three words and he chose that phrase. It reminds me of the girl from Wheel of Fortune who guessed the whole phrase by only knowing one letter.

-Chihchat

Awkward encounter

Every Thurs. I go to a kickboxing class and the instructor for the kickboxing class also teaches two other classes on Mon. night. Since I don't have my one-on-one anymore on Mon. night, I have time to go to the two classes. I tried them out, one I already went to with a different instructor. It's the same class where you have the same dance routine and you have to dance so many times. It was tiring and the next class I've went to before. I was pretty tired but also it's because we went over the class time. Next time I will only go to one class instead of two since I don't like doing the one where you just repeat the dance routine.

After class the instructor was asking some people how they were doing and he asked me why I was here and not the kickboxing class. I sort of understood him but just to make sure I wanted him to repeat again and he was surprised since he thought I could understand Chinese. I thought he knew though since he would ask my coworker and I before about the class and I thought he could tell by my accent that I wasn't native. But anyway so then he goes oh and repeated it slowly and I said yeah I will come and he asked me why I was there tonight and I said I had time. He started to laugh since I said I had time but yeah, I don't know if he was laughing because of what I said or because of my accent lol So embarrassing though! I was thinking to my head, stop talking to me, I just want to go home haha

-Chihchat

First Taiwanese Wedding

Today Cala and I went to our former Chinese teacher's wedding reception here in Taipei. Cala and I had her for our first year Chinese class at the University of Iowa and at the time (I don't know about now) she was the only Chinese teacher from Taiwan. It was exciting to go to her wedding reception, to actually witness a real, Taiwanese wedding, and to share a happy day with her.

Although we didn't get a chance to actually talk to her for long, we did see her, her husband, and parents as they greeted each table. Cala and I also recorded our wishes to the new couple. We were nervous at first since we didn't know what to say and it was in front of everyone at the table but we prepared a nice, funny speech just like when we had to do daily conversations for Chinese class. The food was great, the decor was beautiful, and she changed her dress three times, each dress being extremely pretty. The wedding reception was a nice, fancy area and the room was great with lots of slideshow pictures (some from Iowa) and music.

Cala doesn't eat pork so I was sort of eating for two since the food was good and she didn't want to eat her portions. I was so stuffed after the wedding reception (it lasted for 3 hours) that I took a nap lol Then after that Cala, her two friends, and I ate pizza and watched "Eat, Pray, Love" at home. I wasn't fond of it but it wasn't a terrible movie. Then I went to my coworker's place and played mahjong with my other coworkers.

I didn't think today was going to be so busy but it turned out to be an eventful day! Above are the pictures from the wedding reception: me and Cala, the flowers, first entre consisting of seafood, and my teacher and her husband.

-Chihchat

Rappin'

I was exhausted all day at work mainly because I haven't been having a good sleep and because I think I still haven't recovered from my trip. Anyway after work Drew and I got some food for dinner and I just totally pigged out and was about to sleep but my roommate Cala and her friend was over and me, Cala, and Drew started singing songs on youtube lol It first began with just watching stupid videos to actually singing fast, ridiculous songs like "Baby Got back," "Ice, Ice Baby" to Snoop Dogg and Eminem. I haven't rapped to Eminem forever and there's this song called "My Dad's Gone Crazy" that I used to rap all the time to. I love that song although it's bad but what Eminem song isn't?

A nice surprise tonight was while we were singing, my two coworkers passed by a flower shop and bought some flowers and saw a purple one that reminded them of me and bought it for me. They stopped by my place since one of them lives near me and dropped off the flower. It's really pretty and pictures above are of the flower I got from her. It is really thoughtful and nice of her to do!

-Chihchat

Ugh! AirAsia...

My friend and I are planning a trip in the last week of May, early of week of June travelling to Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan. My roommate is going with us too for the Hong Kong part. My friend and I tried booking the tickets last night at AirAsia but the server wouldn't work and the other reason was partly due to using our credit cards and it was thought to be a fradulent purchase.

We got up early to Skype and wanted to book the tickets but again we still couldn't. We had to choose another flight and then we realized that the promotion ticket that we wanted was currently invalid and it disappeared. But we still tried to book another ticket but it wouldn't let us. I even had to call AirAsia located in China since the number in Taiwan didn't work to figure out why we couldn't book the tickets. She was speaking in Chinese but I got the gist of it that there is no promotional deal for that flight. AirAsia has great, cheap tickets travelling around Asia but it's extremely frustrating just to purchase a ticket. And yes, we didn't book our tickets yet. We're still early since we're not leaving for another 5 months but it's just nice to get it out of the way. Since the ticket prices raised up, we're still going to look around for cheaper deals.

-Chihchat

Another Chinese project

This afternoon my coworker randomnly said, "Oh Lilly, here's something you might like." Then she gave me a magazine of Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover although it wasn't a regular magazine since it was all green, the magazine was hard stiff paper, and on the front there was just a side of his face. She was walking from the MRT and there was this guy passing out magazines to sell and he eventually started to pass them out for free and she saw on the cover was Leonardo DiCaprio! She said she knew immediately that I would appreciate it. I don't know what kind of magazine it is but he's the main story and there's a 3-4 page spread out of his filmography including pictures. It's awesome since I started to read it and they even quoted him of course all in Chinese. It's another project that I can add to my list which is reading and translating the article! :)

-Chihchat

Hard to sleep in

Since there has been construction going on from below my apartment the past week, I haven't had a good sleep, or more like I can't sleep in. Kenny is meowing much louder again but he just gets noisy when Drew wakes up since he is hungry. What really keeps me up though is the endless, nerve-wracking torture that occurs every morning starting around 8:30am. I just want to continue sleeping but the noise is so overbearing that you actually just want to get out of the apartment as quickly as possible. I don't know how long the remodeling will last but I hope soon because it's to a point where I can't even think and all I want to do is leave lol At least it gives me more motivation to get to work early!

-Chihchat

Leonardo DiCaprio composition

I meet with my coworker once a week for an hour to work on my Chinese. Besides book work, the past 5-6 weeks I've been working on my Chinese composition about... yes, Leonardo DiCaprio. I've been writing a paragraph each week, a total of 5 paragraphs and finally I'm done. I really owe a lot to my coworker since she still kept most of my main ideals and sentences but still had to untangle my sentences with my awful Chinese grammar. I will post the composition on my blog in Traditional and Simplified Chinese.

My next project is to translate a Chinese magazine about Jay Chou (a popular Taiwanese singer) that my coworker gave me a couple of months ago when I was sick :)

-Chihchat

Happy Birthday/New Year Taiwan

I had a fun-filled New Year's weekend and the pictures above are from the weekend. First picture is Taipei 101 for New Years, second picture is most of us at a park in Taichong, and last picture is me pretending to be flying on a boat on Sun Moon Lake lol

Friday night I went with my coworkers to Taipei 101 to see the firework display. It was crazy getting there since there were so many people that were traveling downtown. It took us a couple of hours when we finally sat down at Neo 19's parking lot which is close to Taipei 101. The firework show was awesome and it was even special this year because it was Taiwan's birthday of being 100 years old. My coworkers and I were even more excited since there was a 3-D dragon in the show. After the show it took forever to get out since so many people were trying to go home. Drew and I went out to the bars and stay up until 5am. We were just dancing and what not but the problem was that our alarm clock didn't go off and we overslept the next day.

We always work Sats. and we even didn't get Christmas off. But we got New Year's off and since it was a Sat. and we don't work Sun., my coworker planned a trip to go to Taichong and Sun Moon Lake. We left Sat. morning and she texted us just telling us about how excited she's getting for the trip and that was our wakeup call lol Since we overslept we hurriedly packed in about 10 mins. We took a bus to Taichong and we ate lunch, went to a park, got some bubble tea, and went to the night markets. Taichong is where bubble tea was where it was originated so we went to the restaurant that had the best "bubble tea." It cost $120NT when usually it would cost $30NT. It was extremely delicious though. Then we went to Fengjia night market which is 10x bigger than Shilin night market. It was so crowded and packed since we went on a Sat. night but they had such great food and it was huge. There were so many streets to look at and they had more food stands than clothing stores. It was so crowded that we could barely move and sometimes we had to hold hands lol

The next morning we went to Sun Moon Lake and first we went on a boat tour around the lake, rented bikes, saw a temple,went on a bike scenic route (which we first went on the road which was really tough and the second route was much easier), rode the cable cars, had dinner, and lastly took the high speed rail to get home. The high speed rail is newly built and it's really fast as it only took us 1 hr to get from Taichong to Taipei. It took us 3 hrs by bus when we left Taipei to Taichong Sat. morning.

It was a busy fun weekend and I'm extremely tired and a little sore from the bike ride and walking. It was definitely a great start to the new year!

-Chihchat