June 17-June 23

Finding a balance between classes, homework, interning, and mental brain break requires a lot of time management skill (that I don't particularly have a good grasp on yet here in Taiwan).

June 17 marked the first day of classes at ICLP. It marked the beginning of our language pledge on campus. At first I was all like "I have so much to say and I'm worried that my teachers will not be able to understand what I am attempting to communicate to them, but that is far from what is happening in my classes. Particularly my one-on-one class. There I am surprisingly able to communicate fairly well with my teacher. I'm really excited for the summer in my classes. Even though I believe that I was placed in a level below my current reading and writing level, I think that the level that ICLP placed me in for speaking is probably the correct level.

June 19 was my first day at my summer internship. This summer I am working at the Democratic Progressive Party (民主进步党), one of the two main political parties in Taiwan. The DPP is the current party in power, and helped get the first Taiwanese female to be the president. They are focused on pro-independence from China. I was particularly excited to learn that not only was that it was finally my first day of my internship this summer, but also that President Tsai Ing-wen was visiting the office.

Let it be known on 06/19, I shook hands with the president of Taiwan

June 20 I received my official first task at the DPP. My boss （老板）asked me to write a 5-page report about what is happening with the US-China trade war. After I finish writing the paper, he said that he'd ask me to translate it into Chinese as he wants the paper to be able to be given out to the general public. I told him that I wasn't sure about how well that would go, but I know that I am absolutely excited for the challenge that is to come!

June 22 I wanted to be sure that I actually went out during the weekend and saw some of Taipei, or at least some parts that I hadn't yet seen during my time here. After a morning of doing homework and getting caught up for the weekend I left the house to eventually go visit a park in the evening. Throughout the MRT there have been pictures of a very pretty park that I figured it would be as good of a time to visit.

First though, I visited the largest bookstore in all of Taiwan. From what I can tell this bookstore "Eslite" is almost like the bookstore chain "Barnes and Noble" in the states. The biggest difference is that this bookstore isn't going out of business anytime. The Eslite that I visited was GINORMOUS! There were a total of six floors with different vendors selling anything from dehumidifiers, expensive European pen brands, to typical grocery store items. This bookstore has everything that you would ever need, you could absolutely live in this store!

The second place that I visited Saturday afternoon was Dahu Park. The big key feature of the park is this large traditional Chinese bridge.

Dahu Park

June 23 was primarily a study day. The big event of the day was that Brian and his mom took me to Din Tai Fung. Xiao long bao 小籠包 (Soup dumplings) are one of the best things ever! While there I was able to basically try one of every item off of the "kosher" menu. The food there is WONDERFUL!

Din Tai Fung!

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Onto week 2.

I'm in a research phase trying to figure out good ways to get to places outside of Taipei. It requires a bit more searching skills.