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| adjusting to home. it seems like tropical storms are everywhere i go, first typhoon sinlaku two weeks ago, now hurricane kyle here. and apparently there's typhoon jangmi now around taiwan.
by the way, here is an interesting primer on hurricane and typhoon names. both atlantic and western north pacific names are rotated through six lists, with names switched out if it was used on a storm that was especially deadly, and typhoon names come from 14 contributor nations, but no taiwan! (jangmi is named by korea.)
what i've encountered at hoome:
- seeing an abundance of fat and unstylish people around
- the ridiculous food prices, $12 for a small salad at the airport?!
- so much grass everywhere
- answering the phone with "hello?" instead of "唯?"
- my mattress is nice
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| random things.
- nyt's the frugal traveler loves taipei. i loved this guy already but now he's leveled up. also his wife is taiwanese, apparently grew up in taipei. i wish i grew up in taipei. well, no, after seeing the lives of elementary and high school students, maybe i don't. college would have been cool though.
- i am easily engrossed/fixated/obsessed/infatuated/enamored. i attribute this quality to either my suspected asperger syndrome (high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder or my suspected low-degree ocd tendencies. strange recent attachments: threadless t-shirts, frozen yogurt, hoefler type foundry, japanese dramas, microsoft excel and access.
- on a related note, i started creating a database of my wardrobe. i was originally going to produce it in access, but then realized excel would probably suffice because there isn't really any interlinkage between items of clothing that would result in duplication of information. unless i start making records/schedules of outfits or large-scale lending of my clothes ...
- if you haven't heard, there is yet another quality control scandal in china, this time being poisoned milk powder laced with melanine (a compound used in making plastics, in this case used to fake protein content so that the milk could meet minimum standards). four children have died, 158 have acute kidney failure, and 6,244 are sick. and china covered this up throughout august because of the olympics - authorities were alerted august 2 but a full recall wasn't ordered until september 11. i hate china, apparently babies' lives are expendable to maintain public image and make money. and taiwan is PISSED because a lot of poisoned milk was imported and even used in making beverages, baked goods, etc.
- today, as a personal experiment, i asked a girl for her number. conclusions: i'm very intimidated by pretty girls, which results in my voice being uneven and my mind completely blanking out. her response was "可能不方便耶" which translates into "oh it's probably inconvenient" and i just nodded meekly and walked away, haha, a complete disintegration of my normal persistence in doing other things. naturally afterwards i thought of all these smart responses i could have given, like "oh, don't worry, it's no inconvenience for me" or at the very least writing my own contact and giving it to her. oh well, practice makes perfect.
- truth lutheran church is great. i suggest checking it out for anyone who's in taipei. too bad everything was over in the summer, yesterday i attended somewhat of a college "intro night" and am pretty disappointed i couldn't be here during the school year - there was literally zero activity during the summer. i tried to join a small group but no one contacted me. (as an aside, i think churches in taiwan are pretty lacking in their welcoming/fellowship-related activities, i pretty much checked out services at various churches and always walked out alone, no one to speak to because they all scatter immediately afterwards.) anyway, at tlc they sing hillsong for evening service on sundays, with both chinese and english lyrics on the big screen. there are two churches on 新生南路across from ntu's main campus, big brown church (grace baptist) and skyscraper church (tlc), it's really a very nice place.
- is it bad that i enjoy a well-produced worship service? maybe "well-produced" isn't the right phrase, i'm fine just as well with people singing with one guitar or perhaps even without, i think i mean well-done or well-executed, i.e., good music, good speaker, good organization (related to good production), good special programs or activities, good fellowship, etc. mccc has really let me down over recent years with all of those things. is that a valid reason for leaving and going somewhere else?
- organizing my thoughts into words is quite nice. practice makes perfect.
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| mainly for my own amusement, things taiwanese people like
- converse chucks
- trucker hats
- abercrombie and fitch
- american eagle
- anything with moose or eagles
- roots (canadian apparel brand)
- beverages, especially tea ones
- glasses
- digital watches
- man purses, essentially large handbags or tote bags
- squid and octopus
- snacks made of squid or octopus
- neon colors
- stripes
- neon stripes
- fake eyelashes
- dyed and/or permed hair
- chien-ming wang
- subsequently, the yankees
- picking nose in public
- sweating a lot but not wearing deodorant
- having no sense of personal space
- a brutal combination of the previous two
- substituting "excuse me" with pushing
- scooters
- parasols
- coldstone creamery (x100000)
- mister donut
- being as pale as possible
- being as tan as possible
- japan
- terrible pop music
- terrible dramas
- rice
- noodles
- bread
- mochi
- cake
- just any carbohydrates
- high-pitched girls' voices
- avril lavigne and linkin park
- being really cute and girly
- being really butch
- being seemingly lesbian when girly and butch are together (everywhere i look)
- following-your-every-move service
- hanging out at mcdonalds or kfc
- using "feel" as a noun, "man" as an adjective
- nintendo ds
- wearing bags really low
- wearing long sleeves and long pants all summer
- food courts
- camera self-portraits, especially with "numbered" poses
- fake bathing ape t-shirts
- burberry check
- medicines and health supplements
- street dancing
- peace/victory/fob sign, obviously
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