Fortune befalls me wherever I turn

My good friend from Miami has suddenly returned home for who knows how long. Now I really need to find some friends. I mean, what are the chances that out of everyone I've met so far, it is my only friend that peaces out. Yes, BC is a terribly boring place, but other than that it can't be that awful that you leave after a month! 

In other news I have come to love my fake cheetah knee length fur coat. It's quite badass and I believe it to add a certain flair to any outfit. I happened to see a fifty year old terribly unstylish woman wearing my coats twin this past weekend at my father's 60th birthday party. Surely that doesn't mean anything? I will staunchly defend my coat from my sister's pleas that it is absurdly ridiculous. It is amazing.

Seeing as this weekend is Valentine's Day and I have no friends I hang out with on a regular basis, I plan on throwing a party on friday night. Get ready for this one.......

It will be called "Tijuana: ANYTHING goes".

Only a certain mexican beverage made from the agave root will be allowed, as well as limes and salt. 

Potential for greatness, I'm thinking.

Besides, if it gets too out of hand, I'll gladly take a disciplinary strike against me if a good rep comes out of this.

I've determined the following to be true of my school;

free liquor + party in someone else's room + loud music = people really like you.

I call this the "Friend Theorem".

We'll see how well this all works out... haahahahha

Fact: most people that attend BC are goobers.

almost three months of nothing, and perhaps nothing much more to come

So,

it has been quite a long time since my last post, and I have only decided to keep up posting because I find much inequality in the world. That combined with the fact that some people think I'm funny? Its okay, because its pretty only much my sister that thinks that. Well, now that I have just refreshed myself on what I last wrote, I might as well say that that TERRIBLE school, whose admissions office I fought with and publicly slandered on my blog... yeah well I go there now. hahahahahha funny how things work out. What's even funnier still, if that level is at all possible achievable, are my stories from my new school. 

First might I say, that Singapore is a great, great country if you intend to go clubbing. Personal favorite? The Butter Factory. The interior walls of the club are plastered with weird alien creatures that all look like sketches. Not to mention drinking their house "ice tea" and then staring at the walls was great. To be quite honest, I have no idea if it was ice tea, if that was just what they called it, or if there was anything but shots upon shots upon shots of liquor in it, but it was fantastic. Second notable fact about Singapore- I had a flaming drink. In fact I had the infamous flaming lambourgini a few times over the course of my stay. The bartender pours a drink, sets it on fire and then gives you a straw to down it, after which you take a shot of bailey's? that had doused the flames? So intense for no reason.

Final days in Taiwan were crazy fun. I know Taipei like the back of my hand.

As for school now. BC is sooooo awesome. I mean, where else do I get to watch youtube videos for an hour of my chinese class and then continue to NOT SPEAK the language I'm learning? wow, let's get a round of applause for this place. 

And since when is it socially acceptable to throw yourself like a herd of ripe sheep for the picking at guys? Come'on girls, let's not make ourselves look too pathetic now.

As for guys- You are all terrible as far as I am concerned. Being friends with a girl and then ditching her because she won't make out with you is LAME BEYOND WORDS. Way to destroy the little respect for the male gender that I had... Staying at this place is going to make me asexual or maybe just expedite that process for me.

Hahaha I just laughed a little as I thought of writing this: there is a kid in one of my classes from Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm hoping he's mormon because it'd be sweet to say I'd hooked up with one.

Finally, and most importantly- no matter what country you come from or may live in. It is never okay to call someone nine times within a thirty minute period. It's also not okay to continue calling the next day and all day long just to ask to do chinese or econ homework together, when the answer is obviously no, I'm not even in your state.

UGHHHHHHhhhhhhh

I did meet a sweet girl from columbia. She's in the same boat I am (spring term first-time freshman) so thats slightly consoling. 

much more to come.

i hate rude people

in the past two days, i have had a woman on the MRT give me the dirtiest looks I've ever received for no reason, and a college admissions secretary (five of them actually, and all hailing from the same school whose name I will not mention) who were absolutely terrible people.

I don't even want to go to your college anymore. I actually hate it now because of my ten minute conversation with you. And if i ever meet you on the street I am probably going to try and make you cry by telling you how horrible you are. You are all secretaries, and you take your frustrations of lack of a real job out on extremely polite people. You should be ashamed of yourselves and the dean of the school should fire you for giving the institution a bad name. I will tell everyone how horrible you are, and if in fact I do find myself attending your school, I will do everything in my power to make you miserable and ruin your office.

Tomorrow I am going to Singapore!! Yayy.

Forgotten Items

* I joined the swim team at Shida and practice with the A team around four times a week.

* I went out to dinner after the beach and had pizza for the first time in Taiwan. It was pretty O.K. Nothing like Lou's or Frank's, but decent. I could probably have made it in my house if the average grocery stores here carried; 

-pizza dough

-mozzarella cheese

-pizza sauce (not to be confuse with tomato sauce, because that is always too sweet)

-garlic packaged in a container that I can read

-or anything else I would want to put on the pizza to cover the fact that; 

A. if the store did in fact have pizza dough I doubt it would taste the same 

B. I would probably burn the pizza in the oven because I still don't understand how to read the seemingly random pictures on the oven dial, let alone convert the celsius to fahrenheit properly

and 

C. the weather here is too hot that I would rather be whipped by bamboo than make the house hotter. (okay that is a slight exaggeration because I hear that each whip takes of a layer of skin, but you get the point)

*at the pizza place I did learn that this california dude, roughly age 36, can drink more than I've ever seen and is most definitely a borderline alcoholic, though he is very nice.

• I went to the beach with my friends on saturday because my japanese friend wanted to surf. So this dude from Santa Cruz that we know through school brought us to a surf club he uses near Yilan.
• The train ticket was 3$ each way.
• The water was fantastical because there are no sharks (they eat them all) and no jellyfish (they probably eat them all too).
• The waves were so much fun to play in because of some crazy wind thing (to be expected in taiwan. This place has the strangest weather). You barely have time to recover from one wave hitting before the next. AMAZINGLY fun.
• At swim practice today we swam a pyramid increasing by 50 each time up to 400m and back down. I swear this happened- the girl in front of me swam butterfly nearly as fast a my freestyle up until the first 300. Absolutely incredible. That's 750m butterfly longcourse. like really? my mind was blown.
• I ate my first japanese style rice ball today and I am making my friends teach me how to make them tomorrow. It was so heavenly I think I could eat them everyday for the next year or two. (Evie if you are reading this, there is no gluten in them "Yay!"*mrs.sykes striking a cheerleader pose* and you can put whatever you want in the middle, I had cucumbers. mmmmm)
• Bubble milk tea (zhenzhu nai cha) may have taken second place in my heart to Passionfruit Green Tea with zhenzhu's. My mouth is watering thinking about it.

Writing college essays when I could be traveling around taiwan is a double thumbs down. Especially now that I want to go to JiuFen, the town that Spirited Away's architecture was based off of.

and the weather cools...

My host family wants to have a kid sometime in the near future, so this past weekend when they went down to Taizhong to visit family they brought back some chinese medicine. Its a huge bag full of various chopped, sliced, shredded, etc. plants? and herbs? I really have no idea what any of the stuff is. Apparently it's used as a vitamin supplement for anyone, most commonly used with women before they get pregnant so that the birth goes well.

Regardless, the history of this awful smelling stuff is not the point of my story. What I do want to make aware, is the fact that when I awoke sunday morning to this stuff cooking on the stove, the whole apartment smelled and I felt like I had drank too much Nyquil. It was awful. Everytime I moved it felt like I was a bobble head floating in water, and only after a few seconds would return to normal. I don't mean just physically moving- if I moving my eyes too far to my peripherals had the same effect, as well as when I closed my eyes.  The entire day was spent like this, and only when I decided to go outside and get some fresh air did it start to get better. So, if you want to feel like your drunk I suggest getting asian medicine and sitting in the same room with it for like two hours, because it's been two days now, and its just starting to wear off, THANKFULLY, because I want to go swimming and think I would have severe nausea. 

According to Wikipedia, nausea is also called the "wamble". I have never heard this term before and am pretty sure someone made it up. Absolutely ridiculous. No wonder we aren't allowed to cite Wikipedia on school papers... though I have definitely used it..

Not-So-Notables

- 師大(shida)'s pool (my school) is fabulous. It's an olympic size pool with blocks on both ends. There is a smaller warmup pool as well as a gigantor version of a hot tub that is pretty much an imitation of a hot spring indoor. Both times I have been swimming there have been maybe twenty people in the entire pool. 

- I waited until this old dude was 75% down the pool to start swimming backstroke. I still hit him. His freestyle, scratch that- his "awkward forward motion" in the pool where he rolled his shoulders, did a shitty scissor kick, only ever brought one arm out of the water, breathed? I don't know how, and was positioned on his side? SOMEHOW wasn't enough to get him that extra 12.5 meters before I swam about forty. WEIRD.

- movie theaters here have assigned seats

- if you drink a 700cc cup of taiwanese sweet pearl milk tea everyday for 20 days you will gain on average 1kg (according to a study in the china post)

- some people are addicted and drink said milk tea three times a day. Kudos to you, I think I would puke from drinking that much.

- If I could constantly diffuse the smell of passion fruits I would. The smell is so incredible. It should be a traded commodity or the next tulip bubble because it smells just how it tastes. Such an accomplishment. 

- I went to Miramar, this huge mall with 70m ferris wheel on the roof. The weather wasn't too good so we couldn't go on it. Bummer.

listening to:

cold war kids- rubidoux

Perfect for fall weather

Notable Events of Late

1. I have discovered a street with a panini shop, a great pizza place, and a "only hamburger/cheeseburger" restaurant. AMAZING. I got a panini the other day but the owner is tad sketchy. I take that back. The owner is a tad sleazy. Something about him screams "I am a fifty-ish old dude that likes to hit on women..or men." Perhaps it's just his general demeanor combined with the fact that all of the tabletops are finished with pervy newpaper ads (which would be hysterical if you were in a group. Regardless, The panini was delicious.
2. Even better though- some ingenious taiwanese man that was angry with the poor quality of bagels in Taiwan (aka. round pieces of steamed bread with a hole in the middle) some how worked out a deal with the infamous "H&H Bagels" from NYC. They are sent to Taiwan in a half-cooked form, finished here, and then sold at a 24 hour place called N.Y. Bagels Cafe. I think I am in love. To make my heart flutter even more- they have corned beef. 
3. check this site out www.yearbookyourself.com so much fun.
4. I cannot wait until the milk scare is over so I can once again consume copious amounts of milk products.
5. I think I am going to try and work for free at a bubble tea place?
6. Apparently another typhoon is coming this weekend, which would bring us up to 4?