July 15-19

Crazy to think that in give weeks I'll be home, and even sooner I'll be done with my final presentation at ICLP. Totally crazy to think about. It seems as if time is going to fly by so quickly.

July 15 wasn't particularly eventful. I went into the office, and I did some work, came home and worked on class work.

July 16 I was worked from home because my boss was out of town. After my work for the evening, I decided to go out and explore a neighborhood a south of me around sunset because it was a relatively clear evening.

Sunset picture taking time is really quite fun. Unfortunately the area I went to had clouds blocking the sunset, but I still managed to get some cool pictures with the gradient in the sky and nice night time photos on the water. I stayed around the area for a bit, exploring the suspension bridge, and everything that was along the water. I managed to find duck boat rides, little girls blowing bubbles, dogs swimming in water, and even a group of Taiwanese women doing what looked like the equivalence of Taiwanese Zumba.

It wasn't Zumba, but like what do I know???

I'm excited to go explore this area earlier in the day, as this is the Subway station for a cool little town a half hour south of the area.

June 17 and 18 were both fairly uneventful. I have mostly just been doing work for classes, working on my paper for my internship, and working on applying for an internship for the school year. So, I didn't really leave the apartment and do anything particularly exciting.

I think I'm okay with that because realistically it is going to take a lot out of me to go do something in the evening after a day of classes and internship and juggling the work for the two of them with my inherent exhaustion. Therefore I am going to try and make sure I do something at least once during the class week, and make sure that I go out during the weekends and do something both days. I don't feel as if that is inherently a difficult task, but I know that when I come home in a few weeks and reflect upon everything that I did, I will be happy with the things that I can say that I did/saw in Taipei!

July 19, it was Friday! Friday is definitely one of my favorite days of the week. I mean, it's basically the weekend. Class happened, and next week we have our "midterm/big exam" so the weekend is going to be doing quick "break" type of activities out of the apartment along with a lot of studying and doing work.

This evening was a nice break just because I went out to dinner with my roommates and a few of the other students on the program in the Gongguan neighborhood. We had Thai food and got to talk more with each other. The Thai food was good and a nice break from instant noodles at the apartment, and it was nice having dinner with everyone else. After the Thai food, we went to get shaved ice. In Taiwan, I would say that shaved ice in the summer is similar in culture to going and getting gelato or ice cream on a hot summer afternoon back home in the states. It was slightly odd that I hadn't been to get any shaved ice yet and I have been living in Taiwan for seven weeks, but there is always a first time for everything!