It's Friday night. 10pm. Just finished watching the Germany-Serbia game. But now I'm back in our MBA study lounge. All alone. Ready to get some work done. I figured, if I can watch soccer until 430am (like I did last night with the amazing Mexico game!), then I should be able to do homework and papers until that late too. Logically, that makes sense. Let's see how long I last here.
And yes, I'm wearing the same exact outfit from yesterday. Same necklace too. But I did change my underwear. Don't judge me. It's been a looooong few days.
A friend of mine introduced me to the cafe (where i'm sitting right now) that overlooks the city and the mountains. It costs about $1.50/hour but that includes coffee, tea, water, juice, and soda. I like it here cause its cozy. Big couches, big tables to work on, and of course free internet. It kinda reminds me Barnes and Noble, but in a Taiwanese style. I bought the membership card today, so it looks like I'll be coming here more often.
Got all dressed up on Sunday for a dinner to bid farewell to this year's mba grads. I wore my pink girly dress that I picked up in Korea last year. I sat at what I call the "cool" table because we snuck in 4 bottle of liquor and everyone kept coming to our table to hang with us, because obviously, we had the goods. After dinner, we headed to a lounge bar nearby where the party continued to the wee hours of the morning, on a Sunday night mind you. It was the perfect ending to a pretty awesome weekend. Most importantly, while looking through pictures I noticed that I genuinely look happy and that my friends, is a HUGE accomplishment. Cheers to that!
We went to this all day pool party at a water park a few weeks ago. I was beside myself when I saw Taiwanese girls interpretation of a "pool party".
To me, the pool party meant: fun in the sun, water slides, acting silly with friends, no makeup (cause i'd be getting wet, duh!), summer dress, flip flops, dancing, beers, and getting tans.
To Taiwanese girls it meant: wear the smallest bikini possible, with high heels, a face full of make up, fake eyelashes, perfect hair, and go there to flirt with boys.
Even the girls that got in the water (there weren't that many who did because i've also learned that many Taiwanese can't swim), would run to the bathroom after getting wet to quickly touch up their makeup.
Talk about cultural differences. If I were to see a girl wearing makeup and high heels and fake eyelashes at a water park in the states, I would just laugh. Here, its normal. Actually, is expected. Now I know that I have to look and dress hotter at my next Taiwanese pool party in order to fit in.
Enjoy the video. I'm barely in it, but you can still get an idea of what the pool party was like!
Want to hear me speak three languages? Sometimes I even speak all three in one sentence. This is what happens when you hangout with a Peruvian and a German who can speak Chinese and English. In the video, the Peruvian is teaching the German how to flirt in Spanish. Its awesomely funny, but it might be kinda hard to understand. Take a look.
Theres so much I want to do with my life. So much I want to accomplish. I want to travel the world. Get a great job somewhere different and exciitng. I want to make my parents proud of me, so that they know their hard work paid off. I want to live near my sister, always. I want to own a house, and decorate it to my liking. Simply put: I just want to live an inspired and happy life. But lately, all I keep thinking about how I want to fall in love again. And I want it to be for real this time. The goofy, giddy, stupid kind of love that makes you act out of control and happy beyond belief. I want to have romance in my life again. I want to dress up and go on dates. But most importantly, I want to take care of someone, and in turn feel taken care of. I wish I could stop these feelings, but lately I can't stop thinking about this. Probably because I'm no longer feeling 80/20 like I mentioned before but more like 95/5. Which means that 100% should be right around the corner. And maybe a cute boy will be too.
She's president of our MBA program. She's British. But half Chinese. She is so incredibly thoughtful and sweet and really easy to talk to. I love going to coffee shops around town with her, with our Macs, and her dog Jimmy. We go shopping together, get our make up done for fun, and both love scooting around town. She's the only other foreigner girl that has a scooter and lets be honest, scooter chicks rock! I don't know what I would do without her and our random crazy fun days.
She is old, and a little banged up, but she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love her oh so much! I took her on a scoot to the Muzha on Friday, to the beach on Saturday, and to the movies on Sunday. I can't believe I waited this long to get a scooter. Best decision ever!
I wore a suit today, for the first time in nearly 2 years. Its crazy to think that dressing up like this was a part of my monday-friday routine back in the days of cubicle life. I wore the suit today because I had my very first interview in Taipei today. It was nerve wrecking, and exciting, and a really great learning experience. I'm 110% sure I didn't get the job, but it was a job I didn't really want anyways. I just did it to practice my Chinese interviewing skills, which after today, I've realized need a lot of work! I wonder if I'll ever master this crazy hard language.
Friday night was a total success. Right before people showed up I started freaking out a bit, which is so unlike me. Anxiety starting creeping in because first I couldn't find french baguette for my dip, then more people were added to the guest list last minute, and lastly cause I was scared that the sour cream I used for the 7-layer dip had expired (even though the expo date was weeks away). In the end, none of that mattered. We had good food, good conversations, and of course good drinks. At around 3am the cops showed up and ruined our fun. Next time I'll just have to remember that playing Guitar Hero at 3am will most definitely wake up the neighbors.
This is the street where I have lived the last 16 months. I know I've said this before, but I love the location of our rented apartment. It's conveniently located smack in the middle between matt's office and my school. 10 minute commutes for both of us. Doesn't get any better than that.
Matt left this morning to go work in Kuala Lumpur for 2 weeks and I'm so incredibly jealous. I begged him to take me along, but alas, he said I need to be a good student and therefore I was not allowed to come along.
I scrapbooked today. And yesterday too. Made 2.5 pages. But just as I was getting excited to post them on the blog, my damn scanner broke down on me. And to make matters worse, my photo printer is acting wonky. I swear it knows that I just invested $80 on ink, and so now it has decided to print black and orange lines across all my pictures. So angering.
I lost my favorite bra. My purple and pink one from Target. How does one do that? Maybe the dryer ate it? Who knows, but I'm sad.
I am ready to face the week head on. Bring on the MBA madness.
I went out this past weekend for the first time in a long time. To be honest, I really didn't want to but it was the first time my classmates had made plans and I just didn't want to be the girl who said she'd go, and then backed out last minute. So I went. And it was so much fun. I met some really interesting people from all around the world. I love striking up conversations about the cities I've been to, lived in, or dream of going. And with the number of foreigners that seem to be popping up here and there, these kinds of conversations are becoming a more frequent thing.
And although I'm constantly having doubts about whether this MBA is right for me or not, I'm not having doubts about living in this fantastic city. I don't think I could do it forever, but for right now, it is a perfect place to be.
So this is my ring. It's a custom made, 6 prong, milgrain design, with pave diamonds on three sides. The design I chose was inspired by Bvlgari's 125th anniversary ring that I fell in love with (and obviously couldn't afford). I love the way it turned out. The four month wait was totally worth it.
So did you notice the blue finger? So the day after picking up my ring, I had a bit of a run-in with my rotary cutter. I accidentally cut off a chunk of my finger instead of cutting the pretty blue fabric that I was using for a baby quilt that I frantically trying to finish. Long story short, I was forced to go to the hospital after trying to act tough for the first 3 hours of gushing blood. The worse part was that the magic chemical-infused gauze thing that the doctor used to make it stop bleeding hurt more that cutting off my finger. So, to all my sewing friends out there...watch your fingers! Especially when you have JUST switched the blade.
So, I'm back in Taiwan now. Reunited with my boy. Reacquainting myself with the humidity. And doing all the prep-work and annoying paper work for my first week of business school. Today, I'm off to orientation. Wish me luck.
One of the things I love most about living here are the people I meet. Christine is from South Korea, and Tony is from Liechtenstein. Never heard of that country? Yeah, I hadn't either until I met him. It's the fourth smallest country in the world, and after meeting Tony, I am dying to visit. Tony is probably one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. The guy can speak 5 languages fluently. I want my future kids to grow up to be just like him. Multi-lingual, cultured, well-traveled, intelligent, humble, and adventurous. These two are my lunch buddies from time to time and today we had our last meal together. It was sad to say goodbye.
So, we'll be spending the day indoors. Watching movies on HBO. Cooking home-cooked meals with whatever is in the fridge. I'll be quilting. And cleaning my craft room. He'll be playing video games. And surfing the net. It's going to be lovely. And relaxing. And my idea of a perfect day with the boy. I heart typhoons.
At 2:04 am I was awaken by a serious shaking of the earth below me. It lasted for a solid ten seconds and it was really quite scary. According to the news, it was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that shook taiwan in the middle of the night. Although I experienced a baby earthquake last summer, this one (which really was not that big after all) still had me kinda freaked out. But luckily all is solid and stable now and I can go back to my regularly schedueled program. Off to school.
Do you want to know one of my favorite things about living in Taipei? That you can buy pens individually! All colors. All brands. And you can test them out before you buy to make sure that you like how they write. As a child, my favorite day of the year was back-to-school-shopping day (I loved buying new markers, crayons, mechanical pencils, pretty colored pens, hi-liters, etc.) so living here is a nerdy girl's dream come true. I love the stationary stores here. If only they had letterpress, then it really would be my dream come true.
Me and my boy finally had a weekend alone and it was so lovely. I hardly see him during the week, and for the last few weekends we've had a house guest, so I was extremely excited to have him all to myself. We watched The Hangover yesterday, which I highly recommend. I must say, that Bradley Cooper is one damn-good looking man. Especially with the long, curly, I-just-got-out-bed-looking-this-sexy, hair. So yep, I'm a big fan. Anyways, in other fantastic news, I FINALLY found a ring setting that I am madly in love with. Yes it took me 3 months and yes I'm incredibly picky. But if I have to wear this ring for a lifetime, then it should be perfect right? I can't wait to go home next month, get the diamond set, and rock it with pride. Now let's hope finding the location for the wedding doesn't take me as long as the setting did.
My new thing: I rock an umbrella even if it's not raining. The locals do it, and at first, I thought it was strange. But then I started seeing sun damage on my face. And so, I learned my lesson. I mean, just to give you an idea on how strong the sun is here...Taipei and Miami are on the same latitude. And the last time I went to Miami, I burned to a crisp. Not many foreigners in Taipei do the umbrella thing, but perhaps I can start a trend? I wonder what my friends would say if I tried to bring this "custom" back to the states. I think they'd just laugh at me.
It's my one year anniversary of arriving in Taipei
I can't believe it's already been one year. It has truly flown by. I feel so incredibly lucky to have had this opportunity. I feel like I've accomplished more in the last year of my life, then the last four years combined. I don't think I need to get into the mushy details, but all I can say is that I'm proud of myself for surviving the last 12 months. So, cheers to year one. And cheers to many more.
I went out yesterday with some classmates to check out the festivities for Dragon Boat Festival. It was especially cool cause we got to see one of our classmates compete (she's the brunette sitting in front, behind the guy with a shaved head). I've decided that before I leave Taiwan, I want to participate in the boat races. I know training would be hard, but imagine how diesel I would be!
Some pictures with my classmates:
I'm off to celebrate this holiday with Matt's family. I'm a little nervous because this will be my first time hanging out with them without Matt (he's still on vacation). I know my Chinese is conversational now, but I still worry that I'm going to say something stupid, or that I won't understand them. But, I am brave, and I can do this. Happy weekend!
I've been waiting for a while to share the big news. My boy popped the question, exactly one month ago today. It was totally unexpected and one of the most shocking moments of my life. It was simple. And sweet. And so totally us. I couldn't be happier! I can't believe I'm going to be a Mrs. I feel so grown up.
I love this picture for his big messy hair and that face he always makes. But I especially love this picture for the crazy art work in the corner. Isn't it creepy?
He's gone. The car just picked him up. Off to Europe he goes! He'll be gone the rest of May, and although I'm excited for some alone time, I think the thrill of a quiet house and fewer responsibilities will probably die down by the weekend. While he is gone, I will eat mostly vegetarian food, eat cereal for dinner a few times a week, and probably live a little messier than normal. I'm hosting a sleepover on Friday night with some classmates, and possibly a sewing party on Saturday. Looking forward to some girl bonding and crafty time at home.
I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'm a big fan of this drink. I give it a 9.5 on presentation and a 9.87 on taste. Found this drink at a hole-in-the-hall coffee shop by Zhongshan MRT. Luckily, it's right by Matt's grandma's house, so I can always stop by and have a drink after our Sunday visits.
Today, I am skipping my first two classes and going to the gym instead. I find every reason in the book to not workout and i'm sick of watching my body slowly sag and dimple. I put school work first, my boy second, and myself in the last place spot. I'm going to spice up my life, throw it out of routine, and just focus on what is important. Today, that means getting my ass to a gym, and not feeling guilty about slacking on my other responsibilities. What are YOU doing today?