Midterms, Midterms, Midterms.

This week is midterm week for us ICLP students. It feels a lot like a finals week; we don't have classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and instead only have midterms on those days. Tuesday and Thursday we still have class though, and so we still have to study and do homework for those days. It feels very rushed and kind of unnecessary; with a midterm looming on Wednesday, do those teachers really think I'm going to be studying for a small quiz tomorrow? I think not!

What have I been up to since last Wednesday? To be perfectly honest, I don't really remember. Friday was the start of the NTU triathalon, which yours truly is taking part in. Friday's event was an obstacle course; one lap around a track with tires, a low crawling section, a section where you have to carry 30 lbs, and a section with hurdles. It doesn't sound that hard but that day, it was sprinkling, so the track was completely smooth. This meant it took about four slippery, wet steps to move the same distance as one dry step. Needless to say, I was beat by the end of the lap!

The obstacle course team from Guo Qing. Pumped up and ready to go! Thanks to Jenn for this pic.

The same day, we got a very, VERY large group out to go clubbing. During David's birthday dinner, we ran into a promoter for Plush. The girls in our group worked their charm and we ended up walking away with like 60 free tickets for Plush. They expire this week, so we decided to use them up last Friday. Plush is a VERY cool club, on the top floor of this mall I like to call the Giant Ball. It is all glass and overlooks the city. It's large, very open, and very nice. We danced the night away. Things I won't want to forget: dancing on that stage, watching Jun do his awesome dance, looking out on the city, listening to Yue Ying rant outside of the 7-11 about class and Sarah-no-the Salah Monster.

Saturday was the swimming portion of the triathalon. I spent pretty much the entire day with the Guo Qing swim team, cheering our group on and taking part in some of my own events. Our relay team got seventh in one event... and that's about it. We were up against NTU swim teams and dudes in really tight speedos, so that we even got ANYTHING out of the race was pretty miraculous. Still, it was a very, very fun day with team Guo Qing.

Guo Qing swim team. Thanks again to Jenn for the pic!

Sunday was all study study study. I got out of the dorms after dinner to meet up with Jenn and her friends. We went to Shilin night market, where I finally got some pictures of the place! We've been here almost 5 times now and every single time I've forgotten my camera; not this time! First, we went to Miramar, which is this really, really swank mall about 10 minutes and a free bus ride from the Shilin night market MRT stop.

This is the ferris wheel at Miramar. I heard that it's the second tallest ferris wheel in the world; it is pretty huge in real life.

View from the top of the ferris wheel. Unfortunately pictures were hard to take in the boxes because the windows were kind of scratched up, and the boxes shook a lot. Pictures don't really convey how spectacular the view was.

Food section of the Shilin night market. They have awesome ji-pai, sausages, and mien mien bing, but I'll get to that later.

The night market portion of the Shilin night market. This night market is huge and crowded; this picture was taken as the street vendors made their escape because the police were on their way. This is a common occurence. Usually the streets are 5x more crowded than what you see here. And this night market is pretty much famous; I'm thinking it's one of the larger ones in Taipei. I can't really describe the scope of how large and convoluted it gets, and how many things there are to do, and places to shop. It's just.. awesome.

Inside the food section of Shilin. They literally took a warehouse and filled it with street food vendors. Awesome.

Ok. So this place's mien mien bing is OUT OF THIS WORLD. The fruit is always fresh, and the shaved ice seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY, tastes like clouds. If you could eat clouds, this is what it would taste and feel like. Freaking AMAZING.

Future me will be looking at this picture longingly.

So, back to today's midterm. I think it went pretty well, actually! I studied a lot for it over the weekend and I think it paid off. Now it's just keeping the work ethic high and the interesting outings low... the next post will for sure be quite boring I suspect.

A random addition before I end this entry. Shu is a Japanese student who lives across the hall. He said "I suck," and Yue Ying said "That's what she said." And since I am the unofficial "That's what she said" master in Guo Qing, I had to explain "That's what she said" in relation to sucking to a Japanese foreign exchange student. It was pretty legendary.

Back to studying! Until next time, zai jian!

-Justin