What's your favorite color?

I went to apply for my ARC today and then I raided IKEA afterward.

Taiwan probably has the most efficient government offices I've ever seen. It only took 20 minutes to get through it all and if there were a line, you can just take a number and come back later. Probably took me longer to get to the immigration office than it did to actually file my paperwork. I get to pick up my ARC August 19.

I still find it so bizarre to be an immigrant going to the immigration office to get my immigration and residency settled. I'm an alien.

My room is starting to look like a real bedroom.

At IKEA I bought a blanket that's green and white. It's one of those fleece blankets so it will be perfect for every season. I'll probably still need a little something else for the winter though.


I've decided to go with mostly green and white stuff in my room since I bought a green and white rug when I first got here. Of course, my '80s fab curtains are going to throw a small wrench in that...



This is my little yoga spot.

I thought I was buying one mirror but it turned out to be four mirrors that are a square foot each. So I put one next to my "closet" as I had intended.


This is what I ended up doing with the rest.


I also bought these cute picture frames.


I plan on putting them up on the nearly blank wall that is opposite my bed.

As you can see right now the only thing occupying that wall at the moment is my UTexas pennant.

I love that I have already made sure that when people enter my room they know that a little piece of the Lone Star State is here.


My classes tonight were a little crazy. I got lost on the way to class because I forgot to turn on this one street. I got confused. And I was late by one minute. I didn't get yelled at though. I think I'm still new enough.

I had a new class tonight. It's a beginners class so they're brand new at English. I'm the first foreign teacher they've ever had. (Presumably... I suppose they could have gone to one of those illegal kindies first). It was awkward and but I think now that I've gotten through the first class the rest will go more smoothly.

My second class was great. We blew through everything and talked a lot. My co-teacher brought me come grapefruit green tea and it was really good. They taught me how to say it in Chinese — pu tao you lu cha — so now I can order it for myself.

Martin came into my red book class and all the kids kept asking me, "Is that your boyfriend?" I laughed and told them no that he has a girlfriend and it's not me.

He came in with this gigantic balloon and my kids went nuts. It was really funny. I told them if we worked quickly we could play with it at the end of class. Unfortunately, the class was too big so we didn't get to.

Tomorrow, subbing a class for Katie and then an early class at Dar Yuan (way out by the airport). I'm off by 5:30. What will I do with an evening off?

Have you ever eaten stinky tofu?

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I still haven't tried stinky tofu yet. In one of my classes tonight we were talking about places we had been or things we had done.

The kids asked me if I had eaten stinky tofu yet. I turned up my nose and made a gagging noise. It was pretty funny. They tried to tell me that it tastes soooo good, but I just couldn't believe them.

Much of our conversation revolved around eating hamburgers and the fact that French fries are, in fact, American food not French. I sort of feel like I didn't teach those kids anything tonight, but at the same time, we had an actual conversation that wasn't formatted out. That's probably a first for all of us.

Last night there was a wine and cheese party at the Romantic Paris Mansion. It is not a love hotel, I promise. It's actually an apartment complex where a few of the other teachers just moved in. I love their apartment. It's just big enough and so adorable!

They actually have an extra room right now since Megan got the internship in Washington, D.C. and won't be moving in with them after all. I'm sort of hoping that I may be the lucky person to take over that room. It would mean not saving as much money, but given how cheap it is and that I would only be sharing with two people instead of twenty, it's totally worth it.

Not a lot else has happened in the past couple of days. There have been some disturbances in the dorm: People being loud in the middle of the night because they're really messed up; People being too messed up to know what is going on around them; People still not cleaning up their messes in the kitchen and then not realizing it was even their mess to begin with the next day because they were so messed up...

I'm beginning to see a trend.

Not to judge, but I feel like I'm still in my early college years. Apparently, it's fairly normal to drink way more than you can handle. The substance abuse around here rivals that backstage of a Jimi Hendrix concert.

I'm not a fan.

It's odd considering many people will joke about how they're probably alcoholics. Unfortunately, joking is not the same as admitting you have a problem.

I think I actually drink way less here. Not just in quantity but also in how often. The funny thing about that is I have more free time. Maybe I have just finally found something better to do with my time than to drink away the hours.