second term shenanigans

嗨～ as one might guess, the addition of the new cohort has reinvigorated some of us to go out more, while it seems to just tire out our teachers 😂 . some of us have taken to being 學哥/學姐 (kind of like “upperclassman”). i definitely have with the five students from UO. while the new cohort is a little too large imo, i love having more close friends here!

since the last time i posted, 中秋節 (midautumn/moon festival) and a friend’s birthday have passed. moon festival is a really old holiday and was originally for praying for good harvest the following year. now, people mostly just eat 月餅 (mooncakes) and 烤肉 (bbq meat) sticks on the street. the day before moon festival, the teachers gave us mooncakes and sent us off on a long weekend. on the day, we took some of the new cohort out to 圓山 (yuán shān) area and later a smaller group of me and my closer friends vibes in 101 area. of course, the moon was absolutely beautiful and bright.

did anyone see 嫦娥 (Cháng É the lady in the moon) with the 月兔 (moon rabbit) with his mortar and pestle? some people think it’s a stretch, but apparently some people see them in the moon’s craters.

one of my friends just had her birthday and we had a quieter night the day of and then partied when more people were free. it’s nice that we have so much freedom now because we’re making friends outside of the program in our workplaces and elsewhere. (more on internship down below 😊)

one day on my lunch break, i spontaneously dm’d a hairdresser for his rates because i’d been eyeing his instagram for a while. long story short, i had an appointment booked for the next saturday later that very night. so yeah, i chopped it back to collarbone length, bleached and finally got the silver ends i’ve been wanting for a while. it was a long 6.5 hours but i got the full works and purple shampoo all for a great deal. what i got done could’ve easily been tripled in the states. the studio was over in 桃園 (táo yuán) the city right next to 台北 (taipei), so i did get to see a new environment. i’d definitely say it’s a city, but it’s line with taipei is not super clear.

they even steamed my hair!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f148f6_e46bfb0fb7234f8bb2c6f29767e0b595/720p/mp4/file.mp4

final stretch and result!

桃園 (táo yuán) views

we got rain and wind from another typhoon and i’m not sure how, but the states seemed to get news of the earthquake really late. i felt two: one on saturday, one on sunday and the aftershocks monday morning. taipei was totally fine damage-wise but it’s the most i’ve ever felt from an earthquake. the epicenter was in the southeast near 花蓮 (hualien) and 台東 (taitung) cities. they sustained much more damage. i think at least 3 bridges down, many road closures and building collapses that had the news discussing taiwan building codes. i'm afraid visiting the east may have to wait until next time...anyway, here’s some fun infographics that were shared with me during that time.

internship

one of the most fun things so far was an event we had at a mall in 信義 (xìn yì) area which is just a couple stations over from the office. earlier on, i tagged along to see our mascot for 用愛守護 (protect with love) initiative get moved there. later, on the day of the event, i helped people sign in and they even let me participate. we were felting the mascot called HUHU. the mall’s food floor where we were is amazing with lanterns hanging from the ceiling and modeled after an old street like 迪化街 (dí huà) street that i mentioned last post. i also help with random tasks like packing orders or prepping mailers. the mailers took me 4 WHOLE hours. a coworker gave me a fat stack of papers (maybe three inches tall) and i had to go through each one individually and hand stamp the names of the banker and the receiver. in chinese societies, people use ink stamps of their names as their signatures. so yeah, i went through the several hundred papers TWICE, one for each name. then i had to fold some of them up, add inserts to some, and pack them in groups of 100. so in the end, i had stamped several hundred papers twice, and prepped 197 mailers without inserts, 12 with inserts and 7 that had to go through a different mailing process. i’m not complaining–i just want you to understand why it took me four hours. it actually was kind of nice after i got into the rhythm.

on the balcony of the mall at sunset

other than these random tasks and specific events, i’ve been assigned to work on developing the storyline for an interactive chatbot on the foundation’s facebook and doing research translation. the topics so far have been impacts of witnessing domestic violence on children and the effects of, how to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace (outside of taiwan). they want to understand foreign research, most of which is in english so that falls to me, as a native speaker who can easily and quickly scan the articles to see if provides the info we want. translation is not easy, but i’m slowly learning the commonly used 專業詞 (topic-specific words).

the foundation treated us to a hotpot lunch this week as a welcome to me and the other intern who is from another school in taiwan.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f148f6_7371d226751d494483d69b96e78f0ab3/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

the commute is getting really easy, i can kind of space out on the MRT because i have a feeling for how many stations have passed. also, i kind of became a regular at this really cute coffee shop right around the corner from work. the guy definitely recognizes me which is cool–i'm a regular haha. also, idk if i have mentioned this before but coffee is an afternoon thing here, which is good for me because then i don’t have to wait in a long line in the morning. i work M 930-1730 and T/TH 930-1800. rush hour here seems to last hours. especially because i know other student's timing is different from mine but they still hit the rush.

direct enrollment class

the direct enrollment class is actually really chill so far. we are only graded on participation, the midterm and final (which is open note). my professor is this 70 something man who loves telling stories. we usually end up not getting through everything because he periodically will go off on a story tangent. the topic of the class is 大眾傳播 (mass media) which is a great refresher for a intro class i took during my last term at UO. not to mention, now i know these terms in chinese! if i went into a class i had no background in, i’d be having a very different experience. one other classmate is also from my program which is nice because we can double check our understanding of concepts and homework assignments.

i can't believe how fast time flies. i only have three more months here!

as always, thanks for reading

♡蘇晨