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 :)

It's Raining! It's Pouring!

Certainly nothing new to a girl who's lived in Oregon for her entire life. In winter we don't get snow, we get rain and lots of it. One full winter alone offers more than enough time for rain-based thought and I've often thought about how much bank you would make if you somehow collected all of our rainwater (God knows we don't want it) and send it off to somewhere that needs (read: wants) it like, say, the Middle East or the Sahara desert.

All this to say, I thought I knew everything there is to know about rainy weather.

Enter Typhoon Nanmadol.

This lovely little rainstorm (sarcasm) has been watering the parched landscape (more sarcasm) since Friday.

I've already had several run-ins with Typhoon Nanmadol, the most notable being when I was soaked on my way home from the train station Friday night. Lucky for me, it's still warm when it rains so I'm not sick.. Yet.

The typhoon spited me again yesterday when it made going to the top of the second tallest building in the world (Taipei 101) completely pointless. Not happy. I had to walk around a mall that literally reeked of riches instead. That was torture, let me tell you.

The only good thing it's done is free me from school at 11am instead of the usual 5:10pm. A flimsy reason you might say, but check out these photos --->

LOOK AT HOW DEEP THAT WATER IS!!

These girls are only in ankle deep water but there were spots where the water went halfway up my calf!

Not only were the track and field completely flooded, but walkways of the lower levels on some of the buildings were almost non-navigable from all the water. (It was more annoying than anything else because the water was quick to soak any part of you it could reach.)

Needless to say, by 10am everyone had removed their wet socks and rolled up their pants. Some even ditched their shoes so they could take a romp in the newly created Yan-Lang lake during their twenty minute break.

I am unashamed to say that I joined them and frolicked like a little water nymph. I couldn't stay away. When the girls went back to their classes I made up excuses to leave so I could walk through the monster puddle.

Not that I really needed the excuses. Nobody expects me to stay in class anyway...

It's now almost 5pm and still raining. Maybe we won't have school tomorrow... Crossing my fingers AND my toes on that one. :D

I wonder if all the tricks you do to summon snow days would work for typhoon days... Hmmm....

Zaijan!
Kat

By the way.. these pictures aren't mine. Credit to 李怡萱, 戴婕, and 柯苦馨! Thanks for posting these pictures ladies!

Knock knock!!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.

Interrupting cow--MOO!!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Hatch.
Hatch who?
Bless you!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Repeat
Repeat who?
Who! Who! Who! *sounds like laughter*

Knock knock
Who's there?
Mary
Mary who?
Merry Christmas!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Koni
Koni who?
Konichiwa!

These girls are so clever :)

*******

You know, I've never had problems with math. More often than not, the classes were so easy that I could read something like through the notes and still manage to ace the tests.

Not so in Taiwan.

The language barrier is putting me at a distinct disadvantage here (No need to point out the obvious Kathryn)

My class is learning geometry at the moment. Sine, cosine, tangents, the works. I learned all this freshman year... And to be honest, I barely remember any of it. Maybe it was because I hated my teacher or maybe its just the long summers and lack of use have effectively erased all but basic recognition from my brain.

For example, I took three pages of notes and still don't remember how to get from the "cartesian coordinate" to the "polar coordinate" (I swear to god, they use different terminology over here... Or maybe it's just been THAT long.) At least they use the same mathematical formats otherwise I would be completely lost.

Luckily for me, our teacher Peter is falling down funny. He frequently stops the class and asks me questions or writes the English words on the board.

"What is this called in English?"
"Uh.. Arrow? Equal sign? Something in the middle? I don't know. I don't think we have a word for that..."

"You know the Basic Theory of Algebra right? 1199 Gauss. Gauss. You know Gauss"
"Um no. I feel like it goes by a different name in English but it's been like two years since I've studied this so I'm really not the person to ask. Hehe sorry."

He told me at one point that if I'm gonna be taking his class that I need to have the textbook... I think he was kidding. *crosses fingers*

*******

I talked with the woman who's giving me Chinese lessons today.

Guess what she told me!!

The window into my classroom.. You can see the class rep
Camel through the window

I get to spend half of the day at the university learning to cook!! How freaking cool is that?!

To those of you that didn't know, I spent my last two weeks at my (biological) mom's baking something different everyday and then I made an array of sweets for my going away party. I don't know why, but I've been on a cooking kick lately and spending half of my day learning to cook is probably going to be one of the highlights of this experience. I mean, this ability will be hard to lose and honesty, how many people in the US can say they can cook traditional Taiwanese/Chinese food?

Don't give me any smart alecky remarks about people who grew up here and immigrated. I'd say they aren't included in the group of people we'd be polling for this statistic. Not to downplay their ability or anything but they simply don't count.

*******

I finally went to go get my alien residency card today. (haha I'm an alien. OooOooohhhhhh) I left school right after lunch to do so. It's still kinda awkward to be in the car with my host mum as neither of us speak much of the other's language. Although this is mostly pretty annoying, it does allow for me to observe my surroundings.

The stairs up to my classroom..

Today I saw a woman texting and driving her scooter one handed. Just think, they just passed a law about texting and driving in the US!

Bike+cell phone
Scooter+cell phone
Car+cell phone
Which is worse?

Its the funniest when you see a person on their bike and texting because, really, you can't get going that fast and you end up moving in a funny swervey line... It's a marvelous visual. The scooter combination looks plain dangerous and a car combo gets too much publicity. But that's just my humble opinion ;)

Driving here is insane. (and that opinion is NOT humble by the way.. Lol) People pull u-turns wherever they want and it's an awkward dance to get to school. There's this one s-curve on my way to school that's murder. I'm so not excited to be biking that one later. I'll post a picture as soon as I figure out how exactly I'm going to upload them (it hurts me to write that... I pride myself on being quite the techie... Or at least in comparison to my mother ;) )

*******

Wednesday is no AC day. I want to cry. I feel so sweaty and gross. I don't think I've ever wanted a shower this bad. At least we get to have the fans on and I wore my skirt today. Soooo much better than pants! :)

********

I got my schedule today! :D
For the most part I have class with the girls... Pretty much I get to hang out and read (hope you don't mind Dad :) ) I'm gonna write out my schedule (don't creep on me, I will use Kung Fu AND Taekwondo on you!!!!). Class with the girls will from now on be known as... 212! Lol

(English is with the girls... It's just labeled specially on my schedule.)

Monday- Chinese, PE, English (2hr), lunch, cooking lessons at the university for the rest of the day

Another picture from outside my classroom.
The striped building is where all the teacher's offices are.

Tuesday- 212, Chinese (3hrs), lunch, 212, music with class 108, English, hang time in the counseling office with Leanne (known as Leanne lol)
Wednesday- English, Chinese (3hrs), lunch, Kung Fu (2hr), 212, Leanne
Thurs- 212, PE, Chinese, 212, lunch, 212, English, 212, Leanne
Friday- 212, Art with 104, English, art with 205, lunch, english, music, 212, Leanne.

Exciting huh??

Here's the mind boggling part. I get to school by 7:20 and get out at 5:10. Yah. I thought my day was long in the US (a humble 3:22). Yah, I've been proven wrong on so many levels!! So no complaining!! You Americans get out earlier and understand everything. Double whammy right there. Buuuuuuuttt it could be worse. I could have to go to cram school after class is out. :)

********

I must say, it was wonderful to read everybody's comments and see all the 'likes' on Facebook. It's nice to know you all are having fun living vicariously through me. (Notice how that wasn't sentimental? :P)

Drop me a line. Hit the Like button. Join my fanclub. Whatever floats your boat. :D

Till next time!

K

School!!

As promised, here's the second post. Hopefully this is easier to write than the last one. Lol

***********

Uniform shirt and pants...

School. Freaking scary on its own. Teachers, fellow students, projects, homework... You know the vibe. Or at least you think you do until you add in that extra element of not understanding a WORD your teacher is saying.... Unless it's my English teacher, Allen (I hope I got his name right lol) He goes back and forth between English and Chinese, seemingly at the drop of a hat. Its pretty nifty :)

Anyway,  I was a tangled mess of nerves when I went to school this morning. I felt self-conscious in my uniform (you're SURE it's not too big?) and like I stood out like a sore thumb (well duh you did Kathryn. You're tall and blond. Not much you can do there) My steps were quick as I made my way to the councilors office. He lead me to my class and that sickening feeling in my stomach deepened.

What if they don't like me?

Shirt, skirt and socks. Perfect for hot weather

What if they can't speak English?
What if I totally bomb my speech in front of the entire school?
OH MY GOD, WHAT IF?!

I told you I was a mess.

"This is the new exchange student. She's from the US" said Mr Chen.

Or at least that's what I thought he said. I don't quite speak Chinese.

The girls in the room looked at me. I looked at them, you know, that awkward expectant look that near decides it all. Then they were all surrounding me.

Whats your name?
Where are you from?
Do you speak Chinese?
Are you a rotary student?

All a sudden I wasn't feeling so ill. The more questions I answered, the better I felt. I met Winnie ("like Winnie the Pooh" she was quick to assure me) who was a fellow rotary kid. She was one of the potential outbound students. She was the girl who, for all intents and purposes*, held my hand for that first hour or so.

Now that's not to say the rest of the class wasn't interested. I had quite the crowd around my desk, each girl a well of questions and information both.we all chatted until it was time to go to the opening ceremonies.

The only good thing about
this is my hair...

Now that was interesting. Leanne and I sat on stage with the staff and watched as the girls quite literally filled the auditorium. I'm pretty sure the amount of people in that room broke several fire safety laws. Maybe they're different here. Lol
As an overview, the ceremony consisted of the national anthem, the school song, select students taking photos with the principal (who is freaking adorable) wile holding awards of some sort, an introduction of the teachers and of the resident exchange students, aka me and Leanne.

Now for the details.

During the teacher introductions, the students would scream and cheer for their favorite teachers (read: crushes) It was freaking hilarious. I feel like a lot of American parents would get their knickers in a twist over such blatant adoration for the attractive male staff. Either way, They have good taste ;)

Now, Leanne and I had to give a one to two minute speech about ourselves. That was a riot. Leanne wrote hers out and I completely winged it. Mine went something along the lines of;

Principal: *handing me the mic* English or Chinese
Me: English.
*laughter*
Me: 你好! My name is Kathryn. I'm 16
*collective gasp/murmuring*
Me: *thinking* Okaaayyyy. What did I say wrong? *keeps talking* I'm from the US, Oregon to be specific. Now I dont speak a lot of Chinese but I hope to learn. You all seem super fun and I'm excited to be going to school here.... Thank you..?

Not bad right?? I'm hoping not. I got a lot of cheers afterwards. That has to be a good sign. :)

After that we went back to our class and I started talking with two girls from my class. (I feel really bad for not remembering their names :( )

Guess what we talked about. Yah. That's right. Boys.

This is my default flirting face. Bwahahah kidding.  

Do you like Serbian boys?
Uh. Sure? I don't know if I've ever seen a Serbian boy.
Oh. What kind of boy do you like?
Ummm...Europeans? Africans. Yah definantly Africans.
*Squealing laughter*
What do you think of the last guy on stage?
The one with the long hair? He's hottt.
*more squealing*
We like you a lot.

I was pretty much on cloud nine after that. These girls are amazing. They helped me get lunch, taught me some Chinese phrases, and even went as far as to have someone sitting next to me and translating parts of our history and ethics(?) classes so I could get the gist of it all. <3 <3

I'm so excited for tomorrow!!

Till next time!
K





*Notice how I used the phrase right Mom? ;)