Out of Quaratine? Time for food! (Taiwan week 2)

This is week I’ve finally been released from quarantine! Now I walk the streets of Taipei for easy eating. Which, no surprise, is always super easy to find and incredibly fun— especially when in a large group of students.

I am attending classes at the National Taiwan University (NTU), placing me within an area of great minds and great opportunity. I’m particularly excited to join some clubs after during the student societies fair Saturday the 17th. Maybe I’ll join the symphony orchestra, or a folk music group. We’ll see what I can find. There certainly isn’t a lack of groups at NTU. I’ve heard of the picnic club, the surfing club, and baking club (I might join this one too!). To communicate through a shared activity should be an experience, hopefully one that might earn me a few friends.

But before I start joining clubs, I have to start work at my internship. This job is also paired with a class where we will discuss workplace culture and habits in Taiwan. In best way I can describe it, this class and internship combo should be similar to hypothesize and test. We’ll learn about an aspect that might be found in the workplace in class and it’ll be our job to seek it out at work and / or navigate it. The whole thing sounds not fleshed out now only because I’ve had the class for one day. But in that day, we discussed a few aspects that I think I’ll be taking into consideration. For example, a gift may or may not be given to me on my first workday. Since I am a foreigner, I’m not entirely expected to even know that I should give one back, but I probably should. So just this past Friday, I went to a giant supermarket in the Xindian 新店 district and picked up a box of butter cookies for my supervisor.

While the internship and its class are still getting off the ground, I’ve had my first full week of Chinese classes come to a close. It was insanely stressful to settle in to a class that fit me, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to be placed into perfect fit for my level, but my laoshi 老师 is incredibly helpful and understanding. So as long as class will be enjoyable, who needs a super advanced level?— a good thorough review will help me in the long run— I’ll be bringing her a small gift as well for all the work she’s done helping me move around classes.

I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention that I’ve fully moved into my apartment now! I’m living with two housemates in the Xinyi 信义 district home to Taipei 101, but the apartment is much closer to the base of Elephant mountain Xiangshan 象山. In fact, this is what the stop is called on the red-line subway route. Unfortunately, a typhoon is on its way so I have not had to the opportunity to scale the trail waiting outside my door up the mountain for a good view, but it will be done in the future!