Calligraphy

I'm getting really into calligraphy. Rotary did this culture class one weekend and we learned it for a couple hours. It's so fun; I love it.

My name and my boyfriends chinese name

My Chinese name

I really really wish someone here would give me lessons. I would get my own lessons, but I have no money for it. I'm dead serious, if I could pay for it, I would do it. It's so so fun. It's relaxing. I love it.

I decided to spend a little money because I want to practice, but I know I wont have the money to take a class. So I bought these two pens. They're calligraphy pens. Usually you do calligraphy with a brush and ink, btw. This is kind of nontraditional, but easy to use anywhere and much cheaper than the real stuff.

I bought a Japanese pen for 2 USD and a Chinese pen for 1 USD.

The Japanese pen works better, this one is also actually like a brush rather than a felt triangle tip thing. Although, I could have gotten a chinese one with a brush and a Japanese one with a felt tip. But, my Japanese friend Kiwako has this other Japanese one I like a lot better.

Japanese is left, Chinese is right

The Japanese one gives you more control of how thin and thick you want the lines

Felt tip

The Japanese pen came with only one ink thing, the Chinese came with one and a refill!



 All my other posts today have been on really old stuff. This post however, is on stuff that happened just today.

I'm also going to throw in a Japanese snack I tried today. At the Culture Fair (I will do a post on it) , KiwakoChan gave it to me.

It's really salty and good.

Okay, never mind, Blogspot picture editor wont let me show you.

I hope you're happy with all the pictures. I have been thinking about you guys. Lately there's been too much plan typing. I know. I'm going to keep doing a mix of both. It wont ever be just one. So stay with me.

Sometimes you don't expect something

Wow.

Today is a Halloween Party and I'm totally skipping out on it. Why? It's kind of a waste of money. And time. While it would be fun; I have no doubts about that, it's just that it could be better. Like if I actually had a super close friend going, or a costume,  or money to waste, or no essays to write.

So I get on a bus, I think it's going to be a great ride to my university's library. Almost no one is on the bus. And I'm in a okay mood. And I'm really happy with that. And so I take out my journal to start writing about how I feel about a recent incident. And my reasons for how I feel. And drafting college essays. Etc.

This man wants to sit next to me. That's a little annoying. I would have liked to have two seats, but it's pretty whatever; I don't mind having someone sit next to me. It was also just a little annoying that he was a male. Usually, I only like women to sit next to me on the bus. Just a safety thing, it's not necessary, just personal preference. But he seemed nice so I didn't give him a dirty look. He did the usual Taiwanese "xie xie" when I moved out of his way to help him sit down. And he even said "thank you" after. Taiwanese people always think I don't understand simple things. But it was nice of him. I thought it was nice he was trying his best to speak English to me. So I went to ignoring him and continued on with my journal. I was writing a total bitch entry. I'm not going to lie. I'm really disgusted with someone I know. And I was writing all about it. I didn't attempt to hide this entry at all. Because it was in English. Five minutes later, he talks to me in fluent english, asking me if I'm writing out homework. I'm still not sure how much english he knows, so I give him a simple "yes." We spend the next hour talking. He lived in America for like 2 years, and with the Americans in Africa for like 18 years. His english is perfect. He worked for the American government. It was kind of a FML moment. But kind of not.

I learned a lot about him, he learned a little about me. It wasn't bad. I was completely shocked. He has the best english I've heard since I got here. Better than the "english teachers" here, better than all the Rotary Club people. It just goes to show you, there are exceptions everywhere. People can and will shock you. I like him. He was fun. He totally made me realize I've started to think I'm the only exception. People are always shocked I'm here at all. They are completely shocked when they find out I speak Japanese. An American girl who speaks Japanese and is learning Chinese. It's almost too much for them. But there are those of us like this in every country. It's good. It's fun. I met someone a lot like me today.

Edit From Several Years Later:
I had an issue with how my host mother was treating her live-in maid around this time. I wrote about it never naming names or what was actually done. But I have since removed the writing about that. I will say the extent of the backlash I was exposed to as a result of this post is something that remains unacceptable to me. But I admit I could have gone about this a little differently at the time. I was 18 years old though.

Making Dumplings!

I just learned how to make dumplings at home! It was really cool. I hope we have all these skins at home. I think if you have the skin, then making them is not so hard.

Ground beef

Just use a little

Fold towards you, and wet the left corner

Fold towards you again

Pull the two corners up and make them cross.

Kind of mush them together.

We made a bunch

They made the dumplings in soup.

This I'm throwing in for my little brother. Mom, show him. I took this picture just for him.