How many times can I go to Danshui in one month?

So Saturday turned out to be a ridiculously long day.

I went to bed pretty early (relatively) Friday night but I just could not sleep. At one point around 3 a.m. I decided that I would just pull an all-nighter and I spent the next two hours talking to friends back home and looking up information on internships and TEFL.

Around 5 a.m. I decided that maybe a little bit of sleep is better than none at all so I went back at for another attempt.

It failed.

Finally 7:30 a.m. rolled around and I hadn't slept a week.

Long day indeed.

My first class I was a bit groggy and found it a bit difficult to form sentences. This is generally not a great performance for an English teacher. I perked up a bit in my second class. I like the kids in there. They're a bit more enthusiastic than my first class.

During my break I made an appointment to go get my haircut and then I hung out at home. I debated a nap and decided that if I didn't keep going full-steam ahead that I would probably lose all my momentum

It's a good thing I made that decision.

My Saturday afternoon classes are pretty rambunctious and I only barely got through them with enough energy. Luckily, they have pretty good English and they're a pretty entertaining bunch. This put me in a pretty good mood.

After the third class I decided I wasn't going to let myself go to sleep before 9 p.m. because I need to regulate my sleep pattern. So instead of going straight home and passing out after class I went to Carrefour for some dinner and then Starbucks for some passion fruit tea.

I studied Chinese for a whole hour and a half.

But it worked. When I got home I was exhausted (brain and body). I took a super hot shower and passed out in my wonderful air-conditioned bedroom. I woke up quite easily at 9:30 a.m. today. After stretching and taking my time to actually get out of bed I quickly got ready and the roommates and I headed over to the dorm.

I grabbed some good ol' dan bing for breakfast (dan bing is probably my favorite thing ever) and then we and a couple others from the dorm headed to Taipei.

A few weeks ago the plan was that we were going to rent bicycles and ride around the city taking pictures. About 15 people were interested.

Somehow the plan evolved into going somewhere random in the city and breaking up and taking pictures. My camera battery turned out to be dead. (How does one own two camera batteries and BOTH are dead?)

The concept is cool but I personally don't think it worked out as well as we had imagined. I think that might have been because we were all still a little tired and maybe we didn't pick the best location. Research would go a long way in this department, but then I suppose it would also defeat the purpose.

After failing to find anything particularly interesting at Tian Mu (I did talk to a tattoo artist in Chinese) we went over to the Shilin Night Market. It's huge but it was still pretty early so it wasn't very crowded. I found a few things that I liked but I'm such a wuss that I didn't buy any of the dresses.

I did, however, buy two scarves that claim to be 100 percent Pashmina. I sort of doubt this considering I only paid $100NT for it (ahem, $3USD for Pashmina!?!?). They're still quite pretty, though, whether they're Pashmina or not.

After traipsing around Shilin, Katie, Tess and Deena decided they were ready to head back to Taoyuan but Dawn and I weren't quite ready yet so we headed up to Danshui.

I know what you're thinking, how many times can I go to Danshui in one month?

But it is a really nice place and I like it. And we were already halfway there as far as where we were on the MRT line. It only made sense.

Besides, the best Mexican restaurant in all of Taipei is there. How can you NOT go to Danshui?

I promise I will branch out and go somewhere else.

Now, only six days until Meghan arrives in Taiwan. I can't WAIT to see my Meghan again! I also can't wait to be on vacation. Yay!

But, with Meghan here, and only having a few days in Taiwan, I have to take her around and show her as many places as I can. I'm planning a day at the hot springs (probably Beitou, but maybe Xiao Wulai) and a whole Taipei day where we do the usual touristy things (101, Wu Fen Pu, etc).

Then it's off to The Philippines for five whole days! I can't wait.

What color are your eyes?

My sleep schedule is all messed up.

I stayed up until 5 a.m. last night (this morning?). A bunch of us played Texas Hold 'em. I won (REPRESENT)! Then Ray and I watched movies and just talked a lot. Next thing I knew it was 4:45 and I already regretted staying up so late (early?).

So, of course, I didn't wake up until around one o' clock this afternoon. It sucks because sleeping that late means I don't really get much done before class. I have to rush just to take a shower, get ready, find some food and do all my lesson plans before heading off to class.

It's not like I even have anything I need to do, but I want to run around, get used to the neighborhood and go exploring. Also, I'm leaving myself zero time to read and one of my goals was to give myself more time for leisurely reading now that I'm out of college and don't have to read textbooks anymore.

I still read a lot of the news back home though. I've found it difficult to make myself read Taiwanese news though. I suppose I should start reading the Taipei Times or China Post. It would only make sense for me to know what's going on in my corner of the world. I love knowing what's going on halfway around the world too, but I should probably be aware of the local stories.

Today the Q and A in one of my classes was, "What color are your eyes."

It's hilarious because all of the kids have brown eyes. Most of them have REALLY dark brown eyes, though, and they all wanted to say they have black eyes. I had to explain to them that their eyes are "dark brown" not "black."

"The little spot in the middle of your eye is black. The rest of your eye is dark brown. Everyone say dark brown."

This job requires speech with a lot of emphasis.

It was adorable though. I got to this one kid and I asked him the question and he answered, "My eyes are blue!"

Me: "Your eyes aren't blue! My eyes are blue!"

It was good times though. We giggled a lot in that class. Actually, we giggled a lot in both of my classes today. The kids were fun and receptive to my games and we were all just generally in good moods.

We played Teacher Says in my first class. I definitely had them patting their heads and rubbing their tummies at the same time. Have 14 five-year-olds do that while hopping on one foot and you can't help but roll over laughing.