Lauren's Adventures in Taiwan

So busy lately, I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping everyone as update as I should be...

One quick side note - does anyone want any particular small gifts from Taiwan? I'll be coming back in early July and I am doing LOTS of shopping now for myself and for others. That's what I get for procrastinating during the first 5 months by saying, "Oh....I've still got another 6 months. That's plenty of time to buy lots of souveniers." Let me know - shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment! :)

Just yesterday, 4/20/07, was my school's birthday. It was soooooooooooo much fun! The entire school had NO classes or tests for the entire day. We just played outside in the sun and celebrated the school's 72nd birthday. Everyone got the chance to participate - that's like 2,000 some odd people doing a bunch of different competitions. There were the opening ceremonies, cheerleading performances, relay races, and then bunches of individual competitions. I ran the relay race with my homeroom class - we got 1st place! The important part was that we all had so much fun. I took so many pictures. And people took so many pictures with me. Standing in one place would have made it much easier, because then my fellow classmates (many of whom I don't really know) wouldn't have had to track me down. I'd also be a rich person if I charged every person money to take a picture with me. But I could never bring myself to doing something like that because I really do like all the people at my school. All of them! They are so wonderful and have really accepted having a foreigner at their school with open minds...there's always a friend nearby. :) After a significant amount of exposure to the sun (its about time my skin begins to resemble tan Americans instead of the white that Asia prefers!) I went to lunch with 6 or 8 girls from my math class.  I really do love hanging out with the Taiwanese people. The teens/college students are amazing as well as the adults. I will give the Taiwanese people credit because they do a really good job of putting aside assumptions about one's background/culture and really try to get to know others. But it doesn't stop them from staring at foreigners like they are a part of a local circus attraction!

Other than that, I've honestly just been staying really busy at school. Within the past month, I have met an incredible amount of new friends. Mostly because when I don't have class, or have free time, I head to the sports courts and shoot hoops or play volleyball. I'm now playing volleyball everyday after school with some friends from my math class or from my homeroom class. Or just people that I happen to spot playing volleyball. Even by asking, my classmates automatically let me play volleyball with them because they are super thrilled that a foreigner would even consider hanging out with the Taiwanese. I'm not really the typical foreign exchange student, in that aspect. I came to see Taiwan and learn Chinese - who better to be my tour guide/teacher than the Taiwanese??!!

The weather is HOT. Well, not really. I just looked on this website (www.wunderground.com) and its actually only a high of 75F today. I've forgotten F/ft/miles/inches, because we use the metric system. Oh well! :) I'm pretty sure the weather is hot because of the humidity. It seriously must be like 5,000% humidity. And the sun is really big because I'm located signifcantly farther south than America...the tropic of cancer runs through Taiwan just an hours drive or so south of my hometown!

That should do it...I'm off to do some homework and then go to my host grandma's house for dinner. That means lots of little kids climbing on the foreigner. Fun, fun, fun!

王洛伶 (Lauren)