Week Five Top Five
1. The mango ice at Xiziwan is ridiculous Kripa told us this was the best place to get mango ice and she wasn’t kidding! It was the largest dessert I have ever seen. I really enjoyed going there to celebrate Scotty’s birthday.
2. Thai food here is amazing Before two days ago, I would have told you that I don’t like Thai food. That quickly changed this Saturday when I ate lunch at a Thai restaurant with my host family this weekend. It was certainly one of the best meals I have had here. I will have to try more Thai places in Kaohsiung!
3. Sports competitions in Taiwan are different than in America On Wednesday, I went to a tennis match in Kaohsiung. I was surprised at how quiet the match was. There almost no cheering and any cheering that did occur was to encourage the Taiwanese player when he was loosing. This was certainly different than the rowdy environment present at most American sports competitions. However, I did enjoy watching the competition. 4. Volunteering with the middle school children teaches me a lot I really enjoyed spending time at a middle school on Friday. It was incredibly helpful to have the opportunity to hear young children speak Chinese. It was also such a joy to learn about them. They were incredibly welcoming; some of them even reached into their lunch boxes to give me candy they had originally brought for themselves to eat. I am really looking forward to going back next month. 5. Changing my approach to electives has helped me learn more in the class My second week of electives went much better than the first. I translated the power points before class. Unlike last class where I was frantically trying to write down what was said so I could translate it later, I was able to listen to what was going on and focus on comprehending as much as I could. I even knew the answer to a question the teacher asked in class! This approach of taking notes beforehand and just listening during class is improving my listening skills as well as helping have a better understanding of the course content.