Getting Into the Swing of Things

I am finally starting to feel more and more comfortable as each day goes by. I am still having problems teaching grammar and giving instructions, but I feel more comfortable around my students and I don’t get that nervous feeling before each class starts.

I started my Chinese lessons today and love it!! It’s very hard, especially the 4 tones and even more so the writing of the characters, but my teacher is hilarious and so funny and I had so much fun in the class! I even retained almost all of what I learned I think! I can now count to 10 except I can never remember seven and even noticed a HUGE difference today that even before class I am starting to understand small pieces of Chinese when spoken to me…for example: I went to a tea shop and asked for Molilucha(Green Tea with Jasmine) and the girl said a couple times “Meiyou Cha” and after the third time-it hit me..Oh yeah…”No tea.” So the lightbulb went off and walked to the next tea shop and got my molilucha qing bu jia tang (Green tea with jasmine, please no sugar). Then after my class went to the smoothie place and the girl said Sanshìwu kuai and I automatically knew it meant $35!!! So I have to write a few characters out for Friday and Friday I get black saddlebags for my bike J Yay!!

So this weekend boyfriend and I went to another nightmarket not Fengjia and had my fortune told and my palm read and here is what the man said:

~I’m a hard worker
~I’m kind
~My big forehead is a symbol of something good
~I’m very highly intelligent or educated (Damn Straight Mr. Fortune Teller ;P)
…And the ones that make me laugh…
~I’ll end up making more money than boyfriend :)
~Be careful because I might be in an accident next year
~THIS year is a good time for me to get married….HA!!!! It's OK Mr. Fortune Teller, we can't get them all right you know...
~I will have 2 kids with boyfriend..(Whoa! Mr. Fortune Teller! Methinks we are being too hasty!!)

But I think he only said that stuff about marriage and kids because we were together and because I’m 27(we told him our ages) and I think traditionally the older generations push the younger ones, especially the younger females to get married and have kids…

But… he also said that I would have less and less contact with my parents which worried me (because I don’t want the Germany incident to happen again) and thank god for boyfriend’s cynicism because he told me that can’t be true because I have MSN, Skype and my mobile and so there is no way I can have less contact with my parents…and that made me feel a lot better.

So here are the foods I tried this weekend:
~Coconut milk straight from the coconut
~Taiwanese fried eggplant (I luv me sum eggplant) and fried scallions with mussels
~Taiwanese ice with milk, red bean and the other ice with barley-very good!
~Soup Dumplings-yum!!!!!!!!!
~Taichung “Sun Cakes” and “Green Bean Cakes” Yum again!!!!!

Oh and one last thing: On Friday, I get to learn how to write my Chinese name!!!!! Yay!!!! It is probably going to be one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do but will be sooooooo cool once I can do it!!!!!!! I can’t wait to post pics!!!

BTW, pics will be up soon I promise!!! Boyfriend and I are very busy so we have no time to upload pics and stuff yet…I’ll try to do it ASAP k?

Dai hui jian!