ruby rises at dawn

i'm having a hell of a time concentrating to write this while i'm rocking out to the slumdog millionaire soundtrack. i've listened to it 4 times today. so good.
i think part of me might love it so much because it reminds me of this bollywood song on youtube where someone wrote what they thought it sounded like in english, though i think it's sung in hindi, and it is sooo funny.

well dawn and i went to the buddhist restaurant down the street to pick up lunch today. we went yesterday too. i'm not sure what you know about buddhist restaurants. i had never heard of them before i got here. but it's all vegetarian and it's pretty delicious. you can tell its a buddhist restaurant because it has a swastika on its side.
i'm addicted to the deep fried sweet potatoes and fried mushrooms. the sushi is the only kind i've found in taiwan without meat floss or pieces of hot dog or corn or tunafish in it. who thought it would be so impossible to find appetizing sushi in asia? i'm dying for the sushi off of 24th street in austin!
although my beloved japanese restaurant in taoyuan will be open again in 2 weeks. can't wait.
(i bought a bunch of new flashcards.)
jerry and i learned the rest of the vegetables in chinese today.. as well as meat, drinks and actions such as.. fall flat on your face, lie down, sit down, squat, cartwheel, handstand. you know, really useful stuff.

the best part of chinese was bobo teaching us this game taiwanese kids play where you each pick a kind of carrot. i was white carrot, she was red, jerry was purple. then one person says 'red carrot (hong luo bo), red carrot, red carrot, white carrot! and the white carrot does it with another color and you get faster and faster as you go. we played 3 times. her apartment complex has a blood pressure machine. my heart rate was kind of high because i had just been walking around.

class went alright. oh! i had to check over some essays they wrote for this contest that's coming up and i wrote down what one girl wrote about me. it's about lessons they've learned.
My foreign teacher - Megan. She is gentle and soft but she don't like when we say Chinese, so I study "respect". And Megan teaches QA and the New Century book. Although New Century is very difficult, but Megan is patient. I study "tolerant". Megan is a good teacher.

AWWWWWWW.
and my favorite girl, jane, asked about the carpenters song top of the world a few weeks ago so i printed out the lyrics for her today and made a CD with it and a bunch of my other favorite songs and gave it to her tonight.
that class can be really fun when they want to be. at least i can understand more of what they say since i'm learning more and more chinese. i just wish they would tryyy to speak english.