Lovely Language

So.. I went to speak Japanese the other day and it came out this awkward mix of Chinese and Japanese... wo daisuki ni... (I'm pretty sure my Japanese isn't even correct.) It took my Chinese teacher looking at me like I had grown a second head for me to realize my mistake. It was embarrassing.

Maybe this means my brain is finally switching over to Chinese.. One can only hope.

Speaking of switching to Chinese...

So.. This is a close up of the sheet music for the Taiwanese song.
I didn't have it completely translated until about a week ago so I had to
mumble through the last half of the song. I felt really special.

There is going to be this big choir competition at school tomorrow. I have no idea what's going on other than
1) My class is going first
2) I have to wear my skirt and short sleeved shirt
3)Each class is singing two songs: Alleluia (Canon?) and a song of their choosing. My class chose a song called, wait for it...


母親的名叫台灣 

Yah. Imagine my reaction when I got the sheet music. It was something along the lines of.. You expect me to sing this? haha I can totally read Chinese. I don't know what your talking abo-It's Taiwanese?! Great. Never mind. I take that back. HELP!!

I now know it's pronounced Mu Chin E Mia Gyo Daiwan and a rough English translation is Mother's Name is Taiwan.  It's actually a really pretty song. (I found a video of the Kaohsiung Chamber performing this song here. The only difference is that we don't have guys to sing it with us.)

I'll let you know how things go tomorrow. I'll even bring my camera and see if I can rope someone into taking pictures so you can play Where's The Foreigner :)

You have Mail :)

One of my best friends, Aubrey, is on exchange in Bolivia. According to her, internet in Bolivia is not as... available.. as it is in the US or Taiwan. Because of that, we have to resort to snail mail. :)

To be honest, I've never corresponded with someone via airmail. I've never really had a reason to. Emails have always been more convenient so this is a welcome change.

(Granted, I totally cramped up my hand writing my three page response but whatever)

Getting this letter was really exciting. I talked a little bit with Aubrey this morning on FB and she asked if I had received her letter yet. (To which I replied 'No.. :(' ) Our conversation continued and eventually came to a close.

My day went on as usual.. PE, Chinese, lunch, naptime... It literally flew by. Soon it was time for dinner. When I went downstairs for dinner, my host mom had a little surprise for me.....

Mail from Bolivia <3

Mail! From Aubrey!! Super duper exciting! Today's been a really good day but tearing open this little white envelope was certainly the best part! :D

I read the letter while I quickly ate dinner and then I booked upstairs to write my return letter. It looks something like this......

Don't ask me why it's sideways. I blame the camera. :)

********

On to other things...


Yilan has the weirdest weather. It can be overcast when I go to school, sunny after about 9am and raining when I go home. I'm too lazy to check the weather in the morning so it's always a surprise.

It rained a whole bunch on Tuesday (my host mom got mad at me for riding my bike home in the rain..) But these last few days have been really really nice. So nice, I was motivated to take my camera with me to school. :)

These top two pictures are from Wednesday morning. I'm really happy with how the colors turned out. They were taken on the road that I take to get to school. I've been meaning to take pictures of this area but never had my camera with me.

The bottom three were taken around 5pm. Same road as before but from the opposite direction. 

One thing I love about the scenery here is that the mountains look like they belong in an ancient Chinese scroll painting. (With good reason considering the artists based their images off their surroundings..) 

Funny little tidbit about me...

When I was little, whenever the sunset was particularly breathtaking, my mom would always say something about how god painted the sky. I don't really remember her saying that (she told me the stories) but I've always seen the sky as a huge canvas and my surrounding are a picture to be taken.

There are more pictures in Worth a Thousand Words :)

***********
I feel like that last part didn't make sense.... But I can't think of how to make it make sense... Ahh... I'm losing my English and I really can't speak Chinese at all.. HELP!

I'm gonna stop before I confuse you even more...

Byeee

K