counting to ten

i have been waiting to blog about this day =)

this morning i tried to sleep through that blessed ice cream truck's round through my neighbourhood but to no avail. i hate that thing. its one mission is to haunt and tease me! its so strange to feel as though i have a trash truck after me.

for lunch, i went to 7-11 and got some kind of bread something-or-other and peanut butter m&ms (im going to be so fat if i keep eating that). i took it to the park across from my apartment and ate. i love taiwan. it was such a gorgeous day today! hotter than blue blazes, but gorgeous. kids were playing basketball, old men were smoking and arguing, new mothers were pushing babies in strollers (or 'prams' as i have to call them at work...haha), and the world was still spinning. people are basically the same everywhere i guess; here they just speak chinese and stare at me everywhere i go =)

work was sooo good today! i love my job. when i got to my phonics class, one of my students started begging me to change his english name to 'michael jackson.' after i stopped laughing, i told him no in english. the more and more he begged, i finally told him no in chinese and it shocked him so much that he stopped asking (they always freak out if i speak in chinese). for the entire rest of class, he sang "billie jean" and i just couldn't stop laughing. next came my movie review class: those kids are so smart. we played scattegories and they were blowing me out of the water! next came the challenge: the kindergarten. those kids are sooo cute, but really difficult because they can't speak any english. i mean they are three. they are still learning chinese! they are also really scared of me because they have never seen a foreigner before. its really fun though! i have been chanting colors for about the past 3 hours. glad all thats over though its very cool. kindergarten is no joke. =)

after work i got a chinese lesson from the owner of my school's son. he is so cute! i learned to count to 10 =) it really trips him out to hear me speaking in chinese. i dont think he can quite comprehend it: a foreigner speaking chinese. i also ate the best thing i've eaten since ive been here...i dont know the exact spelling of it, but its something to the effect of "zoo soon yow." soooooooooooo good! its baby bamboo and beef (i think) in some kind of doughnutty thing...i cant describe it, but i could have eaten about 100. homemade too! =) washed down with a big bottle of pocari sweat (much better than it sounds of course): doesnt get much better! except maybe a big plate of bridges bbq or jimmy johns! last night i dreamt i was in ingles and i bought a mr.p's pizza and went home, sat on my couch, and watched what not to wear. i woke up and i was in taiwan. interesting...

i live right beside a 7-11, so needless to say i go there all the time. the people in there im sure think im a moron because i cant do anything but smile at them and buy m&ms. anyway, there is this dog that is always just sitting outside the door. it never goes in, never barks, never does anything...just sits there and watches people go in and out of 7-11 day after day. funny. another thing i find really funny are the women on scooters in taiwan. business women! in suits and high heels who hop on their scooters, put on their helmets and medical masks and go on their way. i laugh everytime i see it. speaking of scooters, i must take this time to wax poetic about the traffic rules (or lack thereof). anyone who knows me has likely heard my speech on traffic patterns and why i find them funny. taiwan has no such traffic patterns. everyone- scooters, cars, pedestrians- just goes when and where they want to. sometimes its honestly scary. !!! i have no idea what is the best/safest way to cross the street or when or where...its just a free for all really. but, kind of fun. you never know when a scooter is going to come by you so quick that it almost blows your hair off your head and so close that it leaves a mark. taiwanese pedestrians certainly live on the edge (in more ways than one).