Obvious Improvement

Here's some classmates.

This is my art teacher's home. He's sitting next to me and his two daughter's are on either side. I think that's Samantha on his right and Cassie on my left.

Now his wife is sitting on his right and Cassie's got her Gundam flying around.

Today was my weekly "Chinese painting day". I worked it out so that Wednesdays I can just sit in one of the empty art rooms and paint all day. Lately, I've been perfecting my Chinese dragon. I've made five attempts and with each successive attempt I've made obvious improvent on the previous. The fifth on is the best one yet, although I've just started, so there's still time to screw it up.

My first attempt was big and cute, like the luck dragon from the Never Ending Story movie. Attempt two was something similar to a dragon, but all the important details were off, like the antlers were backwards and he was too fat. I think that was because I painted it from memory. Attempt three was better, but too big and the ink wasn't faded out very well. This is attempt four:

Still too big, but otherwise okay. The ink needs to fade more where parts of the dragon are hidden by clouds. This next one is attempt five, which I had to run over and show my teacher in the next room. I was pretty excited. My control of the brush has been improving with every painting and so that's one of the major reasons this one is so much better. The fading of the ink is really good with this one too.

Oh, that robot in the last post is the Gundam model I put together two days ago. Gundams are suits of robotic battle armor. Some of them transform into planes or starships. Mine's Gundam Throne Drei, which I don't know anything about. Some girl named Nena pilots the thing, but I just picked it cause it's red. I went with Cohen, my art teacher, today to a hobby shop and bought some paint pens so I can make the details stand out more. We were there for almost an hour looking through the model planes and figures. Question for Dad: What's the name of that plane that can take off and land vertically? It was at that one airshow we went to one or two years ago.

5

My Robot

"Your dragon looks American!" he said. Well, hmph!

So, there's my fat dragon. Next time I'll have to remember to make him lean and mean instead. I'm doing okay lately. Last night, my friends 呂淑珍 and 周文翔, a woman and her son who I met on the bus when I was staying at Joy媽媽's house, found me at my school (luckily, I had stayed after) and so we played basketball until about 6:30 and then they invited me for dinner at this sushi place in 臺北101. Then we went to the toy store and looked around. I had a good time.

I would like to start staying after school every day because I haven't had many opportunities to hang around with my classmates in a less studious atmosphere. I think that if I had stayed after I'm allowed to leave (4:00) this whole time I might now be a little closer to my class. I still have time though!

I going to have to send another box of things home before I leave. I just seem to be a magnet for things like books and toys and trinkets, and I'll have to pay extra for my luggage if I try to get it all home that way. This 二胡 probably won't be able to ride with me on the plane either and it doesn't really fit in my luggage anywhere either.

Blugga, blugga, blugga..

Hakuna Matata

It means no worries for the rest of your days.

We just watched some of the songs from The Lion King in music class last period, and I was in the back getting all emotional. I used to watch that movie every day, along with Aladdin, Toy Story, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I just want to have a marathon and watch all of those movies one after the other and relive my early childhood.

Counting

Fifty-three(53)

That's today's number, right in there between 54 and 52.
It's another mark on the post, another line on the wall, twenty-four hours.
I counted down the days until I would leave to come here to this island, and now I'm counting down the days until I will leave to return home. I'm rather excited about it. Is that wrong?

I talked to my friend Chris Thomas yesterday on Skype (what would we do without Skype?). He's going to Temple University out in Philidelphia, which is where I'll be going once August rolls around. It was a good conversation, I found he's changed as well in his first year out of school. I suppose everyone does, given a little freedom and responsibility.

School is the same, Taipei is a little depressing, and I'm eager to go on that tour with Rotary and then come home. Sometimes I think I should just slip into a coma or some kind of futuristic time capsule and just sleep until it's time to leave, even if I miss a bunch of exciting things, I'm sure my dreams would more than make up for it.

Gonna see the school orchestra concert tomorow. If they would have given me a little more notice (and I hadn't been sick with the Common Cold), I might have been able to play with them. Oh well.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Not Serious

So, I'm back in school today, goofing around. The fun pack is working and thus, I feel goofy. And drowsy. I won't be operating any heavy machinery any time soon.
Music class just finished watching The Phantom of the Opera. It was cool, I had never seen it before. I thought of Lyle while I was watching it though. I bet he's seen it at least ten times.
I think I will be changing families in a couple weeks. I'm glad because the current situation can be a little tense at times (these kids). Plus, the next family I don't know what to expect, so it'll be an adventure.

Mom, I want the Fun Pack!

I hope everyone had a fine Easter over there. One thing about Jesus is that he doesn't ask that much of you, like, you don't have to burn things for him or give him your food.

I would have gone up to Leo's church for Easter, but I didn't feel well enough to travel all the way up to Beitou. I'm going to the doctor today. I feel like I'm getting better, but I want to be sure. I might need the "Fun Pack" (that's what we call the prescription the doctors give here, it's a bunch of different pills in a plastic wrapping).

I never know how to end these.

Why's it got to be like that?

I guess I overdid it on that trip last week cause now I'm sick. Being sick always puts me in a bad mood and I start to miss everything back home. The missing hasn't been so bad this time around, mainly I'm just sad because being sick had to occur at a time when not being sick would have been ten times better.

I'm supposed to tell my class about America tomorrow, but I don't think that's going to happen the way I would have liked. A girl from the strings club came up to me today cause she heard I could play some instruments and wondered if I wanted to join the strings club for their upcoming concert. I said I would and they have a practice tomorrow, but I might not make it.

Maybe being sick will lead to something good, I don't know.

I want to see this through to the end though, there's only 59 days left. I know my summer will be great and starting at college will be helpful in not feeling like I'm in limbo.

My Car's on Fire!

So in the last one I said I met my host dad's dad. Yeah, I forgot to mention that he's dead.

On Sunday, we took a really long drive up to a sort of graveyard, but you'd think it was more like an apartment complex for the dead. I was told that most religions were represented there, like Islam and Christianity, Buddhism and Daoism. It was raining when we arrived (I really need a new pair of sneakers), so that made it harder to light the incense and candles. I said hello to the earth god and then to my host grandpa. I told him I was an exchange student and that his descendants are treating me well and that I hoped he was doing well in the afterlife.
Some food was blessed as well: spring rolls, fruits, a bottle of tea. Then we set about burning some spirit money. You know that play money you can buy at the dollar store? That's spirit money. So, we burned New Taiwan Dollars (NT), Hong Kong Currency, Hundred Dollar Bills for traveling (USD), and some paper gold shaped in the ancient Chinese way (like a boat).
After we finished burning the money and some Buddhist blessings, we headed down to the temple where the monks were chanting. The were three big, gold Bhuddas sitting up front with Guang Gong on the left and that other guy on the right. So we said hello to them and had some more things blessed. Dad took me over to one side of the hall where there was a stand selling objects made out of paper that can be burned to give them to people in the afterlife. We're talking stuff like cars, money, credit cards, shirts, dresses, laptops, cellphones,and even a minature mansion (which I assume becomes normal sized in the afterlife, size probably doesn't matter there anyway). These paper offerings were selling for a pretty decent amount of money though and my dad told me that it's a big business over here.
Later we got some soup and started for home, stopping at this really creative coffee shop on the way. the shop reminded me that I want to have an awesome place like that too, like PeeWee's Playhouse.

That evening we went to see Sarah Brightman Symphony World Tour. I liked the visuals of the show, but I think her music is really over the top. Not that she's not good at what she does, apparently she's been making music for 25 years, but I never heard of her until I was here. Her "Da Jia Wan An!" was really funny to me for some reason, and there was some random part of the show that was supposed to represent Alice in Wonderland, but nothing came of it.

Yesterday, I went to the bookstore and bought some sheet music of songs from Juno and also a book of Chinese mythology (which I brought to school today and eveyone's like, "Wow, I haven't even read about that stuff,").

Skyped with Erin Mann last night. She's doing allright up in Finland, where there's snow on the ground, but everyone insists that it's springtime. I'm still feeling pretty amazing, it's been a sleepy day for everyone though.

I hope I can get to see Renaat's brother before he leaves.

Is it a crime to feel this awesome?

I hope not.

A lot happened last week, and it was so fast that I'm sure I did the Timewarp again. Let me see if I can collect all the memories together in a coherent paragraph for you.

Last last weekend, I was in Hua Lien with my Rotary club. It was really fun, we took the train down there and hopped on a tour bus. It was pretty relaxed, everyone took a lot of pictures. Saturday night was the best! We stayed at a Ranch Resort and I roomed with Adam (we had some guests over in the evening, some of the Aunties wanted to hangout). Adam and I went to the SPA for awhile, it was a good time. Sunday, we took a look at the Ranch part of the resort. They had a bazillion birds and some sweet dinosaur statues, but I was fond of the old billy goat (I want his beard). Later, we learned how the aboriginals make moa ji by mushing up rice in warm water with a big sort of mortar and pestle dealie. It was pretty tasty, tastier with brown sugar and peanuts, in my opinion. It was drizzley the whole time, but that was okay. We headed home Sunday night by train and I started getting excited for my trip with my classmates.

Monday was the orientation session at school, afterwhich, I went home and found out that I still hadn't taken care of all the right forms (okay, one, but it was important). Mom was really calm about it though and made a few phone calls (I made one, too) and things worked out.
So, the next day, I woke up at 5:30 and headed out with my luggage to wait for my friend from school to pick me up in front of 101 and head to SongShan Station. We got there and stood around for awhile, and our classes tour guide, Kiwi, handed out breakfast. Eventually, we headed down to the train and began a succession of events that was magical and enchanting, like accelerating through a snowstorm (but your not the one driving, that can be scary).

We arrived in Hua Lien (yay!) and started boarding the buses. Now I shoud mention that there were at least 400 kids on this trip, maybe more because at rest stops trying to get through the bathroom line it looked as though there were more kids than there were in my graduating class, and that's a lot. I thought about whether a class of American kids this size could handle a four-day bus tour, and I decided that no, they could not. At least, they would not be as into it or as cute about it as these kids, especially seniors.

Anyway, here's a list of the stuff that sticks out the most in my memory of the trip:

• Singing Karaoke on the bus
• The wind being so strong at the Eight Bridges that were we only allowed to go to the second one and never saw the island on the other side
• Rest stop bathroom lines and the patience that every seemed to have
• KenTing Beach Party and trying to drink a Coke really fast through a straw
• A huge spider
• Super cute girls doing super cute things
• Pillow fight
• UNO
• Hanging out at a pretty cool theme park
• Seeing Ayaka (another exchange student I know) at the aquarium cause her class was on their graduation trip, too
• Taking pictures everywhere
• Not feeling so incredibly on the outside, but rather very close to the middle of everything

So, that's the short version of the trip. Yesterday was really fun, too. Helped my family with a religious ceremony and got to say hello to BaBa's BaBa. Burned a bunch of spirit money. Later that evening, we went to see Sarah Brightman sing and she had like, four encores.

So, I feel really good lately and I'm trying not to question it, but rather to embrace it and replicate it. Thanks for sticking with me!