Day 17 -- June 10

Well got up around 7:15 did my morning school routine. I headed out around 10 am, I ended taking a nap right before, I don’t know why but today I woke up exhausted. In the writing characters class I darn near fell a sleep. I was just too tired and the subject wasn’t really holding my interest. I know how to write basic characters so I think I am gonna skip this class, it’s totally optional for me to go so it’s no big deal. I wandered out of MTC and realized the wind was blowing and it was a little bit cool. The first day in Taiwan I’ve even remotely felt a chill.

    I went to lunch with Nick, Jillian, Nathan Sean and a new girl Queena. She was super sweet native Taiwanese girl but she had kinda a funky accent. I need to ask her where she studied English. We went to the “green” restaurant, as Nick called it. the food was ok, just some rice bowls. I don’t know, in Japan I couldn’t get enough rice but here I really prefer the noodles to the rice. I did have a lot of fun with the company I was in.

    I ended buying some black coffee from 7/11 just so that I would survive the rest of the day. I dislike how tired I am right now. I went to class feeling a little bit more alive. I jokingly said last night that their would be crazy learning and I was spot on. The pace picked up immensely, thankfully it had mostly to do with characters so there wasn’t a ton of new material for me. I feel a little bit bad for the people who haven’t studied any Asian language. They looked well and truly lost. We’ll see how it all goes. I really like writing characters so I’m in the green.

    We all got really nifty pens from the university. They are set up to read the Mandarin in our textbooks to us. That way we can practice listening and pronunciation at home. I think it’s genius. I love these kinds of pens so this’ll be a super useful study tool. I can’t wait to test it out tomorrow morning, when I am studying before class. Yay for free technology. We are now getting proper homework that is taking a long time to finish. I feel like I am doing alright only time will tell how I learn this language

    After class ended I went back to the dorms. I was supposed to meet up with some people for dinner but those plans so failed with my internet. I wasn’t able to get a hold of them fast enough, so I went of Omelet and picked up some food. Then I hunkered down for a homework session.And three and half hours later I finished with a good chunk of it. I now understand why people think the intensive course might be a light form of torture. Oh well I think this will be good for me. It’s nice to have my brain fried a bit, doesn’t always happen, but I have a sneaking suspicion it will more often. Looks like this’ll be my whole evening. Tomorrow should be more exciting... Maybe. As I type this I hear the rain starting, who knows what it will be like tomorrow.