Don't I feel like a dinosaur?

I was right; yoga makes a world of difference.

Honestly, any sort of physical activity would have done it. I finally feel like I got up off my butt and did something good for myself. A quick 20-minute yoga workout is really all I needed, though tomorrow I think I'm going to add in a few extra poses to make it a good half-hour.

Today was pretty tame. I ate my omelet, did my yoga, and then I read forever before going to class. I've been reading a lot lately. I've decided that Catch-22 (and probably Joseph Heller's writing style in general) just isn't my kind of book and that's probably why I wasn't reading as much before.

But one of my roommates gave me this gigantic (700+ pages) book — The Persimmon Tree — three or four days ago and I'm already more than 300 pages in. I forgot how much I love leisurely reading.

I used to love books and words so much that I wrote a book when I was 10. I have no idea what happened to it. Now I write blogs. I suppose that's probably similar to whatever type of novel I was capable of writing as a 10-year-old country girl.

It's funny though because here I am with a gigantic novel reading in between classes and my kids tell me that they read books on the Internet. Don't I feel like a dinosaur?

It's funny how quickly and easily a kid can make you feel old. Sometimes I think about it and I'm like wow, I'm only like seven or eight years old that some of these kids. And then they come up with something that I don't even know — usually about the Internet or some crazy stationary thing I didn't know exist (kids here are obsessed with stationary).

In my head: "The Internet came out when I was like 10-years-old. Why don't I know this?"

Actually, I found this hilarious card a few days ago that said something like "When I was your age, we had to dial to get the Internet."

Do you remember how painful that was? Just think of how impatient children are in general and then sit them in front of a computer with dial-up Internet access. I space out way more quickly now that I'm in my twenties. I guess it was all so novel then that I was fascinated enough to have patience.

Of course, I'm not entirely behind the times. I'm just broke. Probably the one gadget I want more than anything else in the world is a Kindle. I want that more than a 12-year-old wants an iPod Touch (or an iPhone depending on the kid).

I would have a Kindle right now if it weren't for the fact that I decided to move to Taiwan. My parents were going to get me one for my graduation present. That money, instead, became my "Taiwan start-up fund."

Oh well, I suppose it was probably worth it.

How do they get so adorable?

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty decent day. I have to admit that I've been taking a lot of time to myself, but not in an I'm-going-to-entirely-seclude-myself-from-everyone-around-me sort of way.

More like an I-need-time-to-digest-things sort of way. That's OK; We all need that kind of time and I certainly have never really been one to give that to myself.

I had so much fun in my first class yesterday. It was the play-dough class I was looking forward to.


We didn't play with clay again, but the co-teacher gave me the pictures from the last class.


Aren't they so adorable?


The peace sign is definitely these kids favorite thing to do in photos.


I think it's hilarious and takes me back to the '90s. You know, when I was their age and thought that the peace sign maneuver made me look cool in pictures.


We played a lot of games in that class again and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, because these kids are so young, it takes a lot of energy to keep up with them, which left me no energy for my last class.

We got through it OK, though, and I think I'll be better prepared next week for my regular class. I'm still trying to feel those kids out. There is Ken, who can easily be considered the class clown and gets in trouble the most. He tends to set off all the other boys into doing what they do best — being boys.

The girls are all so quiet and it's so hard to get them to be loud when it comes time to participate. Hopefully I'll find something they really like and I can convince them that it really is OK to speak loudly enough for people to hear you.

After class I went to Carrefour to buy groceries. I decided that it would be a good idea to have food on hand in case a typhoon does actually come rolling through, though I'm not convinced it will. I've also been less inclined to go out and find something to eat, so having something in the kitchen is probably a good plan.

I bought milk and let me tell you that's not easy here. I have no idea which milk is full fat and which is non-fat, but then you have to add on that, here in Asia, they like apple milk and yogurt milk and soybean milk (sugar added or not) and apple-soy milk. I think there were at least 10 kinds of milk at that store. I may have ended up with yogurt milk, but I'm not sure. All I know is the milk tasted a little sweeter than what I remember it.

I think I'm starting to get into the routine though. After Carrefour I made myself some dinner (if you can call a cheese and bell pepper omelet dinner) and then I did some yoga.

I truly believe what they say about exercise getting endorphines flowing. After my yoga workout last night I felt way better than I have in the past couple of days and I kind of felt motivated to do things.

The unfortunate part was it was already 12:30 a.m. by the time I was feeling motivated. I ended up staying up and reading about the Sotomayor hearing and about Obama appointing a new surgeon general. I miss reading the news all of the time. That's something else I will have to work into my daily routine.

At about 2 a.m. I decided it was time just to turn out the lights and force myself into bed. As I was exiting out of all my screens on my computer, my bed starting shaking. Like I told my dad, I felt like I was dizzy, as if I had stood up too fast, except I was sitting on my bed.

There was a 6.3-magnitude earthquake off the east coast of Taiwan (NNE of Haulien City). We could feel it all the way over here on the NNW side of the country.

That's something else I'm trying to adjust to. In the States, when something happens on the East Coast in the middle of the night, the West Coast doesn't hear about it for several hours. We felt it though.

A few of the others in the dorm felt it and we came out of our rooms to see if we weren't all imagining it. Then I started doing my research. If any of you know me, you know I like to know what's going on as soon as I can.

I always have crazy tidbits of knowledge like this. It's in my nature.

Earthquake aside, everyone is fine. There was no reported damage. We're lucky it was out in the sea and not on the island. That could have been really devastating.

Oddly enough, given that I didn't go to sleep until about 4 a.m., I still managed to wake up just after 11 a.m. I think that's pretty good given that I work nights. No need to wake up much earlier than that unless I have plans.

I think this may be the beginnings of a new routine. I did some more yoga this morning (I think I'm going to switch to day time yoga in order to avoid the night time restlessness) and now I'm ready to make things happen.

I think I'm going to go study some Chinese and to my lesson plans for the day.

Where can I find the fruit?

Today was actually a really productive day.

Since I arrived, I just don't feel like I've been doing that much with myself. I think because I'm used to going to school and having two jobs all at the same time. One job that I only work four hours per day at is weird.

I went to lunch with Olenka, bought a yoga mat, did my laundry, went to the stationary store and the wet market and went to school. Then, after my classes, I even did yoga and I some of my Chinese homework. It was great to get so much done in one day again.

Here are some pictures from the day:


The wet market has veggies, fruit, fresh noodles, ready-made food and of course raw meat.


Don't you love when you see raw meat just hanging around at the stand right across from the fruit vendors?


It's OK though. This fruit makes walking passed all of that raw meat totally worth it.


Just a view from my walk back to the dorm from the market.


So much construction! Apparently Taoyuan is one of the fastest (THE fastest?) growing area in Taiwan. It's essentially a suburb of Taipei, so that honestly just makes sense to me.

After I got back form the market I decided to have a go at my very first dragonfruit. I had no clue what to expect. Actually, I didn't even know how to get into in the first place. I had to ask.


Me: Ummm, how do I eat this thing? Do I just cut it in half?
Danielle: I think you're supposed to peel it first.


This is what I ended up with. Ray insisted it tasted (and felt) like a kiwi. I can't really describe it. I kind of thought it would have a stronger flavor. Dragonfruit is kind of tame. It's good though.


Apparently there are something like five different species of mango in Taiwan?


Also, melons come in several crazy colors. From what I can tell, your regular pink watermelon only comes in gigantic sizes. But then there are regular-sized ones that I yellow like this.

It's still delicious.

As for my Chinese homework, Bobo said I have to write "I am American" in traditional Chinese over and over again. I'm also drilling myself on all of my new vocabulary (practice, homework, understand, don't understand, etc.)


"Wo shi meiguoren."