look what you're doin

Taiwanese people have given me so much faith in people as a global population. i can't believe how much people here have given me and taught me and done for me without even thinking about it. it's been amazing to me that all you have to do is approach people with a smile and maybe a little bit of broken chinese and they'll go out of their way to do whatever they can for you.
yumm japanese food. i stopped by after class tonight and the chef tried pretty hard to think up something i could eat since i don't care for raw fish. he told me it was very difficult. he gave me smoked salmon, cooked salmon, salad, fish roe, fried pork and miso soup. it was delicious.
they asked me if jerry was my boyfriend. HA!
these are all pictures i could take from where i'm sitting in my bed. i was too cold and lazy to take my camera with me to guei shan tonight. maybe friday.
someone noticed that we were going to get a new person because there was a nametag, 'jon', on one of the rooms downstairs. so hippie josh started giving me crap about whether or not i was going to be really excited if jon cut his hair regularly, shaved and showered daily. josh regularly calls me a cheerleader though to get me back for making fun of his dread locks.
anyway, i'm happy to be labeled a clean cut guy enthusiast.
(Three Cups of Tea is really great. it's about a mountain climber who ends up building a bunch fo schools for rural pakistani kids who were previously studying 3 days a week outside and writing in the dirt. it's circulating among the 20something readers right now on facebook and in blogland.)

anyway jon did show up tonight and danille came down to let me know. he's from oregon and looks like an all-american guy. i only chatted for 5 min to say hi, so we'll see. at the very least, he's adding to the americans' numbers. we were almost outnumbered by the canadians for a minute.
alex guppy in his literal long underwear. i don't think anyone deserves to see the front angle shot of that. especially not either of our moms.
speaking of moms.

dear steve's mom,
in the future, you need to at least give me a heads up if you're going to let steve know that i want to marry him.
megan