The most embarrassing thing that happened to me this week. Friday afternoon the exchange students have this dumpling eating contest, and many were watching. Tung ate like 42 dumplings in 10 minutes, but he lost to the guy who ate 48. They even had a final dual off, a 2 minute speed round to after, and the other guy ate another 12 totalling 60 dumplings... ouch and then he won 1000 NTD.

So I chat with Chan (the nicest 30 yr old Korean dude) and find out he is not going to the IMBA graduation/fairwell dinner party on Saturday. Before that I found out that he had lost his wallet, but then when he found it the 6-7000 NTD were gone. So I thought maybe he didnt want to go the the party cuz it cost 1000 NTD. I try to text message my friend Jinhee, the message wrote" Jinhee, Do you think the reason Chan wont go to the grad party is becuz of cost, maybe we can treat him cuz most exchagne students are going." (just cuz Chan is always so generous when he goes out with us, and really takes care of the ones younger than him) and so I send it out. One minute later CHAN calls me and asks "Why did you send me an SMS message?" I was like AHHHHHHHHH, (I think I wasnt thinking cuz I was distracted by the dumpling eating contest while sending that message out and clicked on Chan instead of Jinhee). My response to him was "Yeah, what do you think of my great idea~~?" (gosh I felt so stupid) Trying not to make it a big deal. Then I explained how I knew the lost his wallet, and he said he felt very touched that I cared. Maybe it turned out for the better, cuz he told me he didnt want to go because he didnt like those dinner parties. So if we surprised him with a ticket, he may have been mad. The moral of the story, never let Winnie organize surprises or things in secret... cuz I will end up letting it out and not even notice... =P hahaha... this became the joke of the night, and everyone had a good laugh... and so did I =)

Something more serious...

Had a conversation with Ankie. We were talking about what I would call her obsession about anime characters. It is not just loving the stories, but about believing the characters exist in their own world. She would care about the characters personality and when she has trouble, wonder what that character in the story would do in her situation. The characters would therefore make an influence on her life. The character's personalities are very dear to her heart. She then asked me, isn't it like the same for you believing in God? that God is a character in your heart that makes a difference on your life. I told her how when we believe in God, we are having a relationship. It is not just about me thinking about what God's personality is like and changing myself, but God changing me. That there is a two way dynamic conversation with God. The other difference would be, God is real, and these characters are known to be fictional, yet still capture her mind so deeply. It made me think that to the extent that she "loved" these characters, she really doesn't care that they are not real in this world, because she believes they are real in their own world. I cant quite wrap my mind around this concept, because to me, they are just fictional characters, and I do not have to care about their feelings, but Ankie does care about their feelings. Then she asked me, "dont you feel bad when other people think you are weird for believing in God? dont you think that they dont fully understand and should not put you down?" I answered that I did feel that they do not fully understand and sometimes it does feel bad. Then she said thats how she feels when people think shes crazy for loving the anime characters. Hummss... maybe she communicated her thinking wrong to me, or her english couldnt correctly express what she felt. There are characters that she really likes, and wishes existed in real life. I just hope she doesnt get sooo wrapped up in these characters that she does not life fully in the real world. I really don't know what to say, but I cannot be the one that acts like the others that make her feel bad for being the way she is. I do understand her feelings cuz when I was younger I had been so drawn by cartoon characters that I wished they were real, but just not the the extent of her attatchment to them.

Sunday, Auntie Paula comes to NCCU to pick up all the old "garbage" my brother brought over from HK that belongs to her. I had lunch with Aunties cousin and Ankie, and then went to NTU to walk around the campus. The campus is a lot larger and really different from NCCU. It reminds me of American campuses with mini streets, old buildings and all this greenery everywhere =) NCCU is abit more modern, and not as pretty.

I head to the English service just close to NTU. My second time having English service. This guy sitting behind me catches my eye (not in that way~ =P). He looks kinda familiar, but not in that 'i know him' way. After service, they had a dinner time, and that guy comes up to me and asks me..... (wait I want to keep you in suspense, jokes). He asks me if I go to NTCBC. And I was like, yeah. Then he says I looked familiar to him, and I told him the same. He also said he was back at NTCBC 3 weeks ago and thought he saw me, hummss... weird... Anyways, he goes to the Chinese side, and strangely I don't think we would have met in Toronto even though we go to the same church. Haha... so that was very interesting...

After that I had to subway to Sun Yat Sun Memorial Hall to meet Sean for Sin City. I had no umbrella, and his car was stopped across the street. Luckily, the rain wasn't too bad when I got out of the subway station. We went to Living Mall (this 12 story shopping complex) and got tickets (I paid for my own =P) at Cinemark. I am surprised that he actually understands my stupid jokes, because usually Taiwanese don't understand me when I am joking around. Kinda like the way I never know what all the Taiwanese are laughing about. He makes fun of me by asking if I knew how to find the washroom, cuz he found out how my Chinese really sucked...grrr!=P...Movie was weird, but Sean liked it. I guess the movie got all the emotions that it tried to get across, it was creepy and I felted really grossed out. Nevertheless, an interesting movie that I don't regret watching, once... After the movie, we go up to like the 11th floor to walk around the book store that opens late at night. It reminds me of Chapters, or Indigo. We walk around for a bit, and he decides to encourage me to learn more chinese by reading more... like Chinese novels or comic books. I feel annoyed, but I realy do want to learn more Chinese, especially since now that my Chinese class is over, I have to learn on my own. He hands me a book he thinks I should read, he also suggested the Condor Heros series, but there's just too many books for one story. The book is supposedly about Taiwanese girls, relating to relationships... hahaha... he says he thinks I would enjoy it, why he has read it? I do not know =P We pass by the books of the famous Taiwanese writter (the one that wrote Turn Left Turn Right) and he grabs the picture book of that story too. He ended up paying for the books and giving me HOMEWORK. I didnt expect him to buy me the books and I thought one of them was for himself, but they were both for me. Homework is: read the book and write him a book report... OMG~ I was like yelling at him, that he knew I could hardly read, but now I had to write too? FRUSTRATION, but due date is next week, wonder if that means I get to see him again? Eh, I guess I got some extra motivation to learn Chinese... kekeke... =P
He drives me home and I find out that he took a year off back when he was 18 to stay in the UK for 10 months, no wonder I always thought he had this lacking British accent, but couldnt quite figure out why. He thinks maybe it's Canadian accent, cuz he studied summer school at U of T one summer, but I definately don't think so. =)

Saturday, continued with Law final exam paper. Chatted with Sean, the guy who suddenly stopped sms-in me, when I really needed his help about Korean tours. But then found out he was really busy the past week at work. =P Strangely, I told him I was working on my Law paper, and he just wouldnt stop chatting with me about IP Law, and its issues.

Then me and Ankie went to Zhongxiao Dunhua for dinner at a nicely decorated Spanish style restaurant. It was expensive in comparison to what I am used to, like $370 NTD. After that we went to this market to shop where they have really cheap things that even street vendors buy from them. But we didnt have enough time, and needed to get to Luxy for Leslie's fairwell party. Ankie said she would check it out, and we entered to club before 10pm to get in for cheaper.

Wednesday, KTV with Tung Jinhee and Chan...Fun Fun Fun!! Practiced some chinese songs =)

Thursday, nobody wanted to come for dessert with me except Peter. And I was very dissapointed when I got there, and they told me the desserts in the magazine photos were not existent. It was still a nice all-u-can eat dessert place, the bread was really yummy. Chatted with Peter about Religion. He believed that there were many ways to the same place, even though he is a Catholic. He said in Austria, you had to like pay a tax to be considered Catholic, and many people are deciding to take no religion because the only religion is Catholicism there. I told him about how the Christian church encourages us to be, and he commented that if his small town thought like that, his church would be very different. He was never been encouraged to read the Bible on his own, or even search about what he supposedly believes. He even questioned whether Jesus dying and resurecting is such a essential factor to believe. I told him, if I didnt believe he resurected, then Christianity would be meaningless.