too much time on my hands

Nothing much exciting happened this week. it was nice to hike every day this weekend tho

we had a spelling bee in school. it was done with multiple students at a time. i made a mistake with one of the words and was EMBARRASSED for the rest of the day. i had to get ice cream three times. mcflurries are really cheap

they can spell better than some american kids

i still can't say nuttin in chinese. this language is ridikalus hard

music in chinese still makes me laugh sometimes

real work doesn't start til february 5th. til then i will spend most of the day doing whatever I want. keeping busy is a talent of mine. i'm working on my bucket list, list of places to travel, list of favorite songs, and looking for a job.

the inside of our building in school. all the rooms on the sides are classrooms

highlights from my bucket list:

ride an ostrich

zipline in rainforest

meet mitt romney, uchtdorf, and glozelle

see keane, calvin harris concerts. and see celine dion in vegas

hold a koala bear

own a sloth

ride the tallest coaster in the world

hang glide

ride a segway

attend black baptist church in the south

coachella festival

earn a giant check

Polynesian cultural center

kava ceremony in samoa

oktoberfest in munich

see mayan ruins

this looks pretty fun too

one of the girls in our group is going home early for health reasons. it's sad

bath foam that turns you white!

i read an essay about the chinese in samoa.

This sounded like an accurate description about the samoans -

"It became evident that there was a need to employ labour to work on the plantations, and it was difficult for planters to find a reliable source of labour from the indigenous population. In Westbrook‟s opinion, it became “necessary to import and employ labour, other than Samoans, who were too free and independent to work as contract labour for Europeans”

also it was interesting to read that the chinese were looked down on in samoa in some ways but even so the women wanted to marry chinese men because they were hard working



taiwan's GDP purchasing power parity is the same as germany's. the income distribution isn't that bad either. I don't get it! this place feels like a developing country compared to germany! however, for some reasons lots of people here have new BMWs and Mercedez.

this would be a lawsuit in america

the things that get me most are that bathrooms are a disaster and they have an open sewage system = smells like really rotten eggs everywhere
where is everyone putting their money?!

why are there stank vents in the middle of the school?

there are lots of temples around here. a surprising amount. it's a good thing that some people care about things other than social status and money (that's all the kids care about.) these temples are a mix between buddhist and taoist. i want to learn more

this is a typical temple

some kind of edible offering. i wish someone would make me an edible offering

they take pieces of paper outside and burn them in this

if they need answers to questions they drop these on the ground. the answers can be yes, no, or something in between (i forget) depending on how they land

there's always incense

some gods. i think. i'd ask someone but only old people go to the temple and old people don't speak much english

here is the food/drink of the week. organic black fungus and jujube drink

at least it's organic

tomorrow i go to hong kong! im going to try to get into mainland china too for a couple days! if not, it's ok i'll be back in may